The Full Moon Party on Koh Pangan should be on your list of things to do before you turn 35! I spent a full week in Thailand with my lovable lesbian-ites and what a blast it was. Oh, and it hasnt bent me in any way which is rather disappointing! Hah! Our journey started from KL to Koh Samui. BBs was supposed to be on our flight out from KL but the silly girl had complications with her passport and had to fly out from Singapore. Babes, next time check your passport expiry date before booking your trip overseas. We did all our reservations via the Internet. Air tickets were done through
Berjaya Air and accomodation was done through
sawadee.com. We stayed at a budget luxury boutique hotel called First Residence. It was situated at the North of Chaweng Beach, away from the noisy night life in the central part of Chaweng, which was a relief. The hotel was brand new and I highly recommend it to those on a budget. It was clean, modern and has a pool. Only thing is it was a 5 minute walk to the beach. I've always been used to staying on Chaweng beach itself where the beach is outside my room. But this hotel was good value for money and I didnt mind the little bit of walking I had to do.
Koh Samui was nothing but a whole week of eating, drinking, getting massages, sun baking and partying. One of the best times I've had on holidays. November Cleo truly lived up to her reputation of being a party animal. She wanted to party every night till 6am in the morning! But I'm happy she made us do it, cos we'll probably regret it now. Despite the late nights (or should I say early mornings), we still managed to get our asses out of bed relatively early and made sure we didnt waste the sun filled days. Most days were spent on the beach at Samui. We did do a diving/ snorkeling trip to Koh Tao and Koh Nangyuan, which were both magnificent. Clear waters, bright sunshine and more importantly a bar on the beach. We were so silly, we took photos imitating Singha beer commercials. November Cleo gets the Oscar performance for her photo! Siew Yum did her thing in Koh Tao and Koh Nangyuan. She went diving out in the open waters. She didnt think it was that great though.
Our all time favourite hangout in Samui was none other than the
Green Mango and its surrounding bars. We were at Green Mango every freakin' night! Siew Yum's highlight at Green Mango was the traumatic experience she had to endure in the ladies toilets. There was one night we were at the club and she needed to use the toilet. Nothing unusual there until some Thai hooker decided to join her in the same cubicle, then proceeded to do her business on the floor! Yes, the floor of the cubicle. I guess Siew Yum shouldnt really be too affected by the sight of another woman's genitals right??
Our nightly ritual after Green Mango was always followed with a bowl of noodles outside the club. This stall served by far the best tasting pork noodles on the island. We just couldnt get enough of it. I feel like a bowl now :-P
We got to meet a whole lot of fellow tourists, some of which were from Melbourne. What a small world. Met a group of guys from KL, one of which is a star in a local reality tv show called
Cornetto Love Perhaps?. How interesting. We also met a group of Muay Thai fighters & trainers from the reality tv show
Contender Asia - Muay Thai. That was our 2 second brush with fame.
Koh Pangan was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was funny when we got on the boat to Pangan. Can you believe the boat doesnt dock at the pier? And the pier was right next to the boat! Instead we had to walk out to the boat in the water! That was rather interesting. The full moon party was awesome. It was a coincidence that the full moon party in December fell on Christmas Eve. So we had a blast of a time celebrating Christmas at a full blown rave party on the beach. It is impossible to describe the party in words. The whole stretch of the beach was filled with different clubs and bars, all pumping out different genres of music. The beach was also packed with ravers from all over the world. Bars were serving drinks by the bucket. I kid you not, drinks were served by the bucket. We met up with a friend of mine from KL at Pangan and had a great time partying with him. It was a shame we didnt stay on the island over night and had to take a speedboat back to Samui cos we were all quite reserved with our drinking incase we got sick on the boat. I've been to Samui half a dozen times and this full moon party was a first for me and man was it good fun!
Back on Samui, we spent a day on a elephant trekking tour, watching a monkey show and riding ATVs (I sucked at it big time). We also went to a live Muay Thai show at the local Muay Thai stadium. It was amazing how the stadium was decked out with a bar that served food and alcohol. Can you believe we could also smoke in there while the kick boxers were fighting in the ring? Only in Thailand. There was one night we went to a night market and found a stall selling deep fried grass hoppers and other weird grubs. We bought a serve of each and took it back to our hotel for a tasting session, washed down with beer ofcourse. It was an experience alright. Cant say I would go all out for a dish of grubs anytime soon, but what surprised me was there wasnt much taste to any of it. They all tasted the same, like deep fried chips. But the thought of it is enough to make me go quesy all over.
To end our amazing trip, BBs and I took the plunge and went to get a tattoo together. It was honestly a lot less painful than I expected. Cant wait to get another one!
