One Insane Night. Full Moon Party. Koh Phangan, Thailand.

10:12 PM Tuesday August 7th, 2012 Trang, Thailand
It seems like ages since I've last written about my travels, and the events that I'm now recording transpired over a month ago, but they're remembered vividly (well those sections that aren't marred beyond recognition by a late night).  I've been recording my happenings in a notebook throughout my journey, so these experiences are as factual as possible.  This is about the Full Moon Party on July the 3rd, 2012.  Before documenting my experiences at the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan let me say first that the FMP as I'll describe it from here on out is a completely over-the-top celebration with honestly no reason or significance to warrant its extreme overindulgence.  It's a bacchanal of sorts without the orgies, well I guess there's still sex in the ocean, but that'll come later.  The FMP is well known throughout the backpacker scene in SE Asia, and people plan trips around attending it.  Though for those that can't attend the FMP there's still the Half Moon Party, Black Moon Party, and Shiva Moon Party as well every month, so basically the South side of Koh Phangan is just utilized for partying.  We had ended the night before at the Jungle Experience, retiring around 4 in the morning.  The day of the 3rd was relaxed, though a certain excitement filled the air as we lounged around in the common area of our bungalows.  We all had some farfetched ideas of what the night would hold. We were a large group, prone to splintering in an environment like the FMP, but we were going in strong.  We consisted of 4 Norwegians (Marius, Mads, Andreas, and Ola), the UK delegates (4 guys and 4 girls) from various regions (Rich, Clark, Adam, Jack, Wiz, Helen, Georgie, and Gemma), 2 Swedish girls (Daniela and Mikaela), and 2 Americans (Bo and myself).  

The group minus a few.

As with any party we needed the proper ingredients for a good time.  A theme:  bright clothing (tank tops and shorts).  Check.  Activities: dancing, slides, flaming jump ropes, and extra dancing as socialising is almost impossible with most people's state of mind.  Check.  Tunes: loads and loads of music selections that vary by bar.  Check.  And especially in the case of the FMP, Fuel: buckets and beers though mostly buckets and a LOT of them.  Check.  I guess some people partake in harder drugs, but most avoid them.  Anyway we're still back at the bungalow common area and we're now preparing.  It's around 9 PM and the tension in the air has noticeably increased.  We're not on edge, but we're not quite calm.  Something has changed.  The drinking has commenced, though some had started earlier in the day.  It's still early in the evening, and with the marathon ahead of us there's no reason to sprint to a quick finish.  I've already made a quick run to a shop to grab my FMP tank top and shorts.  I immediately feel more prepared for the evening, and as the beers start flowing around 10 everyone switches into party mode.  Merriment is everywhere.  There are no frowns in sight.  As we got more into the mood of the evening we shotgunned a beer or two, and did a strawpedo (my first strawpedo ever).  

Strawpedo action.  The bottle equivalent of a shotgun.

Clark on the ground after a spill in his chair.

The neon body paint was broken out by the bungalow owner, and everyone rushed in a frenzy to get covered in the stuff.  Random designs were drawn to further the spirit of the party as the brightness covered our skin.  Yellow, green, blue, purple, orange, yellow, pink, red were smeared on our skin.  All as vibrant as possible, dotting and tracing the lines of our bodies.  And so the time passed until it was time to leave for the FMP, armed for the onslaught of the celebration.  Ater snapping some group shots we piled into the waiting taxis for our massive group to head off into the distance.  As far as I could tell we were all well on our way to having a 'memorable' night.  The quick 10 minute ride to Haad Rin, the beach of the FMP, left us more amped up and excited.  As soon as we got off the taxi we each snagged a bucket, all of us picking our poison.  I found myself needing to pee for the 4th time in a few hours, so I ventured behind a nearby building to relieve myself.  As I walked back I stumbled into a muddy, disgusting mud pit.  My sandals were both sucked off of my feet. Not wanting to go barefoot to the party I shoved my hands into the mud pit in a search.  Aha.  I got one of them, but the second was trickier, and as I searched in the dim light from the surrounding buildings at other indents in the pit I found a second sandal.  But that one wasn't even mine.  I contemplated rummaging around in the mud to find the other one, but found it more important to just cut my losses and get back to the group, abandoning my first sandal and leaving my second engulfed in the pit.  Thankfully a local helped me get a hose to wash off after I had returned to the group, arms and legs covered in the muck.  

