Koh Phangan is well-known for its monthly full moon parties, half moon parties, black moon parties, shiva moon parties... basically for any phase of the moon, there's a party. The main point of us heading up there was for the October full moon party where we'd buy neon outfits, cover ourselves in body paint, drink buckets all night, dance at the many stages on the beach, and watch the sunrise in the morning.
Of course, that never happened. The king of Thailand died five days before, and the country entered a period of mourning. I explained in my last entry why it was such a big deal and a loss for the country. The king reigned for 70 years and was well loved by the Thai people. I can't discuss the ramifications any further than that, one because nobody really knows, and two because discussing politics can be dangerous here, so I hope nobody gets the impression that I'm downplaying it. I can really only talk about what it's been like to experience it.
As a tourist, it was a bit strange to be there to see. Some things went back to normal pretty quickly. A lot of markets reopened and some establishments were allowed to play music again, but any special parties or events were still to be called off. There could be no excessive displays of festivity. No entertainment programming was to be shown on TV for a month, and the BBC coverage of the king's death was pulled because they didn't like how it was being presented. The Google site in Thailand is black. Our friend said most of his Thai apps have gone black too.
Being on the islands, you didn't see so much of the mourning. There are a lot of tourists, and things mostly went about as usual. A lot of the Thai people were wearing colors. However, we went back to Bangkok afterwards, and you could see a huge difference. Almost everyone in the city is in black. Portraits of the king are lit up all over the streets. Khao San is playing no music, and Soi Cowboy is closed indefinitely.
As I said before, the biggest impact to us was the cancellation of events. While a time of mourning is expected, it's also rough for people who have spent a lot of money and time to travel for something that is no longer happening.
It wasn't just the Full Moon Party. Sold out concerts were cancelled, the Grand Palace is closed, and a lantern festival that we routed the whole end of our trip around next month is also, at the moment, cancelled. It definitely is a hit to people's plans, especially when you have no intentions of flying all the way back to a place just to make up an event that you missed the first time.
Anyway, despite what was going on, we'd already booked our tickets and accommodation in Koh Phangan, so we were going no matter what. I had expected this to be the craziest part of our trip, so it's kind of funny that it ended up being the most chilled out.
As a quick side note, I was raging the first day we were there because my camera had broken. It wouldn't even turn on or charge batteries. I got it to come to life a couple times by smacking it against my palm, but it was pretty hopeless. As a result, all of the photos from this island were taken on the GoPro or Lewis's iPhone... which is why I have less photos than usual and why they're of a totally different quality.
Getting There
We came from Koh Phi Phi, so it was a long day of travel to Phangan. We caught a morning ferry to Krabi, transferred onto a bus there, spent 3-4 hours heading north, then had to get another ferry from Donsak pier to Koh Phangan. Overall, it was around 10 hours of travel, and we didn't arrive on the island until late evening. On the bright side, at Donsak pier we saw pink dolphins in the water! First time in my life to see these cool creatures! They were swimming alongside the normal grey dolphins, but you'd just see a pink fin and body flip up through the waves as well and it was so awesome.
Phangan Rainbow Bungalows
When I was planning for the party, I had been advised to stay further away from Haad Rin Beach so we'd have a chilled out place to go back to afterwards. The Phangan Rainbow Bungalows were on Bankai Beach about a 10 minute drive from Haad Rin, and they only cost us each about 7 pounds a night to share one.
The bungalow itself, while cute from the outside with a little porch, was pretty basic. It was a tile floor, a double and single bed, small bathroom, and no air con- just a fan. The location was gorgeous though. We were right on the beach... a very pretty, clean beach. The tide would be so far out during the day that you could walk halfway out to these umbrellas in the middle of the sea and still only be knee-deep in the water.
It was run by an Aussie guy, his Thai wife, and her family. You could help yourself to drinks out of the fridges and just write down what you took to pay later. The restaurant was really good as well and we had breakfast there every day, sometimes along with dinner. I had my first massaman curry and it was delicious.
There was also a fancy resort right next door on the beach called Chantaramas, and they had an infinity pool that we paid to use (200 baht). It looked right out on the ocean and we swam around, ordered cocktails, and laid on the beach recliners. Not a bad day!
Getting Around
We once again rented a motorbike for our time on the island which was infinitely helpful and cost-efficient for getting around. Tuk tuks on Phangan will charge 100 baht a person whether it's a 5 minute drive or a 20 minute drive and regardless of whether there are four people going to the same place or one. The motorbike cost us 200 split between us for a day, so a full day was the same cost as a one-way tuk tuk ride. Gasoline is sold in bottles on the streets for about 40 baht.
Island Exploration
We covered quite a bit of the island on the bikes. On Saturday night, we went to the night markets in Thong Sala. I ended up with a couple of tops, some cool snake bracelets, and an ankle bracelet, because obviously my backpack isn't already heavy enough.
We had a couple of nice dinners out. The Japanese Cafe near the night markets was really nice with cushions on the floor to sit on and great authentic Japanese food. I also got Lewis to go to a vegan restaurant with me one night, Eat.Co. He was obviously thrilled at the prospect. I had this mushroom kebab that was seriously amazing (and Lewis didn't hate his dinner either but I told him I'd pretend he did).
After our dive practice pool session (will get to that), our instructor Jet recommended we check out the 360 Bar overlooking the island, so we went up there one evening for a quick meal and cocktails. It was super chill with great views and Bob Marley playing the entire time.
