The Buckets on Haad Rin Beach are NOT for Sandcastles
Ko Phangan, 28 September – 6 October.
Getting here was simple enough, just an hour or so on the boat from Ko Tao. We were genuinely worried about accommodation for the first time since we started the trip – this was the week building up to the Full Moon Party (FMP) and it gets busy here even during low season; as you would expect the first places to book up will be those mentioned in the guide books, especially if they have an online booking facility – there was nothing available online whatsoever.
We expected there to be the usual army of tuk-tuk drivers offering rides to a plethora of guesthouses and bungalows – this is the norm everywhere else whether it’s a bus station, airport or ferry port however the people congregated on the pier were just there to pick up the guests who had pre-booked well in advance. We were ok though as we simply hopped in a share taxi and found a bungalow right on Sunrise Beach on Haad Rin, it’s where you want to be. We were early in the week and we knew full well as the days went on it would build up every evening leading up to the FMP, we were therefore a bit surprised to see one of the bars on the beach, the Drop-In Bar, advertise a foam party on the day we got there. It soon became obvious that Phangan is mega-party island and is on a time zone very different to the rest of Southeast Asia: some places have an 11pm curfew whereas Phangan doesn’t even think of getting going until then.
The foam party was a raging success although I did lose my PNS camera (I’ve since bought a new one). This was the first party of the week and every night from then on there was something happening on the beach. With our body clocks set to Ko Phangan time the day usually started at 11:45am, just in time to get free breakfast and then we would sleep the hangovers off on the beach or by a pool in a neighbouring resort. The beach is very busy all day with numerous football and volleyball tournaments taking place. Thankfully however the beach does not have the hundreds of hawkers that Samui suffers from, indeed it’s probably the best stretch of sand we’ve come across so far on this trip.
With the days and nights rolling on from one another nicely the main event soon crept up on us. The beach was awash with activity all day as the football goals were cleared away and replaced with mile after mile of decorations, scaffolding for fireworks, makeshift bucket stands and many sound systems. I wanted to catch as much of the build up as possible and spent time strolling up and down the beach taking in the atmosphere. It was then time for a nap before venturing out. We got painted up by one of the locals, Pezza went for a flowery arrangement all the way down one side of her body whilst I adopted a huge dragon across my back, fire down my right arm and my BOTT squad number on my left. We visited Romeo, our adopted bucket vendor for the week, who was now offering us discounts without asking and free vodka shots with our buckets. Those not in the know, a bucket here consists of 20cl of spirit (8x 25ml shots) and a couple of bottles of Thai Red Bull (more ‘wings’ than the UK version), they are typically under a fiver, needless to say it’s not long before everyone is wasted.
The party was great fun, a well worthwhile experience with loads of energy, fire and music, it was still very much alive by the time Pezza & I called it quits at about 6.45am, about half an hour after the sun came up. We were tired, covered in paint that was making my back blister and had the onset of a hangover – but we were very happy to have crossed off number 27 from The List.
The day after the party you would not have known anything had happened, the beach was spotless and it was eerily quiet – like being in a football stadium when nobody else is around. We stayed one more night to let the Red Bull wear off and kissed Asia goodbye; it’s been a fantastic home for us over the last seven weeks and six days but we have just arrived in Australia after a gruelling 26 hour journey (taxi, ferry, taxi, aeroplane, aeroplane, train, aeroplane, coach) to Whitsundays on the Queensland coast of Australia.
We’ll work out a plan and let you know!
A big happy birthday to Pezza!
Show on map
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Zoran