now, as tim mentioned in his last postcard we are currently on koh pha ngan island (about 100km from the mainland) for the world famous full moon party. now for any of you concerned/interested/bored people out there i shall get you up to speed with the evenings events as far as i am aware of them! so after a hearty meal at our bungalow and with the promise of an oncoming storm (we experienced one the previous night and im sure chris or ed will testify, storms in this part of the world tend to be quite messy!), so anyway, witht his storm approaching we headed off on the trek along the island to haad rid beach where it all takes place. we jumped in a songatheaw (pick-up truck!) with about 20 other people and made our way along the helter-skelter of a road system to the beach, not really knowing what to expect. anyways, we arrived and were met with quite a sight! basically, haad rin beach consists of two separate beaches, sunrise and sunset, on either side of a small peninsula. for this party hundreds of temporary bars are set up along the roads, beaches and whereever else there is space, selling all kinds of things, most notably, 'the bucket' (more to follow about this little gem!). so we wondered around a little before settling into one of the permanent bars. after a couple a bevvies we hit the beach, and what a sight! the full moon party attracts at least 10,000 people every month and it was packed. people were sitting/standing/dancing all over the place. after covering ourselves in various streaks of UV paint and jewelery we bought our first bucket, about the size of something you would make a sandcastle out of comprising usually of a bottle of alcohol, a can of pop and a small bottle of evil that according to the bottle is red bull! they mix this all up and hand it to you with a few straws and away you go! we were warned to treat the bucket with a certan amount of fear and were these people right!!! anyways, from here its gets a little blurry, after more wondering around through the ever increasing number of people, dancing on the beach at any one of the numerous clubs and bars stretched out along the km or so coastline (quite nuts this, you cannot possibly imagine!), slightly tipsy ramblings to odd people who sit down next to you and more buckets, we were, it has to be said, a little bit worse for wear! so what did we do, more of the same until at about 5:30am after almost 12 solid hours we sat down at the mountainside bar, settled in for the sunrise and looked in utter horror and amazment at the carnage spread out on the beach before us! there were people in various states of consciousness everywhere!!! SO, now in absolute daylight we stumbled down the cliff, through the mess of what was once a beach and off to find some kind of transport home! finding a songatheaw with yet another 100 or so people we headed bacfk along the rollercoaster trying to remember what had actually happened! we got back to our bungalow, covered in paint, UV stuff, sand and an odd flower necklace thingy that would not have been out of place in hawaii and settled in for a days kip! those of you at uni cannot possibly have experienced anything quite as mental as this party! so, after this rather long and random and quite possibly most uninteresting postcard on this site i will summarise: we didnt get anything stolen, we didnt spend the night passed out on the beach whilst being buried by some random passers-by (long story!!), and as far as im aware, no ladyboys were invloved! we did however, consume quite a bit, we did meet some quite bizarre people and most importantly we did just have the most amazing time ever at the worlds biggest party ever ever ever!!!! i sincerely hope all you people at home are having so much fun as us right now!! james p.s. photos to follow.......!