party hardy

The night before the Full Moon Party on Koh PhaGnan, we went to a Muay Thai fight. I used to train, so it was cool to see professional fighters doing their thing and recognize some of the moves. The first fight was between two young boys. They looked to be around 10 years old. At first it was cute, but then one kid knocked the other out and when the crowd started cheering, I thought about how strange this seems.

The gym was packed out with a mostly white audience. I think there were about 6 fights in all and the last fight was between an Enlish guy and a Thai, which of course the crowd went crazy for. The Thai man won.

The full moon party was crazy. Chris and I met up with our friend Will and a bunch of people that he had met on his travels. A group of us went our for dinner then joined in on the body painting festivities. After much reluctance I let Chris paint a neon yellow star on my back and I painted a tribal moon on his back. 

The beach was packed! Apparently in high season these parties can attract up to 30,000 people! I have no idea how many people were there this time, but the beach was too crowded for my liking and so dancing seemed out of the question. Most people were just walking around, drinking and doing stupid things. Vendors were lined up down the beach selling "buckets", which are basically sand pails filled with alcohol, pop, Red Bull, and roughly five straws. Apparently the Red Bull here contains amphetamines...

It was like a big frat party, like the kind you hear about during spring break. What I found most disgusting was the line up of guys along the shore pissing into the ocean. Girls would walk out waist deep and do the same. There was also a "sleeping area" where all the comatose people were piled up on a tarp, fenced in from the crowd. I heard stories of cops who come to these parties and make tons of money off of unsuspecting tourists. They pretend to sell drugs and whoever offers to buy, they bust and ask for a rather large sum of money. If the person doesn't pay, they are arrested. And no one wants to be arrested in Thailand! 

We left the party after a couple of hours then went to 7 Eleven and bought some chocolate to make up for the disappointment.

We checked out the beach at around 5pm the following day. Most of the rubbish had already been cleaned up, except for the straws. There were straws littering the beach as far as the eye could see. And cigarette butts.

We headed up to Bottle Beach after all the madness in Haad Rin. It was a nice getaway from it all as the beach is only accessible by boat.