Part 2/2: Dancing until Dawn...

Now, we’re really not sure where the evening went…one moment we were arriving at around 11.30p.m, the next minute it was 7am and I was dancing on a table. Only a handful of memories remain…lots of dancing, a fair few buckets, and a bacon sandwich from Mr. K’s.

   It gets to the point during every drunken evening where you say to yourself ‘I want something meaty and greasy, and I want it NOW’…so around 4am, we headed towards the aptly-nicknamed Chicken Corner to get some munchies. Poor Mr. K was looking a little stressed, with dozens of sweaty, sozzled backpackers vying for his attention. One girl had to tell her friend to calm down after she got worked up over the spiciness of her chicken burger. ‘It’s not even red!’ she exclaimed angrily as Mr K. produced the offending burger. ‘Don’t be rude’ said her friend, to no avail apparently. We went for the classic bacon sandwich and cheesy chips…except the latter came sans cheese. Pat was not happy about this, but when I tried to tell Mr. K, he was still looking a little harassed from ‘Spicy Burger Gate’, so I let it be.



   Chicken Corner was not the only hairy-spot…people were getting tetchy in the toilets too. The categories ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gents’ ceased to be relevant, as it turned into a ‘first in the toilet, first to pee’ system. When one guy tried to question a girl standing in front of him, she swept her arm down the line of waiting girls and screamed ‘BUT WHAT ABOUT THEM?’. Calm down, love- we all need to pee- we’ve all drunk one too many buckets…

   I thought there were a lot of buckets in ‘Bucket Alley’, but the beach was something else. Bizarrely, all the Thai bucket vendors had adopted Western Christian names painted above their stalls, as well as the inevitable poetry: ‘Jack: F***ing Good Buckets’, ‘John: F**k my Bucket’. The strangest of them all was probably ‘Bethlehem’s Good Buckets! Jesus’ Favourite’. I don’t recall reading that in the Bible…especially the quote ‘Have my F***king Bucket’. If you stepped within 10m of each stall, they would start grabbing wildly, desperate for you to take one of their good buckets, sometimes even offering something free!

   So, you can see why the night went pretty quickly! Partied-out at 6am from all the bar-hopping, with the Red Bull finally wearing off, we sat on the sea edge to watch the revelry still happening around us. As we sat, the sun began to rear his head, and I became entranced by the silhouette of a fisherman in front of the pinky-lilac dawn. In the light of morning, the true extent of party damage became clear- glass bottles lay strewn along the sea-edge, whilst a poor lonely sole traipsed with a bin-bag to pick up the broken glass. The 100B entry charge cannot be disputed after seeing that. By now it was 6.45am, but the party was far from over- in front of the biggest bars, there were still just as many loonies dancing wildly. On our way to the taxi, I couldn’t resist joining them, and like I mentioned before, my night ended dancing on a table as a fuchsia pink sun rose above my head.

   The taxi ride home in a ‘song-taa-ou’ (‘truck tuk-tuk’, I like to call it) was an unexpected highlight of the whole night, thanks to the good banter provided by fellow taxi-riders. A few key moments pretty much summed up the night. The friend of one guy in our taxi, Tom, was presumed lost, then suddenly turned up. ‘Where have you been?’ Tom asked. ‘I had a massage, then I can’t remember…’ replied his friend. Another guy outside the taxi spoke for 10,000 partiers as he shouted ‘I JUST WANT MY BED’, clearly frustrated, making a frantic pillow gesture with his hands to a bewildered taxi driver. I knew how he felt; the taxi proceedings were painfully slow. So slow, that a French guy in our taxi read our lady driver’s name from the taxi register, and kept shouting it out in an effort to speed things up. ‘Wanida!’ he shouted, ‘let’s go, Wanida!’ It was funny at the time- very annoying for her, I’m sure. Eventually we were on our way, Wanida putting her foot on it, with an Irish guy drinking a Chang and hanging off the back of the overcrowded taxi. Even when we swapped ‘song-taa-ou’s’ half way into the journey to create more space, he still insisted on hanging off the back- keeping the party alive! Despite the bumps and up-and-down, most of the group managed to sleep until we arrived back at Than Sadet, where we stumbled out of the ‘song-taa-ou’, stumbled across the beach, stumbled up the cliff-stairs, and collapsed onto our bed.

Partied-out.

   So, did the Full Moon Party live up to the hype? It was much more approachable and varied than I thought it would be…yes, there were 50,000+ people, but the vibe of every bar and bucket stall was somehow different, making it feel like a thousand parties under the stars. I’d actually love to go again- and this time, I’d find some paint to coat myself in…

   Colleen and Bob arrive tomorrow- until then, a bit of exploration, a bit of relaxing, a lot of eating…perfect. Ko Phan-gnan for a few days, Ko Samui for a few days, back to Bangkok for a day, and then THE NORTH! Our time in Thailand’s going very quickly…

Plaa's pet pig...who somehow managed to climb down the cliff onto the beach.
Maybe pigs can fly after all?...