Big Mango Bar
drink and blog

Full Moon Day 2

Posted by sideshowBOB | Blog, Koh Phangan, Reader Submissions, Trip Report | Posted on March 6th, 2007

First Day Here

We were up early mostly cause the sun was up and we were to bed fairly early anyway. The breakfast spread was off the hook and as usual I find myself eating too much but I will try to balance it as much as I can with some “exercise”. After grub we returned to the room for some well u know. I will just state that this is a complex arrangement. Now we are dealing with 3 sex drives and I am finding that between us someone is always looking to get some. My abs hurt. We had a plan to get to “town” since we wanted to grab a few things and the other girl needed to hit Western Union. Yes – she has a newly found sponsor helping her out. We got a free ride back into town at 10, hit the bank and then cruised around, checked email and waited for our return ride home. The car was packed for the way back so we had to sit in the back of the truck. Once I get some pics downloaded I will include some in the posts.Once we got back we checked the bed out in the room again and then hit the pool. The pool is amazing. On a cliff side overlooking the ocean. Once again, apart from the girls working at the resort, I was with the only Thai girls we have seen at the resort. On paper this is not an issue but these were also the only thin girls as well. The rest of the girls, beached whales, at the pool looked like someone needed to be employed just to turn them over from time to time to make sure they were not getting overcooked. The funny thing about this was not only were all the other guys looking at us but even the male staff at the resort were watching since there was honestly nothing else worth checking out. Nothing is sadder than watching a fairly fit white guy, sitting with wifecow at the pool, trying to catch glances of the Thai birds without getting caught. I do feel for them. I remember the first time I came to Asia with a pretty fit white girl, I still found myself sneaking a peek since one just can’t help themselves. Not sure what it is but the more time that goes by while living in Thailand the more some of the white girls are looking fatter and fatter to me. I am sitting by the pool writing and next to me is 2 European girls, overweight, gorging on a couple of ice cream sundaes. Nothing even remotely attractive about it.

We spent all day between the beach and the pool. Awesome. It is such a clean break from BKK but I could never live around these places but visiting often can’t be bad. However I do miss BKK as well. I think the differences are appealing and BKK is such a great city all in all. Being in either place helps me to appreciate what they both have on offer.

The Pool:

Party planning. Seems I am never a good planner when it comes to holidays in Thailand. The actual night of the Full Moon is March 3 but this happens to coincide with a big buddhist holiday so there won’t be any partying. March 4 will be the delayed Full Moon party but the moon won’t be full and we have to leave on the 5th. So we have been scrambling all day to line up a boat to the Haad rin beach area for tonight, the 2nd, since people are thinking that the 3rd will not have any partying and the 4th might be too late. Problem with this is that there seems to be a shortage of transportation and as usual, the Thais are taking full advantage of this. Everything is costing about twice what it normally does. This is one of the lame aspects of high season and Full Moon combined. I am here already and will pull it together but I hate spending top dollar for it all. The only solution I see is staying right near where Full Moon festivities are, but not a very relaxed holiday – or book private transportation earlier but I am not sure that would have worked. Our resort is amazing and far removed from all the madness but getting to and from Full Moon party area looks to be difficult or at the very least costly.

One a sidenote, The newspapers are a day behind here. Kind of cool. So I was reading Thursday’s paper on Friday. The headlines were about the Thai Finance Minister resigning. It made me think back to a year in California when the gas prices were so high that some less than middle class people were having trouble coping. One California Senator was quoted in the paper discussing the price of fuel and could not understand why everyone was complaining. Well it seems the price he was referring to was about 20 US cents cheaper than it really was at the pump. It was later acknowledged that he did not really know the price since he is driven everywhere and his own cars are filled up by someone who works for him. Meaning the normal world, the one he was making laws for, was not really affecting his life. As I looked at the picture of the Finance Minister getting into his fancy car with his driver it dawned on me that the very finance laws or rules he was setting, prior to resigning, were never going to affect him but for sure they would affect the normal Thais trying to make a living on Koh Phagnan and would affect how I would survive doing business in Thailand. Funny how the world works that way.

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions since I am never able to declare one I can stick to but I do believe in Karma. My goal this year was to have a neutral Karma footprint at the very worst. Meaning I would do my best to curtail my negative Karma emissions. Not sure it is working given what happens next.

We took a nap and prepared for a night of partying. The boat was lined up at 9 pm to take us from our beach to a pier that we could walk from to check out pre-opening night for the Full Moon Party. So we hung by our beach, ate some seafood, drank wine and enjoyed people watching. The first glitch in the night appeared when the receptionist told us the water near our beach was too low and going to the beach party by boat was out of the question. Great. We finished up with dinner and headed to a truck that was going to drive us to the party over still more bumpy roads for close to an hour. Okay going but when drunk it will suck to come back this way. My reason for the boat was that I suspected it might be smoother and would make it easy if one needed to get sick along the way. However while in transit our driver got a call confirming we could meet at another nearby beach and take the boat all the way in. So we did.

