How nice is it to get to a nice paradisiac island... let´s discover Koh Samui.
Full Moon Party at Koh Phangan
How lucky we are. Our arrival date on the island coincides with the well-known Full Moon Party attracting four times a year thousands of backpackers for one of the biggest beach parties in the world. Up to 5,000 people can rageously dance on the beach until early morning.
We initially got a bad feedback from a few people telling us that the Full Moon Party lost its charm and is now very commercial and touristic, with a host of teenagers/yougsters getting hammered and vomitting on the beach.
Despite having this mitigated view, we had nothing special planned in the evening so we just give it a go to see how it tastes like. So we find a deal and book a combined return ticket "taxi-speed boat-taxi" to cruise late at night to Ko Phangan where the Full Moon Party usually takes place.
Anecdote: at the pier while waiting for our speed boat, we meet 6 young Australians with the same transportation pass as us, but with a big "VIP" tag. We curiously ask the benefits of having such a pass. And we got told that you have exclusive and priority boat transfer without queuing. Fair enough for 600 thb more in addition to the 800 thb standard fare. In reality, the Australian group embarks first and then other fellow travellers just follow them until the speed boat is full. The VIP pass is a joke, a scam to avoid and eventually these young people did not have nothing more than what we got with our standard pass...Bad luck for them. :-( We felt so sorry for them.
Once arrived at Koh Phangan in Haad Rin, we already hear the bits and see everybody painting their body using imaginative colourful shapes. We buy a painting kit and draw crazy drawings on our arms, face and legs... That's the Full Moon Party spirit.
Once on the beach, it is crowded of people in swim wear, dancing, drinking and shouting sometimes using the big podiums in front of each main bar. Each bar is playing a different music, from Goa trance to more house style, or more typical dance/techno music.
Anecdote: Francois did not hold the backpack on his front but went through the crowd by having it on his back and Weronika following suddenly and awefully realises that it is open. Her new Mulbury handbag purchased in Bangkok and new Iphone5 are gone. Speachless, upset, angry and tired, we just want to go back home and walk back to the pier at 1am to take a speedboat as soon as possible...
Bad night.
Once arrived at Koh Phangan in Haad Rin, we already hear the bits and see everybody painting their body using imaginative colourful shapes. We buy a painting kit and draw crazy drawings on our arms, face and legs... That's the Full Moon Party spirit.
Once on the beach, it is crowded of people in swim wear, dancing, drinking and shouting sometimes using the big podiums in front of each main bar. Each bar is playing a different music, from Goa trance to more house style, or more typical dance/techno music.
Anecdote: Francois did not hold the backpack on his front but went through the crowd by having it on his back and Weronika following suddenly and awefully realises that it is open. Her new Mulbury handbag purchased in Bangkok and new Iphone5 are gone. Speachless, upset, angry and tired, we just want to go back home and walk back to the pier at 1am to take a speedboat as soon as possible...
Bad night.
Muay Thai training
By hanging out in town, we pass by a ring with some foreigners training. Curious, we stop and we actually meet a group Polish doing a MuayThai training camp.
These people were actually already practicing MuayThai at home so they were all quite pretty good at it. We decide to give it a go so we schedule two group training sessions, each one of them of two hours.
Swim-Run-Swim
Serious beach training. Francois pushes to alternate between swimming and running on the beach.
So we get our swim goggles ready and go! Crawl to the boyle, then reach the other boyle and ride back to the beach. Quick! Quick, out of the water! Time to run, go, go go! Warm-up and then 30s-30s intervals doubled with 1min-1min. When we start to be tired, we finish off the session with the same swimming route as we started with. Time for stretching and to relax. Now we can order good sea food and rest ;-)
In the evening, we have a nice dinner on the beach and got entertained by fire junglers, creating nice light effectsnwe must say. amd all this with a tech/Goa-style trance/techno music as a background.
Beach ball game
Staying at the beach without doing anything but laying down on the relaxing seats, reading a book or a magasine is simply hardly possible (not to say impossible) in the Krafft world. So as soon as we reach the beach with "nothing to do", we got the idea to play beach ball with these wood rackets. That is so cool especially with the feet in the 30C sea. We still need more practice if we want to do more than 4-5 exchanges. Hem.
Scooter trip to local waterfalls & elephants :)
Market poll dancing girls & lady boys
Evening time. We go by scooter to the old town market to eat some good and inexpensive street food and we notice that there are multiple bars in a "round" shape (like 4-5m diameter) where people can seat anywhere around. In the middle of each of these small bars, there were some polls with sexy Thai girls trying sexy moves attract tourists to seat and buy drinks.
We also got hooked by some tall and slim "lady boys", proposing us to watch a cabaret spectacle for free. These near to perfect converted boys into girls still were not able to fool Weronika's eyes, immediately noticing their male features. Sorry for you lady boys... you still look like a boy.. :-(
Leaving Koh Samui: the adventure
We leave Koh Samui with a little adventure. We checked the collective taxis (a pick-up style car with benches behind) from the hostel and the drivers only propose unsane prices to transfer us to the pier where our ferry departs to Koh Phangan. After multiple taxis checked, we got upset to be tourist victims and pay 10x times more than the normal price based on the taxi meter. Se we decide to hitch hike on the side of the road.
After 15min, a pick-up car stops and a local foreigner offers to give us a lift further, but not at the pier. So we throw our bags on the rear of the pick-up and climb behind. Around 10kms after quite cooling down with the fresh air outside, we got dropped at another junction. This time, we wait even longer (about 30-40min) until a car stops. Some collective taxis stop but they offer a price sometimes even higher than the price from our hotel. Damn them!!! So we wait for more luck.
Eventually, a local normal Thai stops and hurra! He so kindly drops us at the pier. We are glad to arrive
