Full Moon Party

We're up late tonight.

 

For those of you that are not aware of this phenomenon, some places in Thailand have what is called a full moon party.  Each month, masses of people gather to party all night long, try out new kinds of music and drugs, stumble home semi-conscious at 7 AM and start figuring out what happened to their pants.  The biggest of these parties takes place on Koh Phangan, one of the three islands in the Samui archipelego where we have been for the last 10 days.  So as the hordes of people left our beach on Koh Tao to be ferried over to the party, what else were we to do but pack up our bags and bust ass in the opposite direction?  Tempting as the party may have been (which, as it turns out, was not all that tempting), we had to get back to Bangkok before Shabbat in order to catch our flight at dawn on Sunday.  So while the boats heading south were busting at the seams, we took a nice empty ferry and overnight bus back up north.  Well, it was supposed to be an overnight bus, but when it arrives in Bangkok at 3:20 in the morning, it should probably call itself a middle of the night bus.  Since the guest houses will charge us an extra night if we check in before 5 (because some one else may show up in the next hour and pay them for the empty room.  Really.) , we've got some time to kill. 

 

Our last 24 hours on Koh Tao were eventful.  We started with our first night dive, which exactly half of us really liked.  I liked the feeling of floating in the dark and watching the fish come in and out of the light from our torch, but Adina got a bit frustrated because she kept missing the cool things floating around us.  I saw a couple of spotted rays, some skittish shrimp, a HUGE crab, and when we shut off our lights and ran our hands through the water we churned up tons of neon green glow in the dark plankton.  The full moon shining through the waves above us was also pretty cool, as was the boat engine passing overhead in the dark.  Even though you know your 45 feet underwater, it's a bit weird to suddenly hear a loud roar encompass the space all around you.  Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure our guide was doped up on something, we managed to come out of the water alive.

 

Thursday we spent our time back in the water, albeit at the surface this time.  We went to Koh Nangyuan, a privately owned mini-island just of the coast (privately owned by jackasses who like to overcharge for everything) and climbed a small lookout point, then snorkeled in the water.  The island was gorgeous and the snorkeling was terrific.  Not the same as being under the water, but close enough.  After leaving the island (then discovering we were on the wrong boat, heading back to the island, finding the right boat, and leaving the island again) we packed up our bags, bought the requisite magnet, and caught our ferry.  After 10 days in the islands we've relaxed a bunch, taken in the beautiful scenery, learned to dive, and downgraded ourselves from blindingly white to startlingly pasty.  All in all, I'd call it a pretty successful leg of our trip.

 

Now if only the minutes would tick away a bit faster so we could get into Chabbad and get ourselves some meat.........