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Soooo the boat over to Koh Phangan was pretty fun, me and two girls from the bus called Jessie and Alisha as well as a guy called Cameron got a few beers in, which made the fact that we were being slowly cooked alive a bit more bearable! Jessie was a fire hula hooper which would have been cool to see on the beach but I never saw her again. Cameron was going to be wearing a Go-Pro camera on his head and videoing the whole of full moon night, and I did actually bump into him but never got his details so alas I'll never see how much of a mess I was!
The first thing I saw when I got onto the island was some girl crashing her motorbike into the cafe I was sat in. Pretty good sign of the kind of place it is really! She wasn't too hurt but was on her own so me and Cameron looked after her until the ambulance came, though I think she was more worried about how much she'd have to pay for the bike really! Cameron saw her a few days later and said it had all worked out so that's good. It's a scary place though, on full moon we saw a guy attempting to ride a motorbike down a hill until we stopped him and he promptly got off and passed out on the side of the road in a drunken stupor... safe.
So before I got on the bus to the islands I'd booked into a place called Yan's Dorms, which were the only dorms left in Haad Rin (where full moon is). I assumed this meant it was crap but it was still better than staying in a bungalow on the other side of the island on my own. As it turned out the hostel wasn't crap at all; Yan cooked us all free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the beds were all joined together in a spoontastic chain, so it was pretty social if a little strange! Yan himself though is one of the craziest people I've met so far while travelling. He's some kind of spiritual massouse who heals people with his touch, which is all well and good but first off his magic doesn't work on guys (something to do with yin and yang, obivously) so he has to perform the massage on a girl in order for her to somehow pass the energy onto the guy... and also his 'touch' tended to cross the line of what is acceptable social behaviour! There were only three girls staying at the hostel while I was there (someone must've warned them) so I was called upon quite a lot to assist Yan in the healing process. The worst was when he was trying to get the guys in the dorm to feel the 'energy' by basically inhaling the evilness out of my mouth (or as he called it 'sucking the s*** out of you') and jabbing me in the ribs, while the guys kept saying they didn't feel anything so that he'd do it over and over again (cheers for that guys). As if that wasn't strange enough I walked into the kitchen one day to find him pressing his face against a laptop screen with a picture of some girl's cleavage on it (apparently digital girls work fine too) in order to cure some guy's cough cos me and the other girls stopped letting him use us! After a few days I just shrugged and went along with it, trying to feel spiritually awakened rather than mildly violated... and trying not to laugh cos that would mean I was just another ignorant drunken tourist. Glad I stayed there though, it was definitely an experience!
Anyway the point of coming to Koh Phangan was of course for full moon, and I'd come down a day early so that I could go to the pre-full moon party which everyone says is better than full moon, presumably cos everyone's hungover on full moon from pre-full moon but whatever. Heather and Amber who I was staying with in Pai were staying in the hostel opposite mine, as well as Amber's sister Jasmine, so luckily I knew people on the island. They call me by my real name now too instead of Dave, reeal friiiends! It was so nice to spend time with people who I actually knew a bit and had mutual friends with and in-jokes, rather than a bunch of randomers, even if I did end up losing them all on both nights out! As far as the pre-full moon party goes my memory's a tad sketchy and I have no idea if it was better than full moon or not but full moon was pretty great (and I remember at least 90% of it!!!) so I think full moon wins.
I was pretty hungover on full moon which was probably for the best, I stuck to posh buckets like mojitos and lychees rather than the samsong buckets (still can't drink them since Vang Vieng). I avoided playing with fire which meant no burn scars on my ankles like everyone who tried the skipping ropes (pretty fun watching other people hurt themselves though) and didn't jump off any cliffs or take any mushrooms... I was so well behaved! Did go swimming quite a lot and destroyed my feet walking across coral, plus I think we were on a boat at some point... but I didn't drown so it's all ok! We went to the afterparty at about 11am (sleep is for the weak!) but everyone was off their face so we went swimming again instead before finally crawling into bed at about 3pm, feeling pretty pleased with myself for making it to the bitter end without dying or anything!
The night after we were gonna be real troopers and go out but instead just ended up playing pool in some bar with the guys we'd met the night before (Simon, Paul and Astrid) as well as some randomers, all feeling a bit on the dead side. Then the next day I took the boat over to Koh Tao with Amber, Heather, Jasmine, Dale and Layla (who the other girls met before) and said bye to Koh Phangan. It's a nice island and I had some good times chilling in the ocean and chatting to people but there's so much pressure to go and party and have fun that it sort of defeats the point sometimes - enforced fun is never really fun. Plus I really couldn't handle any more buckets, I ordered myself a while russian in a GLASS on the last night and it was SO GOOD!
Koh Tao update coming up!
- comments
Rayhan It seems the book can deliver a viusal and mental impact while we are approaching the Tang Poems. This reminds of the English translation of the Persian Poem by Edward Fitzgerald: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam. Ancient Oriental wisdom can shine through ages after ages from the East to the West in beautiful English too if the right format of expressing can be achieved.