Yesterday we took a boat to Ko Phangan, the island a bit north of Ko Samui, in order to witness the world renown Original and Largest Full Moon Party. Everyone we had met over the last few weeks told us that they were planning to attend so we figured it was worthwhile to see on our last night in Thailand. We didn't even book a hotel for the night as we planned to be up all night watching fire shows and listening to music. This proved to be a mistake.
Before we hit the shore we could instantly see that Koh Phangan is a beautiful island. It has many mountains and waterfalls (which fortunately makes it harder to build on) and is also surrounded by white sandy beaches with fairly clear water.
If not for the people it would be a really terrific island, but unfortunately the island has been polluted to no end (primarily from monthly full moon parties), making it one of the most depressing islands we have seen.
Sadly this is also the most Israeli island in Thailand, with many touts first speaking in Hebrew and only switching to English if the tourist doesn't understand. Israeli flags are larger than the other countries and mounted higher. Restaurants serving Israeli food are plentiful.
On to the Full Moon Party.
The music started about 7 PM but people didn't really begin to filter onto the beach until somewhere between 10 and 11.
The anticipation for the party was palpable. You could feel the super heavy bass vibrate the ground below your feet and deep within your chest. People were lining up to purchase "buckets" which are plastic buckets filled with a type of alcohol and a soft drink which you then mix yourself in the bucket to drink. (Most sellers tout "Free Ice!")
By about 11 PM the party was in full swing: people dancing and fire flying. I have little to say about dance as I know nothing about it but I was not a fan of most of the music as it was all techno and electronics. This was a big let down as the Lonely Planet book said there would be Reggae as well.
They did the fire jump rope again which I thought was cool last time, but I decided not to do it (even though I mentioned earlier I would like to). The main reason for opting out was because you don't jump by yourself but rather with everyone else who wants to jump as well (like at a bar mitzvah), making it likely you are going to get burned due to someone (drunk) missing a jump. (It rarely got past 3 or 4 turns.)
This is the same issue that kept me from jumping through the ring of fire as well: You have to trust the guys holding the rings to keep it steady.
I did give fire limbo a try, but my knee gave out early on. (This is not dangerous as everything is in your control since the bar stands on stilts.)
Due to my boredom, I spent about an hour watching the emergency medical tents which proved to be very interesting. There were two connected tents in the middle of the beach where people with injuries would come to get basic medical treatment and be mocked by fellow party goers and doctors.
The first guy I saw was a 19 or 20 year old that accidentally drank a laced drink. As he lay down shaking, crying and hallucinating, fellow party goers posed pictures with him: Some making mock sad faces, others sexually provocative, and others just posing with huge grins.
Another bloke, who reminded me of John Belushi in Animal House (who died of an overdose of Heroine and Cocaine), was either stoned or drunk out of his mind (or both). He just sat there going in and out of consciousness. He received the same treatment as the fellow above, but the crowd had decided to up the anty by having one guy shave off his eyebrows with a razor blade. This won loads of laughter. Even the doctors were posing for pictures.
I forgot to mention that the doctors and nurses were allowing this ridiculous mistreatment of patients the entire time, as well as laughing, and taking pictures of humorous injuries (About two hours later I saw the guy, with no eyebrows, dancing in slow motion over a fire in the shape of a heart clearly wasted away having no idea what was going on and that he no longer had eyebrows.)
The injuries I saw most listed in order of most frequent to least frequent were: Cuts from glass (primarily due to the littered bottles on the dark beach floor), alcohol/drug overdose, fire burns, and blunt traumas (from falling from tables and platforms while dancing). There are probably more injuries that I missed. As I was waiting for the boat I saw one guy being taken by stretcher to the hospital boat to be taken off the island to a real hospital.
Basically the night was filled with debauchery and crude behavior. The shore line was filled with hundreds of men and women defecating and vomiting throughout the night. For your sake, I will not describe the rest of the night and everything I witnessed.
On a bright note, throughout our trip we felt that we were missing out to a degree as we never partook of the night life due to religiousity. After this party I am certain we didn't miss anything.
Why people enjoy debasing themselves to less than animals is beyond me. There was absolutely no class at the entire party. It was the lowest of the low. The bottom of the mud. Completely self centered and hedonistic.
It's an absolute shame that these people are ruining our world with the pollution from their parties. Ko Phangan was a paradise before they destroyed it with their nightly self-centered parties. Leonardo DiCaprio actually mentions the destruction of Ko Phangan in The Beach now that I think about it.
Now to mention some positives...
There were likely over 30,000 people there making it an absolutely huge gathering on a fairly small beach. It was pretty crazy.
Some of the fire shows were really amazing and seeing people attempting to jump ropes and fly through hoops was entertaining.
The fire signs they had were also excellent as were the kites (?) that flew by lighting a fire underneath them.
The Koh Phangan full moon party is overrated. Trust me. Skip it if you are in Thailand.
Overall, I was less than pleased and took the first speed boat home at 2 AM but I would have prefered earlier. When I get back to Ko Samui we didn't have a hotel room so I decided I would like to try sleeping either on a city bench or on the beach - both would be firsts for me (and things I have always wanted to try.)
First I tried the city bench but the lights and noise from the street were annoying so I switched to a city bench nearer to Chabad a bit further from the street but the prostitutes kept propositioning me.
At about 3:45 AM I decided to give the beach a try where there were still a handful of people around. I gave it about 15 minutes but the sand was bugging me and I really didn't feel safe as anyone could come and take stuff from me as I was sleeping. So I head back to the Chabad bench - when about four streetwalkers approached me and asked if I had a hotel room for the night. I broke my silence and answered I did not and they offered me to have one of their rooms for free for the night.
I clearly did not take them up on this offer as how inappropriate can you get - even though they promised I would be totally alone and no funny stuff (no "boom boom" as the Thai's call it). I was taken back by their kindness though. I found it amazing the extraordinary contrast between the behavior of the people I saw a few hours earlier and now.
I decided that if the prostitutes felt so bad about me sleeping on the street it must be a pretty bad thing to do. After visiting a few hotels I was able to negotiate one hotel to give me a room for 100 baht an hour so I took it.
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