Results of diving in to find my lost sandals.

When we actually stepped onto the beach and witnessed the chaos in front of us we were shocked.  Bright lights traced over the massive crowd.  It pulsed with the beats from many bars.  The neon colors made the crowd glow.  We ventured in and almost immediately split up.  There was no way to keep 20 people together in that environment.  As with any intense, late night party the events of the night started to blur together into one continuous scene.  Dancing was on everyone's minds as we stopped at a bar and began what would be a night filled with movement.  Fully describing the feel of the FMP is extremely difficult.  It's like a multitude of small parties all smashed together into one expansive celebration on a large beach.  With over 10,000 people at this particular FMP it wasn't even one of the larger ones.  Some reach to over 20,000 people.  My brain can't wrap itself around the amount of people seen on the beach jumping up and down.  By around 2 I'd had at least one more bucket and had lost almost everyone in the group except for Jack.  Bo had already been robbed by a lady who started dancing with him, touching all over him, and quickly stealing his money before unceremoniously leaving him.  Jack and I stumbled around the beach finding a rope net to climb up to a slide.  The night proceeded as Jack and I attempted to find other members of the group and met random people.  We had more buckets to share as we cruised through the crowd, Kings of the Party, or so the Red Bull and alcohol made us feel.  

The justice this does to the party is despicable.  In my defense it's very hard to capture.

Jack with bucket in hand.

Marius clearly enjoying himself.

Around 3 I started losing my memories, but thanks to journal keeping the next morning I know that I: told a guy to take his friend to the hospital for being unresponsive (at least I tried to look out for my fellow FMP'ers), witnessed many people passed out on the beach, danced with a Dutch girl, danced on top of 10 foot high platforms almost fallling off regularly (there are way too many stupid things for drunk people to get injured doing out here), ate some chicken and pizza, and ultimately found myself dancing alone at around 6 in the morning.  

Slides are fun no matter what your state of mind.

I don't know when I lost my party partner, Jack, but I know that I started to regain my memory around 6 and that I was still dancing like a madman.  The glow of the rising sun had wiped out the moon, which wasn't even visible for the Full Moon Party due to it being overcast.  It was at this point that I made my first of two tactical decisions that would change the outcome of my FMP experience.  I decided to continue dancing for at least another hour, and push the party through to its complete end.  Wow I was naive if I thought it would wind down around 7 in the morning.  Many people had left, and most of the less popular bars had little to no people in front of them, but the more popular ones still had enormous crowds.  The people were dancing just as crazy as before, so I did the same.  After that hour of continued dancing my curiosity determined the end of my FMP experience.  

The party was still going off at 7 in the morning.

