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Well I have A LOT to catch up you guys onso here goes...!
As mentioned earlier the bus ride down from Bangkok to Koh Phangan was incredibly eventful in itself. To start off with we were in the back row so seats wouldn't recline (an overnight trip so it's pretty bumpy and brutal). As we were so far away from the TV we couldn't see anything and in addition none of the reading lights were working. The bus was freeeeezing and the nobs which turn the blasts of air away from you were broken, nor were there any blankets...Aza was lucky to have a South African guy beside him who was incredibly intoxicated he drank virtually a whole bottle of scotch then managed to spill the rest so the bus stunklike cat's piss. After finishing banging on the bus windows every time the bus went past women, the guy fell asleep and proceeded to be the loudest snorer we had ever heard who was partial to letting out gas haha. And often enough he would fall onto Aza or try to rest his feet on him (he was a big dude!). Now that's the easy stuff....
About 6 hours in (about midnight) one of the rear wheels of the bus fell off as we were cruising along at 100kph. Luckily nothing happened - we gradually halted to a stop and after waiting on the road for about 5mins another big bus appeared out of nowehere. Tired and grumpy everyone was ordered off the bus to go on to the other one - everyone started to protest that they didn't have their bags. We were then reassured that the new bus was taking us down the road for a pit stop and that the current one would be fixed and would come down to pick us up....sure enough they couldn't fix it so after about an hour of waiting we backtracked up the road another 30mins back to the original bus and were ordered to grab our bags and put them on the new bus...
Given that our bags had been left unattended for so long people wanted to open their bags and check that nothing had been stolen...sure enough some girls found that theirs had been opened and other guys found random possessions in their bags which had been misplaced. The staff started getting agitated and started grabbing all the other bags and chucking them onto the new bus...this sent people off as they hadn't seen their bag etc and so started demanding that all bags be pulled out again etc....people were angry, cursing, frustrated and weren't receiving any answers, only that we were wasting time and had to 'hurry'....Thing is, noone complained that they actually had lost anything. Regardless, people weren't happy and there was continuous grumbling and shouting as the bus continued down the road whilst the staff simply ignored everyone. Aza and I were fine - our bags were locked, plus we had seen them go onto the new bus....furthermore as we had changed bus we managed to get far better seats though to our dismay the intoxicated guy proceeded to sit infront of us though luckily fell straight asleep (silently this time!)....how did we end up with such a shocking bus? We found the cheapest deal on Khao San Rd haha...at only 450baht we should have foreseen that it would be crap. Anyways makes for a good story!
So at 8am we arrived in the town of Surantthani and were soon put onto ferries which first dropped people off on the island of Koh Samui (we had planned to spend one night here, though opted out as other travellers had warned us that it was too developed and pricey for backpackers...). At 11am we arrived on the island of Koh Phangan, aka the full moon party island!!
Given that we had arrived a day ahead of our booking we had to find somewhere else for one night - this wasn't hard, we went straight next door and found a very modest bungalow straight on the beach! Though not the best on the island (shallow swimming waters and rocks here and there) the sand itself was great and the whole setting was very picturesque....We quickly got in touch with Fitz, Chris, Patrik and Angie (people from the 11man group during the Mekong Delta cruise way back in Vietnam!) - they were about 20mins away and soon convinced us to join them for a 'pool party' at their end of town that night! The party was crazy and it was great fun to catch up with everyone as it had been over a month since we had parted...the drinks were cheap, the pool was on the beach (which had a swimming platform) and the dancefloor was massive!! Put it this way, we didn't get home early...
Next morning we checked out and moved next door to the lovely 'Coco Garden Bungalows' resort which was everything it promised to be from online. At only 500baht for a bungalow (fan, cold water) it was a bargain, especially during the full moon party! And what's more we were right (and we mean literally right) on the beach - at high tide, the water was right below us!! There was a volley ball net right beside us, and the bar (also right on the beach) was an awesome place to simply chill and relax on cushions whilst slurping cocktails/slushies!!
Ingo also arrived this day, which so happened to be Fitz's birthday!!! Yippee another excuse to party haha. Today the others came out to hang out at our beach and aza decided to make him a present (well it came to him went we were in the local supermarket and saw a funnel...).You guessed it, the present was a beer bong! So armed with 640ml beer Changs (the strong stuff!) we spent the rest of the day/night playing volleyball, sunbathing, lying in the hammock on our balcony, eating and yep 'beerbonging'!! Arg it felt like Vang Vieng all over again haha.
