I arrived in Guangzhou airport in anticipation of a long, restless sleep on the airport marble of some budget terminal, or if my fears were realized and the airport closed for a period at night, somewhere outside. I was relieved however, to walk off the plane into a massive modern airport with every luxury amenity that I had so dearly missed in the last 6 weeks, like a flush toilet, and organization. Also those that I didn't miss so much, like Hello Kitty waving at me from every store window, the mascots (who had a striking resemblance to Quatchi and his pals) for the 2010 Asian games were branded on everything, and then that lovely aroma that I was subconsciously drawn to which (regrettably) turned out to be a McDonalds soft icecream for dinner...it was all I could afford with the last of my Chinese money. The most amazing thing I found though was the line of cushioned chairs nestled behind a row of plants that had no armrests and in turn provided hands down the best sleep at any transportation hub I have ever had. Five solid, uninterrupted hours of sleep and I was well rested and ready for the final 3 hour flight into Singapore.
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| Singapore waterfront |
Two days was enough, so until I win that lottery or something, it's onto Malaysia.
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| Anita, Jon, and I pre-beach |
After getting an all day bus to the Thai border followed by an all night bus to Surat Thani followed by an hour and a half ferry, I was on the island of Koh Samui and finally at the beach! First order of business was a swim. Sun was out, water was warm, and the sand was white, perfect.
John and Anita had left Nepal bound for Thailand and some much needed R&R and they were still on the beach almost two weeks later when I showed up at their door. I only spent one day on Samui, because I had to get myself to Koh Phangan, a 45 minute ferry away and the home of the full moon party. John had a rough go unfortunately, and was forced to take the long route via the hospital. Still not sure what caused it but he spent the night battling one of the worst cases of food poisoning I've ever witnessed which left him dehydrated and weak, but by far the worst was the inability to drink at the full moon party. Really bad luck for him. But to his credit he still made it!!
I made my way to Koh Phangan on my own, and ended up meeting two Brits (David and Matt) on the ferry who were in the same boat as me (pun definitely intended): arriving blind with no accommodation and no idea how things worked. All you ever hear about the full moon parties (aside from the craziness of course) is how incredibly busy it is and that you need to book accommodation weeks in advance if you want a good place. This is not true. Maybe things are different during peak season but when we got there about five people converged on us with places to stay. We managed to get a room for the three of us with aircon, a fridge, nice bathroom, and five minutes walk from the party beach for 300bhat a night each, about $10 bucks, which was a pretty good price considering the circumstances.
Nothing will really compare to the fullmoon night in shear scale, but really every night is the same: buckets of booze, a big skip rope on fire, a slide on fire, hoops to jump through on fire, and an ocean filled with bath water. Needless to say there's some fun to be had.
We started off the day of the fullmoon nursing hangovers from a significant evening the night before, but luckily the Redbull did it's job, and after a Chang beer to wash it down we were back on form. As the sun began dropping below the horizon to the west, a massive glowing orange orb started climbing its way up to replace it from the east. It was really an amazing sight, but adding to it was the vibe that began pulsing through the crowd. With this first sighting everyone realized at about the same instant that the fullmoon party had officially begun. After that we all had a real urgency to get things rolling, so we left the beach to pick up some florescent body paint, headbands and some Changs then hurried off to our room to get painted up and boozed up.
Arriving at the beach at about 11:00pm or so we found ourselves in the midst of thousands of people, and that was just in the immediate area. The crowd, gyrating to the beat of whatever music was coming from the bar in front of them disappeared into the darkness in both directions.
For what felt like 30 minutes or so but could have been anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours we danced and partied our way through the crowd as a group, then I did what I do best and I lost everyone. I'm not sure how I manage it, but I am very good at getting distracted for a second then when I turn back to the group, their gone. But no matter, I figured I'd run into them soon enough anyway so I just kept on doing my thing.
I don't know if it was the Redbull, the awful dragon whiskey they refill nice bottles with (and by nice I mean Sangsom, nothing to write home about by any means), or the crazy electro dance music blaring from every bar...probably a little of everything, but all of a sudden I was sitting at the top of a 'mountain' - about 30 steps at the end of the beach - watching the sunrise. The sky was ignited in colour, and breathed some much needed life back into the field of bodies strewn across the beach, seemingly passed out everywhere except for the designated 'safe passout area'. About 8am people started stumbling back to their rooms for some real sleep and I thought that would be as good a time as any for me to do the same. I said my goodbyes which couldn't have been more than a grumble and wave and I punched out.
It's really not easy to describe a full moon party, the only way to really understand the scale of it all is to go and try it out for yourself, something I highly recommend!
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| One of the only pictures I actually took at the beach... |
I stayed one more night but as much of a paradise as Koh Phangan is, I had to leave. My wallet took a serious hit in those few days so I decided to head up to the more laid back diving mecca of Koh Tao. Unfortunately diving wasn't in the cards for me, it was a little pricey, so I stuck with snorkeling. I figure I'll save my cash for a dive in Cambodia or Vietnam somewhere.
The weather began deteriorating as well so I wasn't too gutted to be moving on. I booked my ferry/bus combo up to Bangkok and said goodbye to Jon and Anita, although I'm sure our paths will cross again somewhere along the line.
Now, I've grown up on the water and around boats my whole life being on the coast and all, and I've never had an issue with sea sickness, so when I boarded the catamaran ferry I didn't think anything of the rough seas and green faces that were unloading. That was a mistake. The boat was supposed to leave at 4:30 but didn't arrive until 6:00 so we were losing light and it was dusk by the time we actually left the pier. I went straight to the front corner so I could get a good view of the rough seas, thinking it was going to be a blast. Also a mistake. As we took off into the evening the captain didn't seem to bat an eye at the huge swells and put the pedal to the metal it as if it was a nice calm evening. Within minutes luggage and people were flying everywhere as we kareened over 30 foot swells at about 25-30knots. We were cutting across the waves at an angle which threw the boat in a vicious pitch and roll motion that had a lot of people grabbing for sick bags. Then it got dark, and that was the end of the horizon. We may as well have been hurtling through space. An hour and a half of that left at least 90% of the passangers throwing up and 8% feeling aweful but holding it down. The last 2% were Thai, all fast asleep happy as can be in their ignorance to the personal battles raging all around them. I was in the 8% but there were several times when I thought I might join the majority; mainly when a deck hand would stumble by with a fistfull of used bags...
The boat finally did make it and in one piece, so it was just a 7 hour bus journey to bangkok left which amazingly I slept right through. Next thing I knew we were unloading onto Koh San Road, and weaving our way through the 5am party crowd still going strong.
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| Halloween madness on Koh San Road |
I arrived early on the 31st of October so sadly I spent another Halloween in a country that doesn't really care about it and most definately doesn't know how to properly celebrate it. People were dressed up but it just wasn't the same without all the boys back home, I didn't see a single group costume - no snow white and the seven dwarves, no crayons, not even any over the hill hooters girls! Koh San Road was happening though, and in a big way, it was shoulder to shoulder with a huge mob at the end under the DJ tent blaring more of the same electro dance tunes that kept us all going through fullmoon.
That's enough of Bangkok for now, one night and the world is my oyster, so I'm taking advantage of that point and leaving...Next stop Cambodia! I'm not done with the beaches yet so I think the plan is to hug the coast down to Sianoukville at the southern tip.
Take care everyone and chat soon!
