We arrived on Koh Phangan in the sopping rain, half refusing to get off the ferry in that weather. I put my waterproof cover on my bag and got on our way! We ran (I hobbled) to the nearest shelter and tried to spot where to flag a taxi from. The rain wasn't easing up so we had to just man up and get on with it, we walked about 200 metres to the taxi point, by this time we were drenched through and there was about 5cm of water on the ground, slipping and sliding in our flip flops - we finally managed to get in a cab minibus. We arrived at our new hostel called FuBar which was right on the beach where the full moon party is held; Haadrin Beach. The manager wasn't around to check us in but we didn't mind laying in the big common room to wait, no shoes allowed, the whole area was just big and little cushions covering the floor. It also gave us a chance to get to know our new room mates!! We were in a 16 bed dorm and we basically all filled it, us 3 girls, the Israeli guy from Koh Samui and a group of 8 girls and guys from the UK near Liverpool. There was a great crowd of us already and we knew we'd have a funny stay here due to some of the characters, not to mention that I have met my gay best friend, we were destined to meet here, he is brilliantly hilarious and just a lovely guy. Once we were settled we had a wonder around town, searching through the shops for full moon party clobber and some grub to fill our bellies. We found this shop that sold jean shorts, every size and shape you could think of, you can imagine how long I spent in there, I gave up on that occasion but did end up returning 3 other times during my time on the island and FINALLY purchased some washed out high waisted jean shorts. Yum. We had a chilled early evening and watched an episode of The Wire. The time had come to explore the nightlife of Koh Phangan, we got dressed up and went down to the hostel bar, ordered in a bucket each, 200baht = £4, after a good few rounds of 'Ring of Fire' (for the older generation, its a card drinking game), we headed down to the beach beach to see what happens there at night. It was full of people dancing, drinking and playing games in all the bars that back onto the sand. Kate played musical chairs, came third and got a free drink. We danced on the tables while the moon reflected onto the sea. Sadly my knee wasn't quite up to dancing on tables just yet so I stood unhappily on the floor and watched like a parent. We all craved the crepes from Koh Samui and knew there was a stall on the Main Street so we said our goodbyes to half the group and the rest of us went on the pancake hunt. The guy had run out of pancakes but Kate insisted she would make more batter, eggs and butter in hand, we had to pull her away. The 'fake Planet Hollywood' restaurant opposite had pancakes on the menu so we ordered 4 banana and chocolate delights, they turned out to be the newly named 'egg cakes', inch thick and vile.

The next day we was all feeling worse for wear, we crawled down to the hostel bar and ordered in a big breakfast, the girls were healthy with fruit, muesli and yogurt but I went for a full veggie fry up. We then went to the beach for some laying down time in the sun. Lovely to hear the waves crashing in, and as much as people bad mouthed the beach to us before coming here, its not that bad! Little bit of rubbish but they were in the process of cleaning it up. We monged as long as we could before our stomachs were growling for a food top up, we decided to have falafel in this little Greek looking place. Still miss Canary Wharf Falafels so much, although this was a nice mix with pesto and hummus. We then went to a few shops and headed back home, little 20 minute nap fitted in but it wasn't long before I was woken up by people laughing and joking in the dorm - how dare they have fun when I'm sleeping!! There was a pool party on that night, I got my panther swimming cossie on, accompanied by some body paint, shared a few buckets, took some funny photos and off we went to the pool party. We managed to hijack someone's taxi there which was good, although 12 people on the back of one of the taxi trucks was a bit or a squeezeeee! You can imagine how a pool party goes so I'll leave it at that but wow it was brilliant.

The next morning we got an 8am wake up call from one of the lockers, someone's phone was locked in their locker and it was going off every 10 seconds, so annoying but the worst bit was no one could work out who's locker it was. After an eternity of alarm rings we managed to work out who's it was, find the key and shut the dam thing off. After a further little snooze, we had another hostel breakfast, I opted for eggs on toast then a healthy serving of fruit and yogurt with a BIIIIGGGG bottle of water. We pre booked our ferry over to Koh Tao, they get really busy as people go straight from this island there after the full moon party. Kate and I then sat in a cafe that was playing Friends on repeat, we sat there for 4 episodes!!! We started to feel guilty about missing the good weather so headed to meet Liv and the gang at the beach. There wasn't much sun left at this point so we all went to lay down on the cushions in the common room. Followed by a lovely group dinner on the beach, watching the sky changing through the sunset colours. That night there was a jungle party so had some more fun with bodypaints, put on my UV bikini and partied in the jungle, it was soooo good, big stages, UV lights, everyone painted up and glowing between the trees. We all went back to the hostel and some people went to bed but me and my new best friend Andy went to the beach, quoting Disney, singing the songs and dancing in the sand. Love him to pieces, the boy version of me.