Being the night before a full moon meant that the moon was almost full and the sky was lit up just the same. Taking a long tail boat late at night on mostly deserted waters was a treat. Apart from the noise of the motor things were mostly quiet and since we followed the coastline all the way we got great views for the entire trip. Was cool to see some areas with no people at all, some areas with only natives and some areas with hotel and resort development. Took about 45 minutes but we arrived in the haad rin area and walked to the beach area.

As I suspected it was basically a bunch of outdoor bars with huge speakers, some with outdoor seating and the ability to buy buckets of booze almost anywhere along the beach. Being that this was not the official night of Full Moon I have nothing to compare it to but it looked like it was not the normal madness. Comparing this to a few nights in Ibiza I would immediately declare that Ibiza is world class and tough to match. We cruised around, people watched(the whole point of going really), and sipped on our bucket of Smirnoff and Red Bull. We did find one nice place to sit and chill but after a while the music became lame so we moved to another area that was without chairs but was belting out some seriously good dance tunes. I was really hoping for this – some great music. We stayed for a good 2 hours or so, cruised through a few more buckets and chatted up those around us. Then the fun was spoiled but before I explain my stupidity let me make another point.

It is clear that a bunch of people come to Full Moon looking to get laid. U see boyfriends and girlfriends out to party but already knowing who they are going to be sleeping with. Then u see your standard white guy with his Thai girl – may be his girlfriend or may be a bar fine from Samui. Either way he brought his own in. Smart thinking. The rest of the groups were divided by either packs of boys with girls, packs of only girls and packs of only boys. The common theme among them is that apart from getting trashed they were hoping to get some but even though they had the I want to get some look in their eyes the was it was never going to happen. To be honest – I saw only a handful of cuties I would have even bothered wasting some of my precious holiday time pursuing. One of my ideas on this trip was to take Protege solo and see if we could pull a Farang but as u know already plans changed.

In summation it was bunches of drunk people chasing other drunk people in hopes that someone would score and the collective sigh of relief would exhale across the group. I bring all this up since I started to watch the people look at us when they walked by. If it was Farang girls they would shoot a glance of disgust across my bow but secretly I think they applauded me since we all could agree that at least I was getting some. Guys would walk by and try to sort out who I was with and decide which girl to hit on. Of course nether of the girls I was with gave anyone the time of day so that would fail. Other guys would acknowledge that the girls were both with me and just grin – little did they know it is tougher than it looks. The other behaviors came out only when we were separated. The girls would always go to the bathroom together which left me on the beach alone. Twice during one of these episodes I was getting glances from a white chick and was chatting her up in less than 5 minutes. Believe me folks, nothing to do with me, but these girls really want to get laid. They are on the their holiday for God’s sake. Who wants to return home from an international holiday without a few tales to tell?

Invariably every time I would return from the bathroom I would see a group of guys hanging around my 2 Thai girls hoping to land the motherlode. I would cruise up on them and resume my position of dancing the night way and then it would click that the girls were with me. Point is – a lot of frustrated single people looking to connect but from all appearances getting a lot less than the stories would have u to believe.

So there we were, drunk, and dancing on the beach under the full moon to some kicking tunes. Not amazing but fun none the less. The girls had left to go to the bathroom and I was watching our stuff. A group of people, who I assumed were Thai, crossed by me. 3 guys and 1 girl. They came very close and I remember standing over our stuff to make sure they would not walk on it. I never once  suspected they might be looking to take something. As they went by me one guy bumped me from the front and at the same time I could feel a hand going into my back pocket. I had actually stored all my stuff in a zippered pocket and knew no one could get it but of course I always keep my phone in my normal right front pocket since I am always texting people. So as I was protecting one pocket they grabbed for my phone but at the time I just did not feel it. Of course being full time pick pocketers I would assume they have some skills. Moments later as the group dispersed and I was checking to make sure they had not taken anything I realized my phone was gone. I was so pissed. At myself for letting it happen and at the inconvenience of it all. Honesty I would rather lose cash than my phone.

Now I needed to stop my phone, find all my numbers, and get a new SIM card. On top of all that I had also lost my little Sony memory key that I never leave home without. All just a big pain in the ass really and put me right out of my party mood.

I called DTAC and killed my SIM, Then we went hunting for some food. Comfort food. I got an amazing Chicken Schnitzel sandwich from a small street side restaurant. The people working there looked the same as the people who stole from me on the beach, not the same people, but the same look. I realized they were not from Thailand but spoke Thai. I asked him where he was from. He said Burma. But he quipped, “We are good Burmese but watch out for all the Burmese thieves.” Great. Now u tell me.

Turns out later as we chatted with our boat guys that Koh Phangnan has a serious problem with tons of Burmese people hiding on the island without legal status who resort to crime to get by. Supposedly on the actual nights of Full Moon parties the island tries to dispatch enough Thai Police to discourage the behavior but on off nights with full crowds the Burmese work in large groups to get what they can. As I recall we did not see any police at all during our time at the beach party. Live and learn.

We got back to our resort and finished the party in the room. Life ain’t half bad.