This past August I took my summer vacation in
Thailand, I was accompanied by my friend Brandon who is also a teacher in
Korea. We planned our trip a few months
ahead of time, we wanted to get some scuba diving in and we knew it would be hectic
because of the infamous full moon party!
Here’s a good rule of thumb when traveling (for me); don’t plan anything
in advance. The plan was for me to fly
into Phuket three days before Brandon, pick him up at the airport 1 a.m. Sunday
morning and make our way to Koh Tao for some diving. We were then going to head over to Ko Pha-Ngnan for the full moon party. Here is
what actually happened.
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| Our secret beach |
Phuket
I arrived in Phuket around 6 a.m. after spending
another lovely night on the floor of the Kuala Lumpur airport. At this point, with all my holidays combined
I think I’ve stayed there 6 nights, which is basically a vacation in
itself. Upon arriving in Phuket I won my
first battle with the taxi drivers, I avoided them all together and opted for a bus (suck it
taxis!). I spent 150 bhat versus 700
bhat, that’s $4 versus $20, or as we say in Korea, 4 bottles of Soju versus
20! I even managed to find the hostel
after only 45 minutes. I stayed at the
Bodega hostel in Phuket because I had such a great experience at their Bangkok location. I suggest you also do the same if you ever
have the opportunity.
I spent the first day just walking around and
exploring Patong Beach…ok I spent the first day walking around getting
completely lost, which is actually difficult to do because it is basically one
main road connected to a beach road. It’s
interesting because during the day there are families walking around with their
children, and grandparents strolling the walkways, and then the sun sets,
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| shhhhhh secret |
then
you best hide yo children, and hide yo grandparents, and for the love of god if
you are with your parents…hide them too!!
Patong Beach and especially the main strip Bangla Road turns into a
chaotic, neon lit, outdoor strip club, it’s hard not to stare at everything
even though you are not quite sure what you’re looking at. On the plus side the beers are cold and cheap, and
the girls are beautiful. On the
confusing side the girls are boys and the boys are actually more beautiful…wait
what?
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| Enjoying our secret beach |
I was looking how to spend my next few days in
Phuket, there are loads of island hopping trips, jungle trips, elephant
sanctuary experiences, I really didn’t know much of what I wanted to see except
for the fact I wanted to see ‘the beach’ not the movie, but the beach in the
movie. I was at the hostel trying to
figure out what to do when I met Andrew, a nice English chap (I think they say
chap) who was also traveling solo, we grabbed a drink together and formed the
beginning of what would soon become our Thailand motley crew!
The hostel was completely booked due to a group of 28
Paraguayans on a group tour. They had
arranged a big birthday dinner that night in the hostel as well as reserved a
V.I.P. room at one of the clubs.
Obviously, due to my fluency in Spanish and my love of V.I.P. club
service I tagged along. When I was in
high school my dad used to always tell me nothing good ever happens after 1
a.m., well father…I now agree with you, especially if you are in Thailand with
28 Paraguayans and drinking free vodka.
That’s all I’m going to say about that.
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| street foooooood |
The next day Andrew and I decided to cruise around
Phuket in search of some nice beaches. I
was feeling a bit ‘under the weather’ so I was happy to jump on the back of
Andrew’s bike. We managed to recruit two
new arrivals, Anna who had just rolled up (literally with a roll up suitcase)
to the hostel and Mike who was also feeling ‘under the weather’ from the night
before. The four of us took off away
from the hustle and bustle to get some R & R at one of many beautiful
beaches Thailand has to offer. We were
recommended to go to Laem Sing Beach which was beautiful; unfortunately 75
Chinese tourists were also recommended to go there. A very kind local who must have noticed we
were not part of the 75 Chinese tourists told us
about a hidden beach around the corner away from everyone. After a bit of a hike over some treacherous
rocks we found ourselves our own little private beach paradise. It was the first beach and I still think the
best beach I experienced in Thailand. It
was the perfect relaxing beach day, followed by a seafood lunch at a local market and
capped off with a cruise to the cliffs to watch the sunset.
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| Beach day followed by lunch! |
That night was a bit of a strange experience. It was the Queens day in Thailand and a
couple of crazies set off some bombs in protest. One of these bombs went off on the main strip,
Bangla Road where I had been the previous night. Some of the bombings made the news as I heard
from some friends back home checking in to make sure everything was
alright. The town basically shutdown
that night, all the restaurants bars and even the streets closed shortly after
sunset. We were also stopped on the way
home from our day trip by the local police and searched. We decided to stay at the hostel that night
and relax there, and by relax I mean throw back a few buckets of long island
ice T and plan our next adventure. We
decided on a day trip to ‘James Bond Island’ with some new additions Grey, Anna
and Meredith! The trip was 25 km
north-east of Phuket. The scenery is
very pretty with limestone cliffs jetting out from the water. One of these famous limestone cliffs is
featured in the James Bond movie “The Man with the
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| James Bond Island money shot sans the 3 swimming tourists |
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Golden Gun”. The boat ride and kayaking through the caves
were great. The lunch on a floating
Muslim village (yes you heard me right) on the island of Koh Panyee was also
great. The massive crowds on the tiny islands, not so great! Out of spite, and because it was really
really hot, we went for a swim (for some reason the only people swimming on the
whole island) and became the background in thousands of tourists’ money shot of
the James Bond Island. After a long day of
boat rides, kayaking, swimming and tourist watching we all headed back to the
hostel. I was leaving at midnight to pick
up Brandon from the airport so we could make our way to the complete opposite side
of Thailand.