Afterwards we went down the hill to snorkel just off the beach there. The water was really shallow, but we saw a few fish here and there.
Sail Rock Dive
The center focus of Koh Phangan in the absence of the party was easily our scuba dive. If you happened to read my Great Barrier Reef post, you know that I am no big fan of diving and it was not something I was in a rush to do again, but Lewis had never been and wanted to sign up for one. Despite my fears of drowning and whatnot, I do really like seeing life underwater. Being able to watch fish in their natural habitat is so much cooler than seeing them in an aquarium.
We set out one morning looking for dive centers and found one at the top of the island called Sail Rock Divers. I wanted to do our dive at Sail Rock since it's a popular spot, and although there were some companies that offered one dive there at a cheaper price, with Sail Rock Divers they offered two dives as well as a training session for 3100 baht. It was the first big expense we hit in Asia at the equivalent of about 70 pounds, but diving anywhere is a pricy activity.
When we went to inquire about diving the following day, they set us up to do a training session right then. They paired us with an instructor, a young South African guy named Jet who was just as cool and chilled out as you would expect a dive instructor named Jet to be. He was really laid back and couldn't have been more patient, so I was glad he would also be doing our actual dive with us the next day.
Since I went over the basics of diving in my first dive blog, I won't bother with it again. Jet went over all of that with us- equalizing, clearing the regulator, getting on our equipment, and clearing our masks- and I didn't mind the refresher course. We got in the swimming pool to practice all of it and went down to the floor of the deep end. He packed up our bags for the morning with the same equipment we used there so we knew our flippers, wetsuit top, and dive pack fit us well.
I only had one issue which remained a problem the following day and would prevent me from ever diving as a regular activity (you know, assuming I actually liked the ocean well enough to want to). I seem to have a problem with my left ear in that I struggle to get it to pop. It's the same ear I have trouble with after flights and when I'm sick, and it can be really painful when changing altitudes quickly. Jet was really cool about it, and we took it really slow going down every time. If it was painful and not equalizing, I'd just come up a little bit and try again. We couldn't go down really deep as a result, but luckily Lewis was alright with that too, and we still made it to 9 meters on our second dive.
The morning of the dive, we were picked up at our bungalows at 7 AM and taken to the dive center and then the pier. It was about a 45 minute boat ride out to Sail Rock, but they served us sandwiches and coffee, and we made friends with an American couple on their honeymoon.
When it came time to dive, I got just as nervous as I did the first time. We all jumped in and swam over to Sail Rock. It was actually a lot smaller than I expected, but there are so many fish living around it! The instructors had set up dive lines all around, so we found our rope and held onto that as we descended into the water. Jet checked on us each meter we went down to make sure everything was alright, then he held onto our packs to take us to the rock.
Since it was just a discovery dive, Jet did all of the swimming and we just got to float along and look around at the marine life. We saw giant schools of fish and felt like part of the group while we swam behind them. There were lots of sea urchins, anemones, a couple of gorgeous big blue fish, and some huge barracudas that just appeared in front of us. The visibility wasn't very good (-5) since it had rained overnight which was too bad, but it gave the water a kind of eerie surreal feel since you could only see a short length in front of you.
The first dive lasted about 40 minutes and we came up after we'd circled the whole rock. We took a break on the boat for some lunch, then we headed back in a second time. This dive was a little bit longer and the visibility was a little better (5), plus Jet said he barely held onto us unless we were floating up or down. We saw tons of barracudas the second time and just as many fish. It was a cool experience, and Lewis really enjoyed his first time diving too!
We went back to the center afterwards to pay and get our log pages for the dives. Afterwards they dropped us back at our bungalows, and since it was only 2:30, we figured we'd have plenty of time to nap after our showers. It was the night of the full moon, and we had a friend from Phi Phi on the island who we were going to meet up with to still go out and see what Haad Rin was like.
Unfortunately, due to an unexpected circumstance, I had a total panic attack that afternoon and wasn't able to sleep at all. By the time I calmed down in the early evening and we had dinner, we were both too exhausted to keep our eyes open.
I was really upset I missed going out, because apparently a ton of people still went to the beach for drinks even though there was no music. A few fire spinners even came out. It wasn't an actual Full Moon Party, but it still would have been nice to be there.
On our last day, we went down to Haad Rin anyway since we hadn't seen it. I was surprised at how much smaller the beach was than I had expected. I can easily understand how it gets so packed at the Full Moon Parties!
There are tons of shops in the little area selling Full Moon gear (I had seen a cool shirt at the night markets but didn't buy it since I was kind of bitter I wasn't actually going to a party), but it's not the nicest area of Phangan at all and I wouldn't have wanted to stay there.
We did find a nice little beach called Than Sadet where we had dinner that evening, then we got to sleep because it was another early start the next morning with a 7:30 pickup to go to the pier, a ferry up to Chumphon, and a bus to Bangkok. We didn't arrive in the city until 9:45 at night.
Than Sadet
After a day chilling out in Bangkok, seeing Ash again, doing laundry, and heading to Pantip Plaza (the largest building of electronics shops you'll find in Bangkok) so I could buy a new camera, we finally said goodbye to Thailand. Well, until mid-November anyway! The islands were a great way to break up our sightseeing and relax for awhile, and Bangkok was a great home base for the first month of our trip. For now though, we're kicking off the second half of our Asian adventure in Cambodia.