When people talk about their favourite Thai island and the best places to visit... Ko Phangan always comes up. It's a very pretty island with lots of amazing viewpoints, beaches and more notoriously it's full moon parties (and no the moon isn't so close it's basically on the beach as I had previously thought). So for these reasons we decided to make our longest stay in Thailand on Ko Phangan and spend Christmas there.
As we left Ko Samui on a boat packed full of fellow full moon attendees the weather took a turn for the worse. I like to think of myself as a seasoned sailor have endured the roughest the Solent has to offer, however this journey was another level. We were thrown around the boat, rocking side to side to the theme tune of vomiting. We finally pulled into Ko Phangan an hour or so later than we should have done and headed straight to our bungalows, safe on shore... No floaters this time.
Again we toured the island by scooter only to realise that by chance we were staying in the most chilled and prettiest part of the island, JB Huts, Haad Yao.
Christmas day arrived the next day and we sat in our hammock with a view across the bay weighing up who had the most presents. We had amazing weather and spent the day sunbathing and having Thai massages on the beach before opening our presents and having a wonderful fresh seafood Christmas dinner.

Fortunately our trip landed on a full moon on 28th December so in the true spirit of things we ruined our favourite clothes (and bungalow) by caking ourselves in bright UV paint and headed down to the packed beach of Haad Rin. In the midst of thirty thousand party goers it was very similar to a festival except with slightly questionable music with huge groups of 'lads on tour'. We had an awesome time raving away til the early hours and sampling the local buckets the contents of which were also pretty questionable.

With one day to recover before Koh Tao we hung out on the beach and snoozed in the sun. We both could have easily spent a lot more time there. The lady who ran our bungalows 'Bella' was like a mum and looked after us really well and even though it was the cheapest accommodation we have stayed in so far, it's definitely been the best.