Koh Pangan Moon Party Madness

Oh my is Koh Pangan absurd! So when we first arrived we stayed at a very small, quiet resort on Haad Son and relaxed for a few days. The beach was beautiful, although it rained off and on the entire week or so we were on Koh Pangan. For those of you who don't know, Koh Pangan is famous for its moon parties: full, half, black, shiva, etc. Generally, as most parties made for people on holiday, it consisted of a bunch of foreigners and some Thais getting blasted with buckets of alcohol, soda and red bull. There were fire dancers and glow-in-the-dark paint along with black lights and house music.

We paid 300 Baht for the Half and Black Moon Parties. The Christmas Party, however, was free. Usually the Full Moon Parties are on Haad Rin, one of the biggest cities on the island. Absolute chaos, to say the least.

At just a random night on Haad Rin, Thais were dancing with fire poi and staffs. We were talking to and dancing with these two Aussie girls on holiday when all of a sudden we feel the heat of a nearby fire on our backs. Two Thais were dousing a long rope in butane and setting it on fire. They through it across the crowd and the partiers scattered like cockroaches. We ran to one side and watched them swing the rope round and round. Three words: fire jump rope! I had to try it. It was a lot of fun, although I did get a small burn on my leg from the rope. I suppose that I've lost some weight since the skirt I was wearing that used to be tight was then starting to slip. So in attempt to keep it on, I got burnt - the lesser of two evils, in my opinion. Regardless, I got some great pictures out of the whole thing.

On the Christmas Party there was fire Limbo, which I didn't try. Anyway, many of the parties we went to we went with several people we had met at our bungalow in Baan Thai, just south of Thongsala. There was a Canadian from Toronto, two Chileans that live in Australia, two British boys (one who lives in Qatar) and a German.

We wanted to leave the island to go to Koh Tao the 26, but overslept and missed the ferry. Luckily, we hadn't bought tickets yet. So we spent our last night in Koh Pangan watching movies with our new friends. We must have watched at least four because we didn't get to bed until 2am.

Anyway, we are on Koh Tao right now and have been just been doing some relaxing and some partying as well. We met up with one of our friends, Brian, whom we met in Vang Vieng. He was the one that split his head open on the rocks and then got gauze stitched to his head so that he couldn't change it! We started calling him Bo Peep after awhile. We were on the same ferry and have been hanging out with him a lot, luckily he's healed so no more Bo Peep. We also met an Aussie in Bangkok on our way down and we've been spending time with him and his friend who lives on Koh Tao for the moment since he is an underwater wielder (one of the top five most dangerous jobs!). Well, that's all for now. We've booked PADI course at Baan for Jan 2 and will be officially diving certified.

Happy New Year everyone!

Last Days in Laos and Moving Down to Koh Pangan

So it's been awhile, I know. Our last days in Laos were amazing. We went down to Champasak and Si Pha Don (aka 4000 Islands). Since we overslept, we spent about a day getting to Champasak and stayed the night in a guest house by the river. At 5 am we woke up and went to Wat Phu Champasak just after sunrise. It was breath taking. On the drive up we saw the locals give food offerings to the monks as the sun peaked it's glowing eye over the palm trees. We arrived to the castle/wat which looked a lot like a cross between the Secret Garden and Hogwarts. It was great. We climbed up the old, steep and uneven steps about 1km away from the entrance to get a view of the whole land. After about 100 pictures later, we went back to the hotel, grabbed our packs and hopped in a minibus down to Don Det island. On the ferry there we met up with Matt, one of the boys we met tubing in Vang Vieng. He was with a German guy named Til. We stayed together in the same guest house. I think it was called Thonden, but not sure.

We met some other Germans at the guest house and took a canoe boat over to a small piece of island in the middle of the Mekong. We hung out on the beach there and played some cards. Basically the whole time we were there we just chilled and enjoyed the sunsets. Not to mention watching one German get wasted and start singing Bob Marley's "Jamming" but replacing "jamming" with "German." A rendition that when something like: "We're German and I hope you like Germans too... We're German in the name of the Lord."

Unfortunately for us, we had no money and the nearest ATM was a 2 hour drive away. We cashed one of Alison's travelers checks. Then went up to Pakse, got sick from some bad noodle soup and spent a grueling day getting to the border then to the train and all night to Bangkok.

We stayed at the D&D, met up with Taz. Checked out the Grand Palace and disappeared on the bus the next night to Koh Pangan. We arrived at Chumpon at 5am and had to wait 2 hours for the bumpiest ferry ever. Half the boat was puking. We met a Mick Jagger type character named Ian. He was taking swigs from a bottle of Cointreau and shouting to me, "It's like a mad dance floor, but you don't have to move to feel the party." He was friggin ridiculous. Funny guy though, some sort of DJ. He played me some of his music from his ipod and took mine. He was so stoked on all my music. "Angelic Upstarts, mate, that's from when I was a kid oi!" I guess he's some sort of DJ. Kind of reminded me of a movie I saw with Wes called Everything's Gone Pete Tong or something like that. Anyway, it'd be pretty hilarious to run into him again. Strange old dude from South London who looked like Mick and started drinking at 7am on the rockin' ferry... pun totally intended.Do