Who doesn’t know about the infamous full moon party? Right. No one. Everyone who’s backpacking in Thailand was mentioning it. And as I had a private Thailand-holiday planner (my sister), she made sure I would go to the full moon party, too easy!
For the first time in 2.5 years I wasn’t traveling solo, I was with my sister, her husband, 2 long term friends a workmate of my sister and a friend from Australia.
Party preparations
- My friends from back home arrived a bit later at the Haad Rin beach where the full moon party would be. I was with my Aussie friend and I actually purchased one of these neon coloured full moon party shirts, which I’d never wear again after that night, but still had to buy it.
- As it was only afternoon and the party wouldn’t start until 8 or 9 pm, we sat in a bar by the beach and had a few beers and tried the whole cocktail list.
- When we’ve had finished the menu, we got down to the beach. It was already dark and there were a few girls sitting, painting themselves with neon and fluorescent colours. They painted our faces and we bought them a drink to thank them. Love a win win situation
In short: Get a neon shirt, Get drunk, Get painted
The beach and the bars
The beach started to fill and more and more people came and I didn’t even know, that Koh Phangan can fit so many people! What I’ve heard that the average is about 40.000 people at every full moon party.
We walked around for a while, checked out the bars, got a bucket of booze and just got lost in all these people.
Everything was loud with music and bright lights. As it was so crazy we created a meeting point.
Along the beach are a few bars and clubs and tables. The booze buckets we’ve had were sold everywhere. From gin, whisky, vodka mixed with ice tea, coke, energy drink or whatever you wanted. They add a bit of ice, drop in a few straws and it’s ready to take away.
Unfortunately, the beach (in this case the ocean) is used as a very big toilet and bin. Everyone (men and women) peed in the water, left their bottles, buckets, cigarette buts and probably condoms there. It was a big, messy waste disposal site.
Fire rope jumping
After a few drinks the inevitable happened, I lost my friends. I stopped here and there, had something to drink and talked to people.
There were a few places where locals swung fire ropes and all the (more or less drunk) people could just randomly jump in and try not to get burned.
I thought I was pretty sober and tried it together with an Italian girl I just met. Turned out I was pretty drunk (or maybe it was her?) and we couldn’t even jump once. Well, it was worth a try and not to mention, I don’t need to shave my legs for a bit now.
Mushroom bar
The one thing I knew about the full moon party before coming to Koh Phangan was, that they love mushrooms. I honestly have never tried it (probably because I’m allergic to mushrooms) and I’m not a big fan of drugs anyway.
What I didn’t know, they sell it here totally legal. Well, pretty much.
EVERYONE knows where to find the popular mushroom bar at the end of the beach. They are sold in a milky looking beverage in plastic cups. I thought it looked more like a cinnamon milkshake, just smelled different. (Yes, I was very curious as I’ve actually never seen magic mushrooms before, so a little foolish I walked around that mushroom bar and smelled on peoples drinks.)
The way home
At one point we lost my Australian friend (of course the meeting point was long forgotten) and one of my other friends was so drunk, he couldn’t even walk anymore. He probably doesn’t remember the way back to the hotel and that we had to carry him to the taxi, he slept in front of the hotel instead of inside and he pretty much spew out his guts up.
After my friends were gone, I started looking for my Aussie friend but couldn’t find him. After a while I found wifi connection and received a text from him, he’s back at the hotel. If I only would have known 2 hours earlier I wouldn’t have to walk around the beach and drunk people all by myself.
I found myself a shared taxi and the driver let me out at the bottom of the hill. It was a very steep hill and I do have to say that I was drunk and am scared of darkness and well, everything else. I begged him to drive me up as it would have been 2 minutes for him, but 30 to walk for me. One guy in the taxi got super annoyed and even yelled at me to f****** walk that way.
Well, I started, but then there were 2 dogs and they barked really aggressive and mean, so I run back to the bottom (which was like 50 meters) and just then another taxi arrived, I jumped on the back spoiler and drove up the hill.
It was a very interesting night and I did have a lot of fun, but worries too. I think that was the first and the last time I’ve been on a full moon party. Something that probably wouldn’t have happened during my working holiday in Australia.
