Lunar Maddness

i just got home from Koh Phangan, the full moon party, and one of the best trips of my life! i am getting used to bus toilets (and by used to, i mean i used it one time so far), backpacking, cold showers, guest houses, and being dirty ;) ;) actually, i was pretty clean this trip; i took on average more than one shower per day! and, they were freezing cold every time!!! pretty hardcore, i know.

last wednesday, charity, marney, natalia and i left bangkok at 630 pm and had a pretty uneventful bus ride (which is a great thing) down south. we got our good front seats, and half way through the trip two ladies got off, so it ended up that we all each had a whole row of seats, and charity slept in the front of the bus. once we got to the pier at surritani we met everyone else who had taken other buses and we all got on the ferry to koh phangan...there were about 12 of us at that point. three of our thai friends came with us on the trip and it was the best thing! they were able to get us cheap taxis and get us around the island effortlessly. we caught a cab to our guesthouse called "j.seaview bungalows". there were about 7 of our friends already there, and we were excited to meet them too...it feels like forever when we don't see each other for even one day since we are usually always together! there were about 10-15 bungalows hugging the side of a huge steep mountain. although it was literally a hike every time we needed to get something from our huts, it was so much fun! by the second day, my legs were killing me, and i seriously think it was from climbing the mountain so often! it was basically like living in jungle treehouses all weekend, and it was fabulous. we met "Toom", the owner of the guesthouse and she was the cutest lady. she and her family ran the whole place. we made friends with her son and they were so hospitable--always doing everything for us. at one point, bruno fell through one of his stairs and hurt his leg (minor hurt), and toom found out that two of our stairs had broken off and freaked out. she felt so bad, and she refused to let bruno pay for his stay because of it! she immediately moved us to new fresh clean huts even though we were leaving the next morning at 10.

living in tree houses is so peaceful it was nice to sleep in as late as we wanted to every single day, and then go to town, hang out on the beach, eat good food (amazing bread on that island!), come back, nap, get ready to go out, then party all night.......since we have SO much more responsibility here in bangkok ;)

after we got in on thursday we settled in and went to the beach. we ate lunch on the beach and then napped until 6 or 7. then, we went back to our huts and some of the other backpackers had cooked pasta for dinner. after everyone ate and napped we all got ready and went to Had Rin beach (the full moon party beach). that night was a good insight into what we were in for! even though it was not the actual full moon party there were thousands of people partying on the beach. i've decided that partying on the beach is super duper uuber fun, but that electronics and beach parties do not mix well. you think this would be obvious, but we ended up killing about 6 phones, an ipod, and also lost a ton of slippers. it was absolutely no guarantee that you would come home with two matching slippers, let alone slippers at all!


on friday, we woke up fairly early and went to another beach called bottle beach. this was on the very north side of the island, and pretty secluded. there were lots of topless european travelers, and us. again, like the day before, we relaxed, the boys played some volleyball, w fun.....back to good old punahou carnival days, extreme style! (see pictures of our masterpieces) the actual full moon was on friday night, but since i was an election night, they were not "allowed" to sell alcohol or have the full moon party. all of the 7-11's/convenience stores would e swam and ate. then, we headed back to our huts for round two. that night, we all painted ourselves with neon body paint! it wasnot sell alcohol but our friend dylan went to the beach earlier than us for the party and ensured us that there would be enough buckets to go around....again, the laws don't seem to hold entirely true here.....all the better for us! the buckets were pretty cool. they consisted of a flask of alcohol, two mixers, ice, and about 50 straws of all colors, shapes and sizes. also, on friday we found the infamous "mushroom bar".....literally a big bar at the end of the beach that sells mushroom shakes to anyone that wants them. we were all too afraid though because some of the backpackers we met had just gotten out of thai prison for doing shrooms and because the police on the island set up scams and go undercover to catch people for doing drugs......but we were determined at least to see if this place actually exists...and it does! people just sit there and stare at things. it was hilarious! and, again, like the previous night, friday was a blast....to say the least.

