The last of the thai islands

If it is actually Friday like I’ve been told that means we are officially 3 weeks into the trip and it’s time to get our lazy butts of the islands and start actually traveling around. Tonight is the last night in our villa and then we are on a boat then train tomorrow as we quickly skip through Bangkok into before heading off to Cambodia. The islands have been a great experience but it does feel like it’s time to leave. I can only laze around on a beach for so long before I start to go a little crazy. We actually didn’t do all of that much lazing around, but you get the general idea.

I am happy to report that we all survived the full moon party. The old adage holds true, play hard, party smart, and aside from me having my cell phone pick pocketed the night went off without a hitch. It was one crazy experience though. As we approached the beach via longtail at night I could have sworn we had entered into Apocalypse Now when the guys were heading up the river. You could hear the music from way out in the water and the beach was just packed with people (and we were arriving at 8pm).

I’ve been told during the off season full moon parties attract around 10 000 people and that number seems about right. There was fire twirling, any kind of dance music you could ever want and drinks galore. The major drink at the party though is something called a bucket. This is basically a small children’s plastic pail that you buy that comes with ice, a Mickey of whatever alcohol you want, some red bull, and a can of pop. Needless to say it doesn’t take much of that mix to get you going for the night so on a whole the night actually was surprisingly cheap. I will say that there is a major downside to buckets though and that’s that they are difficult to dance with. Because of the amount of alcohol in them they aren’t exactly something you want to drink fast so you have this bucket in your hand for a long time which makes dancing difficult. Still, they are the way to experience the party. We got there at 8pm as I mentioned and I arrived back at our villa at 2pm the next day. I did have a bit of a side adventure that led me to the other side of the island with some friends which is where I wound up sleeping but I did still see the sun come up before a couple hours of sleep. All and all just a really fun night.

Another major highlight of this trip was the boat tour we went on today. After several points of hurry up and wait in the morning we finally boarded the speed boat and took off for Ao Phang Nga National Marine Park. Once there we got to go snorkeling, which wasn’t great, but the rest of the day more than made up for it. After lunch on a great beach we got to hike around an emerald salt water lake and then go kayaking to round out the day. Seeing all of the rock formations around the marine park was amazing and getting to get right up close in a kayak was pretty incredible. It also meant we got to race around in kayaks which is always just a fun time. I will say though I seemed to do more of the paddling than Mike who decided to be nature photographer on the trip. He even had my camera: I’m really not sure how that deal got worked out. I guess he did get some nice photos though, and managed to not drop my camera in the water which is always an added bonus.