Full Moon Party

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, the reverie provided by our peaceful side of the island did not exist island-wide. As I also mentioned, our (and however many thousands of others’) sole reason for heading to the island was for the Full Moon Party, which we’d heard about from some friends. Admittedly, when I first heard “Full Moon Party” I thought it had some cultural significance concerning the ancient moon-worship rituals of the Thai people. If there ever was any such significance, it has since been buried under a plethora of fluorescent body-painted people and a myriad identical (aside from slight differences in the obscene graffiti with which they were adorned) stands offering Koh Phangan’s famous “buckets”– a cheap combination of liquor, Red Bull, and usually some soda in, you guessed it, a bucket.

Still it was something worth checking out and we enjoyed ourselves, though our decision to come to the beach at 11 am and spend the day there (with taxis costing 100 Baht per person per way and our being on the other side, we needed to make a day of it) prevented us from sticking it out til the official end time of 5 am. (That and our old age.) Still, one of the interesting things for us was watching the transformation of the beach from a normal, moderately respectable day crowd to a crazy, bumping-and-grinding, flame-slinging night mob.

some g-rated bucket stands by day

in our new hats and sarongs

oh happy day! a free sleep area!

it’s not called a full moon party for nothing

trying out the local specialty…

these guys are actually all over koh tao too… pretty cool!