on saturday some of us went to a different beach, and brad, jon and i decided to try to do a "cultural event". we set out looking for a specific temple that was in a cave on the mountain. it was called wat something....i forget....i really should remember though because i heard brad ask people for it about 100 times that day. anyway, we walked to town to eat before embarking on our adventure, and on the way, we found some huge boulders and decided to climb them. it was pretty cool and we could see a good portion of the island from the highest ones, but the most entertaining part of it all was watching brad try to get from one rock to another to conquer his fear of heights (and by heights, i mean a 6 foot drop to the ground and a 3-4 foot gap between the rocks he was trying to jump....and don't forget, brad is about 6'5", with a huge wingspan, so this really shouldn't have been an issue!!! hahahah). after our rock climbing, we walked a long long long ways to a restaurant and ate an extremely satisfying meal. then, we took about 2 hours to find the temple that was only about 2 kilos away....go figure.....but, once we got there, it was pretty cool. we met a monk who wanted to teach us how to meditate and about buddhism so we had a crash course on meditation. he showed us how to do sitting, walking, and lying meditation, and he was an interesting character. he would talk very quietly, then all of a sudden be yelling about something! not like he was mad, but just because he was excited, or just didn't really understand the correct intonations of the english language...i don't know. but whatever it was, it was entertaining. brad LOVED it. i mean LOVED....jon and i were a little less in love with the monk, but still enjoyed our "cultural experience". after meditating, and hearing about how we "shouldn't be lazy or drink or smoke or do drugs", we were ready to go home and nap. and possibly party again ;) ;) horrible. i know. that night was a very lazy night for us though. we ended up hanging out in the main "treehouse/hut/office" and watching a movie. we slept early that night to prepare for the full moon party which was rescheduled for sunday.

by the time the real full moon party came around, there were only six of us left: "the final 6", we like to call ourselves! it was andy, marney, jon, natalia, bruno, and me. on sunday we went to haad rin beach during the day time and ate at a restaurant with a menu bigger than all of our school notes from the semester combined. this thing was massive. you could basically get anything your heart desired. and this was quite problematic for bruno. he almost did not eat (even though we were STARVING) because he could not decided. but, eventually he picked the first thing on the menu: american breakfast. bad canadian bruno!!! then, we walked around the town and shopped a bit...built up an appetite, went to another restaurant that was playing some episodes of Friends, sat, watched a few and then went back home. it was raining a bit that day, but nothing compared to the torrential downpours that occurred two of the four mornings we were there. bruno did a rain dance in hopes for rain that night, and i prayed that it wouldn't rain. bruno's rain dance worked.....sad. but it only rained for a little while. when we got back to the huts, we slept a bit then got extremely painted and then the six of us packed our selves into a small tiny car and headed for the FULL MOON PARTY!!!!!! HORRAYYYYY!!!! it was everything it was cracked up to be and more!

finally, our time had come to say goodbye to koh phangan....it was a sad goodbye, but we know we will be back, so it wasn't too depressing ;) toom helped us to book our tickets back to bangkok and took us to the ferry stop herself. the ferry ride was loooong...and the bus ride was kind of bad, but that's ok. we had the best weekend/week in koh phangan and we all survived our first full moon party! we "did not add to the statistics" (34 people died at the last full moon party....) as andy kept reminding us not to do all weekend....and he also always pointed out the blood stain from a head accident on the "road of death" for us. besides the roads of death, and very very expensive taxi rides, there is nothing you could possible dislike about koh phangan.

now, we have to study for midterms...i have two: international business and information systems. fun fun fun. fun. then, march is going to be SWEET! my family comes to visit me at the end of march, and i think a bunch of us are having visitors for spring break, etc. the next vacation is scheduled for next weekend: the GIBBONS EXPERIENCE! soooo excited about it--thanks for planning andy!

SUPER cool Thailand fun fact of the week:
i saw a REAL firefly!!!!! it was soooo cool! and it had a green light.

xoxox, mer