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Our journey to Koh Phangan literally took all day. Picked up at 11am by a shuttle (after another amazing breakfast) and taken to a bus station, where we exchanged our tickets for stickers and other tickets. We met Sarah and Joanne here; we could spot other Brits a mile away. They were lovely sisters from Newcastle. Throughout the journeys we said goodbye to them about 3 different times but ended up on the same transport, as they were going to Koh Samui and us to Koh Phangan. The next bus was a 3 hour journey to the ferry port, with Sarah and Joanne. Our first taste of thai buses and it was fine. Comfy enough so couldn't complain. At the ferry changed over our tickets for more strikers, hung around here for about an hour waiting on the ferry. Said goodbye to Sarah and Joanne again and they ended up on the same boat. This boat was 3 hours I think, with their drop off at Samui an hour before our docking. Said goodbye again, with the potential of seeing each other at the full moon party. I wasn't hopeful as we didn't yet know if we were going to go, and with no credit in my phone, I didn't think I'd receive text messages. So got off at the pier and it's pitch black, someone directs is to a bus after saying our hotel name so we jump in and don't even bother bartering. 200baht pp. By the time we got to Bayview resort and spa Haad Yao, it was 8.30 and we were starving. Didn't bother looking around, just ate in the hotel restaurant which was a bit more expensive that we used to paying up to this point. But o well, the burger was good. Hadn't had one of those in a while. So we decided over dinner, having seen even old people were going to the full moon party, that surely it couldn't be that bad and it's for the 'experience' so paid the 350baht hotel taxi return an got ourselves ready. Old shorts because they were bound to get dirty and trainers because wouldn't wana stand on anything, and got ourselves full moon t-shirts when we got there. The place was packed and all you could see was neon; light, clothes, body paint. It was 100baht to get in and they gave you a cool wrist band but I'd say if you had gone through some of the bars, you wouldn't have had to pay. Anyways we had arranged to meet Joanne and Sarah at cactus bar and we'd both wait until 12 to see if the other showed up. We hadn't a clue where the bar was but just before 12 I got a text from them saying they were there and we just happened to find the bar 2mins later. Hello again girls!! It must have be a combination of our 'sensible sides', the horror stories and the amount of drunk/drugged people, that we decided only to have one bucket and a few more beers. Of course when your getting a bucket, you should watch to see it come out of a sealed bottle: nope not for us. But thankfully we survived. We walked through the crowd, from one end of the beach to the other and took a seat in the bar to watch the craziness. The bar even had the policemen in uniform sitting having a drink, good to know they take their job seriously lol Everywhere neon, pounding music from about 6 different dj's along the beach, people dancing, drunk people, people peeing in the sea, people being sick, people passed out, people sliding down a slide into the crowd, crowd surfing and last but not least: Fire jumping. Crazy crazy crazy!! Literally, a man at each end throwing the skipping rope that has been covered in fuel and set alight. The crowd is so close to it that it nearly hit them as it is being twirled and the even crazier jump in to skip. People were hit on the face, body, legs and either got out of tried again. Jumping in whilst it was being twirled. There were going be a lot of injuries felt tomorrow when the drink had worn off and a lot of serious infection as nothing was going to heal right in the hot weather and sometimes unsanitary conditions of Thailand. Luckily there was a medical centre right on the beach, so if people were smart, they could have used it. Stayed out until 4am, go us and survived the 40min taxi ride back- very uncomfortable.
The next day we got up for breakfast at 10 (can't miss out on an included breakfast) then went back to sleep till 1pm. Not like me. My cold that was terrible yesterday is even worse today, like a dripping tap, must be the aircon.
Spent the day walking Haad Yao beach, which is very small, and sleeping on sun chairs. I was still tired. Watched a beautiful sunset then up to get ready for dinner. We then tried to find somewhere else to eat, but all the places on the beach are the same price, expensive compared to Ao nang and the other islands. For example we could getPad Thai cheap for 50baht, but here it's 100baht. We walked main road but couldn't see anywhere and was pitch black.(we'd find out the next day that we walked the wrong direction) So back to our own hotel. It was really pretty tho as we sat overlooking the sea. Got washing done 60baht per kg by the hotel and had 7kg but was done in 3 hours and really good; we won't be doing it again for another 3 weeks.
The next day we got up early and had our seaview breakfast. It was really good actually; eggs any way you like, muesli and Kenny even tried the Thai cooked breakfast. Today we rented a moped. As we had heard stories of people being ripped off for scratches, and they fact that you had to leave your passport as a deposit, I was quite nervous. But we inspected the bike pointing out issues to the man and also took pictures of it. We went on to enjoy the day. Basically we headed out of hotel and went left, no idea where we were going, and followed the road. Turned out we went north and saw some cute wee beaches, went up and down some massive hills, really way praying the bike would make it. 100baht filled the tank and we even returned with fuel left. We hiked to a waterfall, visited Haad Rin (where the full money party had been and the beach was actually beautiful), stopped at the pier for some lunch in nero's, got lost trying to get our way back onto the right road from the pier, checked out total wipeout, (it didn't look that good, expected it like it is on the TV but there were only a few activities so we didn't bother) and then went to Secret beach which was pretty nice. Decided to go back and get ready for dinner. Then back out on the bike to, watching sunset along the way, to an English pub called the Mason Arms. I was a bit nervous driving at night on this thing, because there are soo many hills and sharp bends but I'm glad we did because this Christmas dinner certainly made up for the one we had on Christmas Day. A huge plate; roast beef, gravy, a huge Yorkshire, peas, carrots, potatoes. Soo big I could hardly finish it. It was amazing, totally stuffed. We even made it back before 8pm to return the bike and got the passport back yeh!!!
The next day we had breakfast, bagged up our much lighter bags (as we got rid of 3-4kg each) and got the taxi down to the pier. Got our tickets and waited for the boat. We were not happy with this boat, it was totally overpacked, no seats, not impressed. I think one of the boats didn't show up so they crammed us all onto the one. We were sat on the top deck and as soon as we felt a speck of rain, we were off downstairs. Found two guys sitting on a three man bench so squashed in beside them and Kenny had a plastic seat right by the door to the VIP area, where people kept coming in or out. We were so glad to get off that boat!
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