Koh Phanagn is a party island. The beach we were on, Hat Rin was seemingly created for the sole use of drunk, western tourists.
We were there for the Full Moon Party and had been advised to get there early and book ahead, so we had accomodation ready for when we arrived on the 15th. We were staying in a 16-bed dorm room, but had a small 4-bed dorm to ourselves, blocked from the rest of the room with a door we weren't allowed to lock. It was nice enough, except for the fact that it was one of the most expensive places we had stayed in and really wasn't worth that much! We thought the dorm would fill up as it got closer to full moon night but it didn't, there was just us two and Travis, a Canadian guy in our room and a couple more Canadians in the room behind. So we really didn't need to pre-book or get there early!
During the day, there's not much to do around Hat Rin, it's full of restaurants showing Friends and the same films every day and shops selling fluorescent coloured clothing. In daylight, the beach looks a bit weird, empty stalls with "buy a bucket" written on, line the sides and a cluster of sunbathers gather on one half.
On our first night we headed to the beach, drank from buckets and attended a foam party. The beach at night is a bit like a scene from some crazy party film. People covered in UV paint, rubbish music blasting out and fire shows everywhere you look. There are no health and safety rules. You can't really have any when there's a massive skipping rope and limbo stick on fire. Grace actually got a small burn from going under the fire limbo, I was too scared to try either. The foam party was pretty good but the sand quickly turned mud-like and me and Grace ended up losing our flip flops, we found some others to walk home in though, so it was all good. When we got back, Travis was outside, having lost his key, so we let him in and he immediately passed out on his bed. Later that night he woke up and somehow mistook my rucksack for the toilet. Despite his drunken state, he had pretty good aim and managed to soak most of my bag. Suffice to say, his job the next day was to clean it.
Day two on the island was spent attempting to do a bit of shopping and the night was once again spent at the beach. It was a decent night but when we got in, we discovered that someone had locked our door which wasn't meant to be locked and noone had a key for it, so we had to sleep on the other dorm beds until the reception opened in the morning. Then things got a little worse as I found that I no longer had my wallet on me. I spent an hour searching but then had to concede that it was gone, along with far too much money and all bank cards, except for one. In the morning we got let back into our room but the people weren't happy and signs saying "Do NOT lock the door" quickly went up. For me, the next day was spent making phone calls to banks and a rather expensive trip to the police station to get an incident report. I didn't really feel like going out that night, so Grace met up with the girls from Koh Tao and went out with them.
The next day was Full Moon day. Unfortunately, it ended up being pretty disappointing due to both me and Grace being ill. We bailed at 1am, intending on going back in a few hours, but after some lads ran into our room shouting that they'd been robbed, we decided to stay put. The next day was just a bit dull, it's quite fun to people watch though. As more time was spent on the island you'd see more and more people bandaged up- if you want to start a business in Had Rin, start a new pharmacy!