I ventured off down the beach, finding myself wanting to go to the bar perched upon the hill at the end of the beach.  There to my great surprise I happened upon Rich, Andreas, and Marius.  At last I found someone from my group.  A fruit shake was thrust into my hands. I was ecstatic to finally get something other than alcohol.  Halfway through the shake I noticed it didn't taste like a fruit I knew of, but at that point anything other than a bucket would suffice.  So it was, still tipsy from the night's fuel, that Rich informed me after already consuming most of my fruit shake that I was actually drinking a mushroom shake.  Then it all came together.  The name of the bar, Mellow Mountain, the weird tasting shake, the groups of people staring up at the ceiling and laughing wildly all suddenly made sense to me.  I had just had almost all of a shroom shake.  There was nothing to do to stop the shrooms other than forcing myself to vomit.  Not wanting to do that, I took the last couple sips and prepared myself mentally.  I figured it'd be better to have friends around me than to be off by myself so I sat down and carried on conversation with my friends and other group members.  Luckily for me the shrooms weren't that intense.  Apart from slightly noticing patterns and feeling mildly high, there were no effects.  This left me in a position to start joking with my friends who were working on their second shake.  At one point my manner seemed ridiculous to some patrons as they joked at my expense, but as I heard them I put on an act, commenting out loud so that they could hear, making them laugh even harder.  A switch turned on in my brain, and the next 3 hours became dedicated to making others laugh.  It may be due to the shrooms that everyone had consumed, but I honestly don't think I've ever made people laugh so hard.  Utilizing my only good form of humor, observational humor, I started commenting on the people around us.  Although I dislike being judgemental, this was the perfect environment to crack jokes at other people's expense.  It was all in good fun, and no one outside the group could hear me so I went full steam ahead with the jokes.  At first it started with commenting on the couples making their way into the ocean.  Of course not all of them were out there having sex, but surely some, maybe half, of them were.  We all watched on from the vantage point we had way up on the hill.  It was voyeuristic in a non-sexual sense.  No one could make out anything of the couples, but it was obvious they were having sex.  The jokes about the awkwardness of random hookups, especially in the ocean, started flowing freely as everyone was bent over in laughter.  I talked out loud, pretending as if I was the couple going out to the ocean, guessing at what they would be saying.  It may have been my state of mind at the time, but I've never felt more comfortable joking in this manner.  At this point a Polish girl who was hanging out with us was convinced that her friends were gonna come find her in the midst of the unabated dancing on the beach.  The two of us went down, began dancing, and she was immediately approached by guys asking if I was her boyfriend, and hitting on her.  She had no idea what the name of her hostel was, where it was, or when her friends were coming for her.  I felt bad for her, but her situation was laughable.  I wasn't able to help her in any way, and I didn't want to continue dancing so I set her loose in the midst of a pack of wolves hoping for the best for her.  I went back up to Mellow Mountain and continued the jokes, this time about an unfortunate looking horse dancing around.  I felt like a perfect target had been placed in front of me, and I proceeded to compare her dance to a gallop, her nose ring to that of a horse, her broken dancing as a reason to head to the paddocks, and I'm sure much more.  At this point I had Rich to the point where he could barely breathe.  The group was all in shambles from the humor, but as with all good things it had to come to an end.  Even a guy taking off his pants and dancing around in his underwear wasn't enough to hold our attention as it drifted towards sleep.  Marius had already been passed out in the bar, and so it was with sad and uncomprehending minds that we left Mellow Mountain in search of beds.  Out on the beach I continued the jokes about the orgy (really just a group of people hanging around) in the ocean, telling random people to go join it.  I lamented for the poor souls passed out on the beach, making sure everyone knew how upset the slumbering beasts were going to be for being so 'white' in this weather.  After witnessing a guy get kicked in the side by his friend to wake up we knew it was time to seek out the refuge that so many had already found in a comfy place to sleep.  It wasn't until getting in the taxi that Marius found his comfy place on the floor of the taxi.  Jokes continued about being driven off to the North part of the island (the mostly deserted part) for the death camps that surely should be placed on an island where backpackers do their most damage and are most concentrated.  

The sad result of the FMP which is cleaned up completely by the next day.