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| Sunset at the cliffs |
That evening at the hostel everyone was hanging out in
the main lounge reminiscing about our day and planning the next. It turns out our group of fast friends were going
to continue on together to Koh Phi Phi and had booked a tree house for the next
few days. This really put me in a bit of
a conundrum. I really wanted to see ‘the
beach’ which is in Koh Phi Phi, I really like tree houses, and I really enjoyed
hanging out with my new friends…buuuuut I was supposed to pick Brandon up in the next couple hours and head to Koh
Tao. After much deliberation, a few
inspirational talks (and one not so inspirational…you know who you are) I
decided to completely change our plans and head to Koh Phi Phi. I sent Brandon an email (while he was still
in the air) to come meet me at the hostel, hoping he would have enough WiFi to
see it when he landed. I was a little
nervous about how he would feel about this complete change of plans, so while
everyone else went out that night to see ‘a show,’ I stayed back and waited with
bated breath for Brandon’s hopeful arrival.
Thankfully he arrived safely, with WiFi, lots of confusion,
and made it to the hostel. I explained
our new plans and gave a brief tour around town. I think there was a lot going on in Brandon’s
head between the 5 hour flight, arriving at 1 a.m in a new country, learning
about our new agenda via email as soon as he arrived, and then immediately seeing
the chaos of Phuket nightlife. We had an
early morning wake up to catch the ferry the following day so we made it a semi-early night. The girls made it back from
‘the show’ at a decent hour, the boys never made it back.
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| Lunch on the floating island |
The next morning much to my dismay (and possibly a
first) I was up on time, printed my ferry ticket and even had time for
breakfast. The girls were already down
in the lobby waiting, Mike had just arrived home a few hours ago and was not
thrilled about a bus ride, or a ferry ride…or any ride really. Grey and Andrew were missing in action and we
had to leave them in order to catch our bus.
This is when all the hangover jokes were appropriately thrown a bout on
the bus ride to the ferry. Luckily we
located Andrew, who unluckily had been punched in the face by some bouncer at a
club at 4 in the morning (you will have to ask him about that one), I think it
had something to do with his funny accent. We still had no word from Grey, although we
had our suspicions (again…you will have to ask him about that). 7 out of 8 of us made it to Koh Phi Phi, which isn’t bad.
Koh
Phi Phi
I was very excited to be on an island surrounded by
crystal clear turquoise blue water. I
was also pretty excited to see the tree house we would call home for the next
two nights. Since we were all broke, or savvy
backpackers (however you want to look at it) we decided to pass on the boat
taxi to our accommodation and hike it.
Now keep in mind Mike is half dead and certainly not 100% sober,
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| Ferry got the best of everyone |
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| Some worse than others |
some
people are traveling with suitcases (not ideal for trekking through sand) and
it’s probably
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| Tree mansion |
around 110 degrees so we are all struggling in some sense. I must say not once did anyone complain about
the hike, or more importantly pass out…very impressive
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| Trekk to the tree house |
everybody! Our tree house was worth every bit of the
hike! It was more like a tree mansion
that slept 8 people and overlooked the ocean, really a nice find (good work
Anna!). We spent the first day down at
the beach and walking around town (this is when Brandon started his 6 day
shopping bender). After spending the day
swimming and scoping out the island, and getting a surprise visit from Grey we all went out for a rooftop dinner, which
was accompanied by a projection screen movie (one of the worst movies I’ve ever
seen, although every single one of us was watching…sorta like a car wreck). The nice thing about forming a lovely group
such as ours is you don’t really need to do a lot to constantly be entertained. We raided a local convenience store of snacks
and drinks and headed to the tree house for a night of games and in-depth discussions
about bigfoot (you know I’m right Meredith!).
This was one of my favorite nights of the trip. I don’t think I have laughed that hard that
much in a long time (I’d like to thank Mike for introducing the forehead game
and I’d like to thank Anna for being so bad at it).
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| Boat crew |
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| Boat crew after almost falling overboard |
The next day we rented a boat to do some snorkeling
and island hopping. The water was
beautiful and the fish were plenty! One
of the lasts stops was monkey island, which shockingly is an island full of
monkeys. They certainly have become accustomed
to people and are definitely less afraid of people then most people are of
them. The monkeys would grab anything
they could from your hands or in your bag so you had to be a little
careful. One very chill monkey attempted
to grab Brandon’s bag even
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| Brandon and his buddy |
climbing onto his back to do it. He then decided it was too much work and took
a 5 minute break on Brandon’s shoulders.
