Koh Phangan: Nature and Nightlife

"I guarantee that you will sleep on the beach if you don't book a hotel room before. It's the time of the full moon party and everything is booked on Koh Phangan," my travel agent in Bangkok had told me.

I still didn't book a room.

Marzia, a member of Couchsurfing, a hospitality exchange network, had assured I could stay at her place and I was banking on that even though I had never travelled this way before. I was going around Thailand on a shoestring and what's life without some uncertainties?

Seventeen hours after leaving Bangkok and tired from an overnight bus and a three-hour boat journey, I stepped on Koh (meaning island in Thai) Phangan, a hilly island in the gulf of Thailand.

Koh Phangan, which is 70km from the mainland, is part of the Samui Archipelago, which includes more than 40 islands. A large part of the 167 sq km island is tropical forest and there are small hills where it is possible to trek and even camp. There is a lot of wildlife in the forests, right from monkeys to beautiful birds. The waters around the island are excellent diving grounds with corals.

And of course, there is the world-famous full moon party that takes place on a beach called Haad Rin, south of the island. The full moon party is one of the world's largest rave parties and attracts between 10,000 and 40,000 visitors, a large chunk of whom are westerners in their gap year.

I met my host in front of a departmental store in Srithanu, a hamlet in the north of the island, where my host stayed. Marzia is from Italy and she was staying on the island for six months doing a yoga course. She had rented a beautiful blue cottage amidst a lot of green. Another couchsurfer (a member of the Couchsurfing network), Jonas, from Germany, was already staying with her, she told me, and another friend of her's, Sandra, would join her in an hour or so. So, me and Jonas may have to sleep on the floor.

"No problem. I have my sleeping bag," I said.

After a quick shower and lunch, I rented a motorcycle (it's cheap and a great way to go around the island), and went to check out the party beach with a couple of other friends that I had just made — Dana from South Korea and Chorita from Bangkok. It was nearly 20km from Srithanu through some villages, through the town and over the hills. The last bit just before you reach Haad Rin is like a roller coaster over the hills.

The atmosphere on the beach seemed getting ready for the once-in-a-full moon event. There was a football tournament under way on the beach and a DJ playing English and Thai numbers. Some people were lazing on the sand, some dancing, some in the water and others racing on water scooters.

I came back to Marzia’s around 8.30 in the night to find she had four or five friends over who had cooked lots of different stuff for dinner. We sat in Marzia’s verandah (we had to block the entrance with a chair to keep the friendly dog out) and had a great time sharing travel stories and dancing to world music with the nearly-full moon shining on us. And everyone fell in love with some sohan papdi I had taken along from India.

The next morning, Jonas and me went to Marzia’s school for a free yoga session and I realised yoga was definitely not my cup of tea. At the end of the session, they asked us to meditate for 20 minutes and the two of us nearly dozed off. Then we decided to check out a waterfall on the island and Dana and Chorita came along with us. The Phaeng waterfall had very little water but the hike to it was fun. Later in the day, the four of us explored the Haad Yao and Haad Salad beaches, northwest of the island. We found Haad Salad better because the water had less seaweed in it, but I cut my foot on an underwater rock. At an eatery close to the beach, I tasted pad thai, a typical Thai dish of stir fried rice noodles and a lot of other things, for the first time and fell in love with it.

The next morning, the day of the party, we went to check out the venue. Temporary structures had been built along the beach for DJs to set up their consoles. Temporary dance floors, chairs and tables were being set up. A lot of people were sunbathing and swimming and everyone talked about the night’s party.

On the way back, Jonas stopped to buy a hammock from a famous hammock-maker called Mr Moon and I couldn't resist buying one too. Though it cost me 1,500 baht, the hand-woven hammock was really comfortable. And Mr Moon told me: "It's can hold 250kg. You can get in with your girlfriend!"

We were back to Haad Rin at 8.30pm. We bought 100-baht tickets (actually an orange wrist band) and entered the beach.

I was surprised to find the event so well organised despite having all the ingredients of turning into utter chaos. There were security personnel everywhere. There were lifeguards keeping vigil to ensure drunk people did not drown in the sea and there was a fenced area right on the beach set up by an NGO where completely drunk and out people could just plonk down and sleep.

The entire beach had five or six DJs playing different kinds of music and there were temporary shops lined up all along that sold “buckets” for around 200 baht. Buckets are actually miniature buckets that had a cocktail of whatever drinks you prefer, the most common of them seemed vodka and Red Bull, and some straws. Then, there were local men who would walk by you whispering: "Pills? Pills?"

Many people had their bodies painted with florescent colours. Some had just prints of someone’s palm on their bodies, some men had messages like: “Body on rent for 20 baht”.

Then there were the fire games. The craziest of them was where two persons, standing on high platform would swing a long rope on fire in circles and the party-goers had to jump in the middle of the circle. Every now and then, someone fell or got entangled with the rope. But most of them are usually so drunk they don’t realise the burns until the next morning when they discover the black marks.

I hung out with Jonas, Dana, Chorita and some of her friends for some time and then I joined a group of three girls and a guy, who were a lot of fun. I hung out with them until the guy got so drunk he couldn’t walk and we had to carry him out. Two of the girls went to get a motorcycle to take him to his hotel but never returned (I later got to know they got lost. No wonder, they were so drunk!). So, I got him and his girlfriend on a taxi and returned to the beach and hung out with an Italian girl I had met on a taxi that evening, and her brother, before heading back to Srithanu around 3am because I had to catch a boat at 7am.

It’s easy to make friends at the full moon party because everyone is in a good mood and everyone wants to make the most of the experience. It’s wise not to get very drunk because then you cannot enjoy it. Just go with the flow and don’t limit yourself to one group when you are there.

When I was leaving, there were drunk-and-out people snoring on the beach, men and women peeing into the gulf of Thailand and some making out in the sea. You may love it or you may find it absolutely disgusting, but at the full moon party, there are no restrictions.