Instead we arrived at our home, Home Beach Bungalows, laughing our asses off, ecstatic that we'd just experienced one of the most ridiculous nights of our lives.  It was only once I got inside my bungalow that I realized I had bought an extra Pad Thai the night before for just this moment.  I munched away at it as Bo laughed at me, probably in disgust, plunging in head first to the cool, brilliant noodles in front of me.  I spilled some in the bed in my excitement, and proceeded to record the events of the night as best as I could remember them before I went to bed at 11 AM.  This entry was written extremely poorly due to my state, but it provided me with a list of the night's events.  As it turned out Bo had left the FMP around 5 and had walked what seemed to him to be about 6-7 km before he finally succumbed and picked up a taxi for the remaining couple kilometers, a wholly ridiculous distance to attempt after such an epic night.  The next couple of days and nights were spent lounging around our bungalows and planning our escape routes from the infamous island.  Here is where Bo and I finally split ways.  After a month and a half it was time for Bo to head back home, leaving me extremely upset and missing my travel companion and good friend.  He even left me a kind note in my journal for me to discover afterwards: Have a great rest of your trip!  I'll miss having you around till you get back.  Thanks for everythig; it's been a blast!  Best, Bo. P.S. cess pit orgies are the best.  So I guess my stories from the night had rubbed off on him a little.  Still wanting to stick with great people I decided to join some of the group members (Rich, Ola, Marius, Mads, Andreas, Daniela, and Mikaela) onwards to Koh Tao and some scuba diving.  

The Seediest Place on Earth, Strippers and Adele?, and the Pre-Full Moon Party Days! Pattaya and Koh Phangan

12:31 AM Tuesday July 17th, 2012 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Bo and I having left Marlowe back in Phnom Penh had boarded our night bus to the Thai border.  We awoke at the border early in the morning and got our departure stamps from Cambodia and then walked in to Thai immigrations.  Greeting us was a sign warning of the severity of the consequences of drug trafficking, sale, and use in Thailand.  Seeing how life sentences and execution were the punishments for drug offenses one of the guys from our bus took out a marijuana infused Tootsie Roll and quickly consumed it before entering the Thai immigrations building.  Better safe than sorry I guess.  Such was our introduction to Thailand.  Bo and I got our 2 week visa provided by overland entry into Thailand.  We boarded our mini-bus to Pattaya and attempted to sleep, but after a few hours it became evident to us that our mini-bus driver was lost.  He kept stopping the vehicle, asking for directions, and then confidently speeding off only to pull off the road 10 minutes later.  We finally made it to Pattaya after many stops for directions around noon.  As always Bo and I exited the mini-bus and ignored the first five people trying to get our attention.  They charge more when you get right off the buses, so we walked a little until I saw a western guy and by chance decided to flag him ask him if he knew where the crazy areas of the town were.  We wanted to stay near the action.  John, the English ex-pat of about 35, was quite a character.  For over an hour he took us around town describing the best places to get happy ending massages, which girls were best at which bars, where to get soapies (a body on body oil/soap massage ending in sex), what bars were worthwhile and what ones weren’t, and so much more information about the city and his Filipino ex-girlfriend who worked as an escort.  John was the seediest kind of person who fits in among the seediest city I’ve ever been to.  The whole town seemed to revolve around sex.

You've gotta be crazy to try to struggle drugs into Thailand.

Pharmacies may have an agenda in Pattaya.

A normal Pattaya street vendor's wares.

Every inch of the place seemed dedicated to finding it, paying for it, or selling it.  This made for quite an interesting experience for two guys not interested in the prospect of utilizing prostitutes.  This town seemed to have a blind, faithful dedication to the prostitutes.  They were well taken care of, and seemingly some were happy to be doing what they were doing.  Who am I to judge?  There truly are very different cultural views towards these things out here than there are back in the states. 

Even Pizza Hut is getting in on the action.

John led us around town, eventually finding us a place right above Walking Street.  This is the Bourbon Street of Thailand.  Excess, drunkenness, bulging crowds, late night raucousness, and multitudes of watering holes were the norm on Walking Street.  

Walking Street.  This guy seems to fit in well.

Condoms and alcohol were sold in our hotel room.

