Full Moon and Moving On

Well, I survived the famous full moon party. Quite well too after all things were considered and several bottles of water were drunk the next day.

The full moon party is located on Hat Rin Nok (Sunrise Beach) at the southeaster corner of Koh Pha Ngan. Hat Rin Nok is a 1.5 km stretch of sand that has a bar, club, or restaurant along every inch of it. Each bar and club had REALLY loud techno musing booming out onto the sand. There are stretches where there are chairs and tables to sit, ususally adjacent to several guys twirling flaming sticks (very cool). There are also large sections where you can simply dance in the sand with hundreds of other revelers. There are numerous booths where you can have glow in the dark paint put on you so that you will glow under all of the black lights that are scatttered across the beach. Unfortunately I did not think that it was safe to take my digital camera so I do not have any pictures.

There are countless food stalls serving pizza that has a light fluffy crust about 2 inches thick. All of this bread proved perfect for soaking up al of the alcohol that was consumed. Speaking of which, the beverage of choice at the party was the Songsam bucket... This is a small plastic bucket that is filled with ice and then a can of coke, a redbull and a 0.375 of Songsam (super cheap Thai wiskey) is added. Add about 10 straws and you are good to go. They cost about $4.

I spent about 12 hours there total and danced for more than 8 hours total. I met up with a lot of people I had seen previously on my trip and had a great time.

All told, the event is quite safe. There is a heavy police presence and as long as you are smart you would not get into any trouble. And yes, there were at least 20,000 people there. If you are ever in Thailand it is definitely an event that must be experienced at least once. Unfortunately, due to the public nature of the web and the fact that small children are reading the blog, detailed stories will have to be related in person... Rest assured, they are just as off the hook as my stories always are when I go traveling.

Today I am moving on again... to another tropical island. Pulau Perhentian Kecil. It located in the gulf of Thailand just south of the Thai-Malaysia border. And, surprise surprise, it is also famous for its scuba diving. I promise, this time I will take pictures and get them up on the blog...