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| Please ignore the fact that it says 2012. Some things come without an explanation |
“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell
While I can’t claim that I’ve not repeated success (Monday marked the fifth time we’ve been to Railay Beach…), I can be sure that I’ve tried countless new places already, a good many of which I feel comfortable not repeating. Ever.
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| Full Moon..although the eclipse that happened later really confused everyone. |
The Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan was one of the craziest things I’ve ever experienced, but it definitely goes on that list with Patong of things I am content never to do again.
The journey to Koh Phangan was a long one, and our plan from the beginning was a bit ridiculous: we would head out on Saturday morning, party through the night, eschew any type of accommodation (read: we would not be sleeping), and catch the 7am ferry back on Sunday morning. If it seems like a crazy plan, that’s because it was. No question about it, we were playing with fire.
We started at 9am at the Krabi bus station where we were told that the total cost of our trip to the island would be 750 baht. This after we had chosen not to buy the ticket from our favorite travel agent lady for 650 baht because we were sure we could do it for cheaper on our own. We could not. We managed to talk the man down to 650, but we had to wait for an hour at the bus station before the bus would take us to some other bus station.
An hour at the Krabi bus station is not a pleasant experience. All the foul smells of Thailand join together here. As we sat half asleep in uncomfortable plastic chairs, smokers blew carcinogens in our faces, stray dogs wandered past smelling like parasites and neglect, expired chicken grilled over an open flame, and flies buzzed around the smorgasbord of nastiness that was the overflowing trash can. It is really all I can do to not to taste my breakfast again.
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| Swirly night-shot setting of the full moon |
We boarded a local bus which was to take us to the other bus station where we would get a bus to carry us part of the way to Surat Tani where we would get yet another bus to the ferry which would complete the journey to Koh Phangan. The local bus bumped us along jungle roads and over mounds of dirt to a part of Krabi we had never seen before. Or at least that’s what we thought.
After sitting at this remote bus station for an hour and a half, we boarded a bus and finally were on our way. We wound our way out of the jungle and this was our exact conversation:
Me (noticing the back of a familiar building): Hey, don’t we drive past the other side of this on our way home?
Stacy: Uhhh, isn’t that where we saw the fire yesterday….?
Carlyn (completely oblivious to Stacy’s and my observations): Oh my god, DO YOU SEE WHERE WE ARE??
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| View from the ground of the ferry. |
Turns out the “remote” bus station we had never seen before was literally a ten minute walk from where we live. Thailand never stops surprising me.
After what seemed like forever, we boarded the ferry at Don Sak Pier in Surat Tani for the two and a half hour ride to Koh Phangan. We had made some Australian friends on the bus with whom we passed the time on the deck of the ferry alternately dodging the suffocating black smog pouring from the smokestacks and the stifling heat spewing out the wrong end of the air conditioning unit next to us.
***[A few hours of uninteresting getting to places, speaking with people, and eating]***
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| Buckets for sale |
On our way to meet some fellow OEG teachers in town for the party, we stopped to buy our first “bucket.” This is the most affordable and logical way to purchase alcohol for events such as these. They are literal sand-toy-buckets filled with straws, ice, and whatever other poison you choose. Most of them were disgusting mixtures of cheap vodka/rum/Thai “blends” and Coke or Red Bull, but we did have a tasty one that included pineapple juice and, thankfully, no Red Bull (it seriously ruins every drink).
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| Phase 1 of painting: complete |
Buying a drink bucket granted us permission to use the free paint laid out under the table of buckets. The body paint is part of the ambience of the whole affair and as such, quite necessary. We did a bit of face-painting and headed off to meet our OEG friends who then continued the painting process by covering our arms (and some of our legs as well) with colorful abstract designs.
After a sufficient amount of paint was applied and buckets imbibed, it was time to make our way to the beach. The road on the way to the beach was peppered with t-shirt stands, bucket-sellers and more Western food than I’ve seen since the Minneapolis Airport (what else do you sell to a bunch of drunk twentysomethings but pizza and fries?). It was a crazy mess of people dressed in neon, covered in paint and spilling unidentifiable alcohol all the heck over the place. This was the kind of party you had to be plastered out of your mind to really enjoy and I’m certain that I was far to in control of my faculties ifyaknowwhatimsayin’ to truly appreciate the beauty (?) of it all.
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| Mike painted my wonderful tattoos! |
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| L-R: Stacy, Sumi, Morgan, Patty, me, Mike, Alex |
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| With the girls, ready to go! |
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| OEG takes on the Full Moon Party!! |
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| You can guess what the blue handprint is from... |
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| Tribal warrior paint |
We lost our OEG friends barely an hour after hooking up with them and in madness such as this, it would have been an exercise in futility to try finding them again. Instead we did find the Aussies from the ferry and danced the night and early morning away at the water’s edge. If this sounds like a wholesome good time, I assure you it was not. I was half expecting to step on a used syringe sticking out of the sand, and I actually punched a guy in the jaw at the beginning of the night for grabbing my butt. A perfect stranger copped a feel, and I was so not having it, so I turned around and socked him on the mouth. It felt pretty wonderful.
“I don’t think I deserved that,” the idiot told me.
“I think you did,” I shot back. His friend (another brilliant mind) said, “If I grabbed your ass, would you punch me too?”
I put my face inches from his. “Try it and find out.”
They both walked away.
Minutes after this, I learned that if I was planning on coldcocking every guy who groped me (intentionally or otherwise), I would probably break my hand. It was that kind of night.
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| There is a beach under all those people believe it or not |
No syringes were stepped on, but there was plenty of bottles, broken glass, trash and lost flip-flops littering the surf. I’m glad this was all taking place at night because to see what can only be described as unholy beach-rape during the day would have been too much for my beach-loving soul to bear. Plus – and this is as depressing to write as it is to think – I actually felt too old to be there. The party felt like it was more appropriate for coeds still sitting comfortably in that chunk of time where you do a million stupid things without expecting any real consequences than for someone approaching the quarter-century mark, closing in on that golden hour where a legitimate job is becoming compulsory.
*End of depressing, time-is-fleeting digression*
No, wait. It’s not:
Okay now it’s over. (Madness really does take its toll these days)
There was, of course, the obligatory fire show and also a fire jump rope and fire limbo – hilarious to watch drunk people attempt to not catch their hair on fire while they screw up six other people’s rhythm on a flaming jump rope. I tried neither of those on account of the simple fact that I like my hair intact and unscorched, but I did go down the water slide. The slide was set up on the roof of one of the buildings and to get there, I had to scale a large rope ladder. Once at the top, I realized that it was not just a slide, but a water slide….into the sand. Not the brightest idea, but it was an absolute blast. The slide was super-steep so between that and the water gushing from the top, it shot you down pretty swiftly onto a plastic pillow thingy before bouncing you into the hard sand. I left the area wet and sandy, but it was totally worth the adrenaline rush.
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| Epic water slide! |
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| Flat Garrett makes the obligatory appearance |
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| A human pyramid is the universal indicator of just how out of control everything has got. Ps. It was my idea for the pyramid but somehow, Carlyn's bright idea for her to be on the bottom! |
Around 5am, we dragged our exhausted bodies away from the beach to prepare for the nearly seven hour journey back to Krabi. We survived, which is really all any of us could ask for. No one was drugged. No one got sick. No one got lost (at least not for an extended period of time). No one was assaulted or killed. It was a success to be sure, but not one we will never again repeat.
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