So a stay on Walking Street seemed only fitting for Bo and I to begin our Thai adventures.  As Bo continued fighting off a cold from a couple days prior we both drifted off to nap around 4:30 PM only to find ourselves awakened at 2:30 AM, 10 hours later, by the pulsing music from below.  There was a band blaring classic rock covers.  We were told by reception that the third floor would be quieter, but with the door closed, the windows shut tightly, and the large curtains drawn I still heard every single word perfectly.  Most other people would have just given up on sleep, and seeing as how I’d already slept for 10 hours I should have just gone out to the street to see what was going on.  Instead Bo and I somehow managed to make it through to the morning sleeping in intervals until we were awoken by the music again.  It was uncomfortably loud in our room, but the music ended around 6 in the morning, and we slept until 7:30 AM.  Refreshed by 15 hours of sleep we went out to get some Thai food, our stomachs screaming from skipping dinner during our slumbers. Surprisingly, or maybe not so, the city was a ghost town in the morning.  Random shop keepers had opened early for no apparent reason.  No one was stirring or had any plans to until at least 11 AM.  I was approached at 8:30 AM by three ladyboys attempting to proposition me, and with only one afternoon’s experience in Pattaya this didn’t seem abnormal. Ladyboys for those who don’t know are transvestites, though they often get sex changes.  Regardless the ladyboys who approached me were three broad shouldered, very tall women of sorts asking to come up to my room.  That night we were set on going out, and luckily the party was right outside our hotel.  After having my first beer in ages (15 days) in the hotel room, we went at midnight, walking out the front door and into the madness.  Walking Street was going off.  It was packed with middle aged and elderly white males, Thai women, and even some Russian families.  Not the kind of place you’d want to bring your kids, yet they were there.  Bright neon and flashing lights pulled you into bars and clubs.  We picked a place to go into and walked up the stairs.  We had heard of the go go bars, but didn’t know what to expect.  When we walked in we noticed a lot of scantily clad girls bringing drinks.  We had walked into a strip club, but Bo and I were on a mission to experience Pattaya, well with the exception of the prostitutes.  The girls in this club were all extremely attractive, Russian girls.  I’m not one for strip clubs, and this was only my second experience in one.  Bo and I chatted with each other and relaxed.  Whoever chose the song list in this club must have been a bipolar dj as they switched from songs like Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, to quick paced house music, to Adele’s Someone Like You.  You can’t imagine the incongruity of girls stripping to the song Someone Like You.  The two just don’t fit, and Bo and I looked at each other and laughed at the absurdity of such a pairing.  After about thirty minutes chatting and being approached for money we’d had enough and wanted to head to what we thought would be a normal go go bar.  Oh how we were in for a shock. This time it was my choice of the place, so without thinking I picked a random go go bar and entered.  It started out inconspicuously.  Girls danced on a stage, we got some beers, but it wasn’t a strip club feel.  If anything it was more disgustingly like a selection show, where guys in the audience basically pick girls to take home as they rotate from pole to pole dancing, some performing while others seemed to mindlessly bounce up and down or talk to each other on stage.  At least here we weren’t being approached as consistently as back at the strip club.  So here we were sitting at this bar having a beer or two and a second rotation of girls has just gone up, worked their way around and exited the stage.  We were not at all prepared for what was going to happen.  Out of nowhere another group of girls, maybe 8 or so in total came up to the stage completely naked.  BAM!  Bo and I got hit by a train.  A ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore,’ look escaped Bo’s eyes.  Was this really even happening?  Nowhere in the world does something like this happen, but in the center of the beastly, seedy, and repugnant place that is Pattaya this seemed both weirdly fathomable and understandable.  It was not for us though.  Two strapping, young lads such as ourselves needed to get the fuck out of there as fast as humanly possible.  This was not a place we wanted to remain for long.  After exiting we wandered the street for a little while, scared to enter a place and see more of the same.  It wasn’t that the girls or the effeminate ladyboys (who are basically impossible to discern from the other ladies might I add) were unattractive, but the manner in which they moved around the stage as if they were in a display case at a buffet was so wholly disheartening that it made it pretty unbearable to remain in front of them.  So we stayed outside and ventured to a club down the street where we might be able to dance ourselves and forget about what we’d just seen.  Alas Bo succumbed to his persistent sickness that hadn’t yet left him and we called it a night around 3:30 the music again roaring beneath our hotel room.

