Koh Phangan & Full Moon Party

So... after our nasty bed bug experience and exposing ourselves to the entire bar... me and Sar checked out of Leela Beach Bungalows at 7am after about 2 hrs sleep. We trekked back into Had Rin intending to get a tuk tuk to the north east of the island - where we originally planned to stay but were swayed by Mike wanting to be right near the party and all the action! They were charing ridiculous money so we decided to wait for the next ferry to come in and try to round up some people to share the cost. While we were waiting we just thought we would try one last place.. Rin Beach Resort... right next to the pier.. we were sure they would have nothing but to our surprise she had one room as someone had checked out that morning!!! We looked at it and it was lovely compared to our last nights room... dispite some MASSIVE rock just sitting in our bathroom!!! So we took it!! We chilled out that day by the pool... yes... we had a pool!!! and then got ready for the full moon party!

We looked cool!! We painted ourselves in illuminous paints... as you do... and headed out to get a bucket!!! Well... me and sar had ONE whisky, red bull and coke bucket and were feeling great!!! We were dancing about on the podium with the girls and it was great. However, we quickly sobered up and I found myself looking at this beautiful beach crammed full of drunken idiots weeing in the sea, chucking beer bottles and cigarettes in the sand and i just thought.... what a waste... look what we have done to this amazing place. Anyway... i did enjoy myself but as usual was ready to leave after about 3 hours... Mike was on form and dancing about all over the place so me and Sar stayed to watch the sun rise (and to keep an eye on Mike!) and then went to bed to catch up on some sleep.

Overall... i wasn't overly impressed by Koh Phangan... mainly because all we saw of it was Had Rin, the party beach and i felt like i had just stepped off the boat into magaluf again. I would have loved to see some of the North Eastern beaches and Bottle Beach but we just didn't have enough time. I also noticed that the thai people weren't as nice here as they were in Samui/Chiang Mai... when we walked in a shop we were literally followed like we were about to steal something and they were generally quite rude to us. I suppose it's no wonder when so many Westerners have invaded this beautiful island and turned it into some seedy littered party town. Such a shame.

Then it was on to Koh Tao for our Open Water Scuba Diving course!!! EXCITEMENT!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!