Waking up the next morning, it was Full Moon Party day. The whole gang went to the beach, Andy and I just laughed all day, messing around and again with the Disney classics. I went in the sea for the first time since being in Thailand that day, it was really choppy but it was so clear, turquoise waters. One of the girls we were with lost her sunglasses in the sea but somehow I managed to find them! We started to get ready at around 5pm because we had paid for a hostel buffet at 7pm, all rushed to get ready but it was an hour late, Andy and I were so impatient, standing by the kitchen, dribbling, holding our vouchers! Finally we tucked it and it was beautiful. 2 plates worth of beautiful. It wasn't a great idea though because we all sat there for ages with pop bellies. I had to move though because I had a Skype date with my family, there was an Oates/Baker reunion that I was missing out on sadly so it was nice to see everyone briefly. We all sat in the common room and painted each other, I've got some cool photos of it, there was about 50 people covered in UV clothes and paints. It was time to go the beach where the Full Moon party is, we made a meeting point in case we got split up, which we did before we even got to the first bar. Liv was with half of the hostel gang and Kate and I was with the others. We got on the stage in the first place, dancing around but it was so packed we decided to get down, all of a sudden a girl fell off the stage onto one of the girls we were with, she had a lump instantly on the top of her head and she was really dizzy, few minutes later she fainted as we were trying to walk her back to the hostel, luckily there was medics on the beach so Andy took her to a clinic and gave her a shot for her concussion. Everyone else was pretty shaken by it so we chilled on the sand for a bit then went to a few bars, danced on the beach, got in the sea, went home to get changed, then watched the sunrise, in the sea, which then meant going home to change again!! We decided to stay in from that point, slept for 2 or so hours then we got woken up by our hostel bar, bass was pumping through the ceiling and it was constantly waking us up, I gave up and went downstairs only to find Kate raving away with everyone, loving life so what could I do but join in. Then the music stopped suddenly because someone spilt a drink on the DJ's laptop, he directed everyone to a near by bar where there was an after party being held, so Kate and I went with one of the Liverpool guys from the hostel. It was brilliant, overlooked a deserted bay, with the bar in the trees and everyone dancing and sitting on big rocks. After a while we thought we better go and meet everyone else, so we went back to the hostel collected everyone and went to the beach. It wasn't long before I was to shattered to stay awake so had a little 2 hour nap on the beach. We all had another group dinner and went back for a quiet night in the hostel, I had a lovely long shower and joined Andy and a couple of the guys in the Reggae bar next door.. So much for a couple of quiet Chang's. One of Thailand's traditions is to take your shoes off at the door of bars, restaurants, hostels etc. This is all well and good until there's glass on the floors, I found out the hard way and got a chunk in my foot, I spent ages trying to tweezer it out, then a Thai couple tried, then I put my foot in boiling water to try to squeeze it out, we gave up after a while, and went to bed.

The next day we had to leave FuBar and the crazy times of Koh Phangan, it was time to go to Koh Tao. We were getting picked up at 11am, I had to rush packing (obviously ended up leaving stuff, 4 items this time). We thought we had enough time for breakfast but at 10.50am we were still waiting for the food we ordered in a nearby bar, half the gang missed there meals but thankfully I had my poached eggs. My foot felt a little better today, so hopefully all was going to be fine. I bandaged it up and put my closed shoes on to keep it clean. The ferry was 45 minutes late, queuing in the midday sun with our backpacks on was hell on earth. We finally got on the ferry and within minutes I wanted to get off, we were sitting on the downstairs seats and I was terrified, the waves were tipping the boat side to side, we were dipping so much that the water was hitting the windows. We watched two episodes of The Wire but even that couldn't distract me from being scared, Kate was trying to be brave for the both of us but I could see she was scared to, we sat there holding each other. Finally 2 hours later, we arrived on Koh Tao.