Ronald McDonald is fucking creepy.

The next day we relaxed and shopped, though I was taking the bus to Bangkok for my flight down to Koh Phangan the next morning so the one night out in Pattaya would have to suffice.  In some kind of misunderstanding the jump-on, jump-off taxis that carry about 10 people or so at a time failed to turn where I expected it to.  I found myself the only passenger on a taxi way up in the north part of the city until the final local exited the taxi.  The driver came back asking me where I was going, and when I responded asking when he was turning around to run the length of the city the other way like normal he said, “No turnaround.”  He then unceremoniously kicked me out of his taxi after I refused to pay the $5 he wanted to take me to my actual destination.  I paid him the 33 cents that was owed for my trip and wandered around aimlessly until I got on a taxi that was going the other direction, back down south, and was willing to direct me to the exit point I needed.  After the two hour bus ride in to Bangkok I took a taxi to the airport and quickly met up with an English guy and girl traveling down to the Full Moon Party as well.  I noticed the guy limping and inquired if Vang Vieng in Laos had gotten him as well, and sure enough it had.  He had a pretty infected wound on his foot that I informed him he should definitely get checked out.  I gave him what medical care I could with all of my experience with infections and my now well stocked first aid kit.  We slept on the marble floor in the airport on some clothing in our silk sleeping sacks and awoke early for our flights having gotten only an hour or two of shuteye.

Night in the airport.

My happy plane.

Piled up bags on the ferry heading to Koh Phangan.

Turned out that when the guy got to Koh Phangan he had to get on some serious antibiotics and have his feet wrapped up to prevent any further issues.  I guess the knowledge gained from my accidents was already paying dividends to other people.  Bo’s flight from Pattaya to Koh Samui left him able to just barely catch the last ferry to Koh Phangan and arrive at the Home Beach Bungalows where I had been stationed for the last seven hours.  It turned out that our friends from the Ha Long Bay Tour, Rich and Ola, had also booked the same place as us so we were immediately in good company.  Another friend from the tour, Clark, was stationed just up the road from us.

A book by the sea.

Northern Koh Phangan

A day of riding around the island on motorbikes and seeing some of the beaches and very lackluster waterfalls kept us occupied until the Jungle Experience party the night before the Full Moon Party.  After struggling to get to the Jungle Experience before it cost $10 to enter at 11PM and later, we waited for 10 minutes and then ordered some buckets at the bar, but the bartender informed us that they’d run out of rum, but more was coming soon.  We got his name, memorized his face, and headed to the side of the bar to receive our buckets once the rum arrived.  Oh glory days the rum had arrived after about 20 minutes, but where in the hell was our bartender.  After talking with another bartender he didn’t seem to even know the guy we had dealt with, and more importantly they had now run out of buckets to pour our drinks into, so unless we washed a dirty bucket in some filthy stream water we were shit out of luck.  Supposedly our bartender was up in the DJ booth at the moment.  We saw him pop in and out a few times, always letting us know there were no buckets.  By the time they finally arrived it had been about an hour and a half since we’d first ordered them.  The amount that we initially ordered was 9 buckets, but when Clark finally showed up with the buckets we had 11 of them.  Not only had Clark been saying we’d paid for the buckets already, which we hadn’t, but Clark was sent behind the bar to pour our buckets for us.  Clark tipped the bartender 500 Baht ($16) for all of the hassle plus the free bucket he’d given us earlier and we escaped with about $90 worth of free buckets.  

Riding on the back of the taxi to the Jungle Experience.

Needless to say everyone had a great night, and did some training for the Full Moon Party the next night.  I even slightly fell asleep in the taxi waiting to go back to our bungalow around 4 in the morning, exhausted from a solid night out.