One not so chill monkey was not happy with Andrew trying to take his
water bottle back and had a buddy come to his defense, Andrew had to smack it
away before things escalated. After the
cleverly named monkey island most of the crew went back to the tree house, myself,
Brandon, and Anna decided to haggle 1 more hour of boat time.
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| Not pictured...killer cats |
This was sadly our last night together, we had
already lost Mike who was on his way to the Philippines, and everybody else was
heading their own ways the following day.
The last night was a relaxing one, massages, local food (some of it extremely,
dangerously even, spicy), and drinks back at the tree house. I attempted to sleep in a hammock that night,
but was awakened by the fighting cats that would find their way onto our porch
(this was much scarier than it sounds, the cats were right under the hammock
and the sounds they made were terrifying.
Also, one may or may not have snuck into the room and jumped onto Mike’s
chest in the middle of the night, which caused him to wake up screaming, which caused everyone to wake up, which then caused Anna in a fit of terror to somehow jump off the bed
trapping herself between the bed and the mosquito net. This was also terrifying to hear from the hammock)
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| One of my favs...sorry Mike |
The next morning was an early one, me, Brandon and
Grey were all heading to Koh Pha-Ngan, which entailed a water taxi, ferry,
bus and a hike to our new accommodation.
This was basically a travel day as our first water taxi was at 9 a.m.
and we didn’t arrive to Koh Pha-Ngan until 7:30 p.m.
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| View from sweet hotel |
Koh
Pha-Ngan
Home of the famous full moon party! We arrived a few days before the big bash
along with the 30,000 other people that flock there specifically for the
massive beach party. It’s not a very
large island so we rented scooters for 3 days and used those bad boys as means
to get around ($7 a day). The 3 of us
scootered around the island in search of nice beaches and good food, which
doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, Thailand is full of beautiful beaches and
delicious cheap food.
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| Jungle boys |
We did manage to
find a nice swimming spot that we had all to ourselves, we also investigated a
couple false advertisements for waterfalls along the way. In preparation for the main event we decided
to attend the jungle experience that night.
The jungle experience is really a jungle rave located in Baan Tai. It takes place 1 day and 10 days prior to the
full moon party, it is apparently renowned for its Dj’s and house music (some
more impressed with the music than others).
The set up itself was very cool, we even caught a Muy Tai match in the
middle of it. Overall a good decision to
go and check it out, I would recommend it. A very bad decision to walk all the way home, that was dumb…I would not recommend that.
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| Muay Thai |
The following day Andrew met back up with us so we
had 4 out of the 8 motley crew reunited again.
Spent some time exploring the markets as well as some time at our sweet
hotel swimming pool (most of the time was spent at the sweet hotel swimming
pool). There’s two parts of Ko Pha-Ngan,
the one part is where all the party hostels are located as well as the full moon
party (and all other parties). The other
side of the island is very quiet and a bit cheaper. Brandon and I decided to spend the last
couple nights on the quiet side at nice hotel on the beach (and we graciously
let Andrew set up camp on the floor). There
are few things I love more
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| friends, bar, beach, sunset, music...check |
than hanging out with my friends sitting at a bar on
the beach at sunset listening to good music.
The night of the full moon party was upon us and we were ready to get
the party started. Brandon, myself and
Andrew painted ourselves up real hippie like and were off to the biggest beach
party in the world. It was pretty much
everything I thought it would be, thousands of people, loud music, crazy
lights, dancing, singing, fire shows, a massive jump rope, buckets of booze,
magic milkshakes, and what turned into the largest toilet I’ve ever seen (the ocean…just
in case you weren’t picking up what I was throwing down there). Let’s just say it was interesting to be there
all night and then see how everyone is managing once the sun came up, maybe
interesting isn’t the right word…awkward, disturbing, inappropriate? Let’s also just say it’s good 30 year old
Brendan was there and not 20 year old Brendan.
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| Hippies |
Feeling like a potato all day after the full moon
party, we did manage to be semi productive (after 1 p.m.). We took in the islands markets and ate
delicious street food one more time before we had to depart back to Korea. It’s really a nice island but I would recommend
the full moon party once and only once.
Islands are much more beautiful and enjoyable when you’re not surrounded
by thousands of people (damn hippies).
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| Full Mooning |
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| Full Mooning |
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| Full Mooning after effects |
The next day I sadly made my 9 hr journey back to
Phuket (which was a little nerve racking as my flight was that evening and I’m
real good at missing flights), Brandon and the other boys went on their separate
ways as well. I am once again happy to
say there were no missed flights on this trip!
Although, a few missed ferries, a missed bus and a few blown hotel
reservations. It was really an amazing
trip with some amazing people. I love
experiencing new places and Thailand is one of the places I have wanted to
visit since as long as I can remember.
It was a place I had very high expectations for and it did not let me
down in the least. Even more amazing
than the country itself was the opportunity to take a holiday with one of my
good buddies and travel with the incredible group of people we met there. Thanks everyone for everything, it was truly
an unforgettable trip!
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| love you guys! |