Next morning (more like afternoon) it was Full Moon Party day!!! This day had been penciled in our calendar since day one - for those of you who don't know, it is the world's biggest beach party with close to 20 000 crazy people raging on the one beach with bars pumping out all kinds of music right through to lunchtime the next day...Armed with fluro paint we lathered eachother up and were ready!!
Yes...it was crazy. Lined down the whole beach are stalls trying to sell you buckets...and because there are so so many of these stalls it becomes very easy to bargain discounts to the point of an 80baht bucket of local Thai Whisky and redbull (if you can handle it- it's nasty!). One is usually enough to get you going (about $4NZ) though you can shell out tripple for decent spirits. Word of warning though, many places either water everything down or completely replace the alcohol (I had one guy confess to me that he put the Thai whistky into Jack Daniels bottles and sell it at 5times the price haha). So always check the seals first...!
SO you can hang out at the UV bar, or you can jump the skipping rope (it's actually a massive rope which is blazing on fire and causes so so many injuries as people get slapped in the ankles, groin or worse, the face!! there's a hoop (also on fire) that people try to jump through and there's heaps and heaps of people doing fire shows which are very very impressive to watch (and don't worry we didn't receive any burns!). Some bars at the end of the beach play chillout tunes with 'chillout' cushions whilst those in the middle are thumping out the tunes and have usually erected a very dodgy-looking platform on the beach (that feels like it's about to collapse from all the jumping!)....so you guessed it, it was a very early morning for us (in fact the sun was coming up) as we crawled back to our bungalow, relieved to make it to our beds...
So the full moon doesn't end here....after about 3hours of sleep aza and i awoke to a massive bang coming from our bungalow proceeded by the odd jolt and shaking of the entire structure. In our state (!) we simply shrugged it off and tried to go back to sleep until about a half later we awoke again to a MASSIVE jolt that felt akin to a decent earthquake. We could also hear some weird sputtering sound coming from outside/ below us. Grumbling, Aza decided to investigate...
Within seconds I heard "holly s***!" when we both realised that the bungalow was in the process of collapsing - the bangs and jolts we heard were the pillars below us completely snapping in half and the hissing sounds was the mains electrical wire below us which had came loose earlier and was swaying around underneath (actually about a half hour earlier both aza and I had accused eachother or turning the fan off but in our state we had shrugged it off and had tried to go back to sleep haha). We both then realised that the entire structure was in a serious lean and we could hear the bathroom tiles in the room next to us falling off the wall and smashing onto the ground...in addition it seemed as if the entire structure was shaking.
Well...to date we have never packed our bags so incredibly fast!!! We grabbed everything and threw it outside whilst strategically (trying!) to not upset the balance of the bungalow which could potential result in it going under...We were s*** scared and boy was the adrenalin flowing. I then ran screaming to reception screaming "the bungalow is collapsing, the bungalow is collapsing!" (haha in hindsight this is very funny as I still would have been very drunk and probably woke up the entire resort)...what had happened was that there had been an unusually high tide which started to sweep away the foundations of our bungalow. Sure enough being allocated the best bungalow in the resort was too good to be true!! In 5 years the staff had never seen such a high tide and were shocked with what they saw...
Well we got a free breakfast (the works!) out of it and the staff were kind enough to find us somewhere else to stay (next door as Coco was otherwise full unfortunately). We had booked in for 4 nights and so far had only stayed for 2. The new bungalow allocated to us (next door, on the other side this time) in comparison was rubbish including carboard beds and an outside bathroom with bugs everywhere. Feeling discouraged we didn't want to end our stay on the island feeling miserable so we decided to leave to our next location asap, early the next morning...We spent the rest of our day catching up on sleep, lying on the beach and sharing our story haha.
We soon learnt that other friends of ours (Hik and Monique) had also had a crazy 'full moon' on another island in Thailand whereby their entire beach resort had burnt down overnight!! Luckily they and their belongings were safe although they endured a massive hassle with the motorbike rental company as their hired bike had disappeared with the flames....SO there was certainly strange going on during the first full moon of the year!!
Afterthoughts - despite our bungalow collapsing (almost, as far as we knows it may still stand though is unhospitable) we would have no hesitation in going back to Coco Garden as it was otherwise fantastic! Yes the Full Moon Party itself was a great night, though since then we have learnt that a foreign girl was strangled on the same beach that night which gives us second thoughts about returning...Lastly don't be surprised if we have slight reservations the next time we are offered a bungalow only inches from the water haha....
So we had arrived on a Thursday morning and then left the following Monday morning on an express ferry headed for Koh Tao - our long-awaited scuba diving destination...
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