Life's a beach in Ko Pha Ngan

We managed to score a great little beach bungalow on one of the north eastern beaches of the island, despite showing up unannounced three days before the infamous full moon party. This island has a beach for everyone… from tiny isolated stretches of sand with one or two bungalows to sandy versions of Bourbon street. Our beach was somewhere in between. We spent the days kayaking to the nearby waterfalls, scuba diving, and lounging in hammocks. After nightfall there were plenty of restaurants to try and even a few bars for late night “warm-up parties” (warm up for the full moon of course). We kept it pretty tame most nights, enjoying happy hour and the accompanying entertainment of fire dancers and these really cool fire balloons that were launched from the beach (check out the video). Did we attend the full moon party? OF COURSE! We couldn’t return home with our heads held high if we had turned down the opportunity to attend the biggest beach party in the world.

We jumped in a speedboat and headed down to the party. Enroute the driver pulled off to a pitch black beach and made six people get out of the boat because he was over capacity and he was worried there would be a police check at Hat Rin. He promised to be back in 10 minutes…. meanwhile, we motored on for another 15 minutes before pulling up to the beginnings of what was to be a massive party.
Fortunately the party was just getting warmed up when we arrived, it made it easier to find some friends that we had arranged to meet up with. It was good to be there a little early and watch how quickly the party grew. The entire beach was a dance floor, each of the bars along the sand had different music playing so you could find exactly what you wanted to dance to. Just to make things even more interesting you were never more than 20 feet from a vendor selling little buckets that came with a flask of alcohol, a can of mixer and a bottle of Red Bull… more drunken energy than most people can handle for about $3. Fire dancers provided entertainment until the crowd got inebriated enough to be entertaining in itself. We had a great time and danced for hours, but despite the Red Bull we didn’t have the fortitude to make it to sunrise or the after party which starts at 9 am the next day! Check out the video of the party from above… yes those are all people! (Can't post this now b/c it seems very difficult to find a fast enough connection where we are right now).
We’ve decided that we haven’t had quite enough beach time so we’re making a break for the west coast of Thailand. We are having a hard time deciding where to go though- so many beautiful places and so little time. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to find a last minute sailboat charter…. that way we can cover more ground without having to pack the bags around so much.