The beach as the sun rises after the Full Moon Party
We first heard about the full moon party in Central America and were very intrigued. Billed as the biggest and best party in the world, or at least Southeast Asia, it was something that we couldn’t miss. So, after missing it when we were in Thailand back in April, we changed around plans and made sure that we left Malaysia in time to hit up the June 7, 2009 party.
This entry is all about the full moon party and includes stories of our wild 26 hour journey there, the preparty, the pool party, the actual full moon beach party, scams and theft on the beach, lady boys galore and finishes with a 34 hour trip north to Chang Mai.
Imagine a beach with a few hundred feet between the water and a row of bars roughly a quarter mile long. Each bar is blasting music at concert volumes and selling buckets full of alcohol to anyone regardless of age or level of intoxication. Add some blacklights, body painting, glow in the dark items, food stalls and stages for people to dance on. Now put 10,000 people on the beach and see what happens.
While many revelers arrive on the day of the party, we got to Koh Phangan a day early so we would have time to check it all out before the madness began. After waking up in the late afternoon on our first day we wandered around and saw everyone setting up. That evening we attended a pool party next door to our hotel that was filled with a combination of people having a great time horsing around in the pool and others dancing on the dance floor. A wild scene unlike anything I’ve seen before, but as we were not in bathing suits or dancing, it was time to check out the beach.
Even though it was a warm-up night, there were still a few thousand people dancing away on the beach. The music was great, though it was a bit hard to hear at times as the bars are all right next to each other and the different songs mix together. As for the selection it was mostly trance, techno and an occasional hip hop song.
Over the course of the night our group was both together and separated, but every time we saw each other it was like finding a long lost friend in the crowd. At around 5am a flaming jump rope came out and we had a blast watching the drunks try and play. Carrie and I spent the night and early morning dancing our hearts out until the sun came up over the ocean behind us and they shut the music off. By the time we finally made it home it was past 7am.. Quite a warm-up.
While we all slept until 5pm the island underwent a transformation. People arrived in packs, every local was out selling something and the island felt positively electric. Tonight there was no pool party, no other activities…just the beach. The sky was clear, the moon full, the music blasting and we were ready to go!
Upon arriving at the beach the first thing we noticed was a huge police presence that was lacking the night before. There was also a “sleep area” where people who had a little too much fun could go and be kept safe by the on-site medical staff. It was good to see that precautions were being taken, as we had heard horror stories about full moon parties in the past.
Carrie shows off her glow in the dark tattoo in front of a wall filled with all of the options one could get painted on them
For those not needing police or medical attention, there were rows of stalls with blacklight body paint. Each one had pretty much the same designs, which they would paint on you for a price. The beach was also filled with people selling glow in the dark bracelets, hats, glasses and necklaces. Pretty much everyone on the beach had some sort of neon aspect to them. Mine was a bright green neon stick around my wrist.
Food stalls were set up all over the beach and taxi speedboats were waiting to take people to private parties on yachts anchored just off shore. Countless people were out in the water swimming, sitting, standing or laying down in one of the boats foolish enough to park there for the night. Pretty much everyone had a bucket of booze.
The actual party was the same as the night before: just about five times bigger. Pretty much the entire beach was filled with people dancing, talking, walking around, flirting and having a great time. There were fire dancers, people blowing fire, guys and girls spinning fire and, of course, more fire jump rope.
When sunrise finally came, there were tons more people on the beach than the day before. The music also never stopped. While we went back to the room around 7:30am, we met people who were dancing until nearly 3pm. Crazy!
Carrie and I in front of a full moon sunrise
So is it the greatest, biggest and best party in the world? That’s what they say and I do see some merit in the statement. The beach layout is great and gives people a large area to do things without having everything too spread out. Even with 10,000 people there is still room to move around.
At the same time, the closeness of the bars gets a bit old when the music mixes together. Also, if dancing the night away isn’t your thing then this is not the place to be. I feel like the best party in the world would have more options. For now I’ll label it a pretty awesome party and revisit the statement when I go to more of the “best parties in the world.”
The beach at 530am is filled with passed out partiers and people not paying attention to their personal belongings
While the sunrise every morning was absolutely beautiful, the scene in front of it was not. As soon as it got light enough to see without a flashlight the locals came out in packs to scavenge. Lots of partiers had passed out on the beach and if anything had fallen out of their pocket it was quickly picked up and taken. Bags and fanny packs that were left unwatched or lost on the beach were fair game and Carrie even saw a guy thwart a Thai pickpocket.
Flip flops were another popular target of the scavengers, as the beach was full of lost and forgotten sandals. Unfortunately, not all the sandals being scavenged were lost. While watching the sunrise next to our group’s shoes a local man came by and quickly slipped off his cheap black flip flops, put on Karen’s expensive black ones and started to walk away. I saw him and said “hey, what are you doing?” He quickly said, “oh, sorry, I thought these were mine,” before quickly switching back and scurrying off to try somewhere else.
I can only imagine how much other shady things go on under the cover of darkness and alcohol. I saw a Thai woman walking around with a stack of empty alcohol buckets going around to a bunch of locals. Each of them would put a wad of bills in the bucket, she would look through it and give them their keep. Sometimes I don’t think it was all bills. Whatever they did to get that money, I doubt it was legal.
A lady boy caberet show in the Pinklao area of Bangkok
Thailand is filled with lady boys: men who either dress like women or who are in some stage of actually becoming a woman through surgery. Most times they are easy to pick out of a crowd, though some have had so much work done or had such a feminine physique to begin with that it’s tough to identify them.
Lady boys are extremely popular in Thailand, working in every legitimate part of society. They are especially prevalent in beauty salons, shops, cabarets, restaurants, tourist centers, entertainment districts and beauty pageants. Surprisingly, considering how many nearby countries forbid homosexuality, they are an accepted part of every day life.
While many live legitimate lives, another aspect of the lady boy culture is that of prostitution and deception. Especially in Phuket, Bangkok and other tourist destinations, many lady boys will do whatever is necessary to part someone with their money. To this day we have till not gotten a real answer as to who is hiring them. Are they straight men who can’t tell it’s a lady boy? Gay men? Gay women? We have mostly been told it’s straight men, but only by a few people and we are still not sure.
Lady boys become far more obvious after sunrise
All we know for sure is that the lady boys were out in force at the full moon party. I have no idea what went on under the cover of darkness, but as the sun came up I saw dozens of drunken male partiers hand in hand with lady boys. My personal favorite were the jocks, frat boys and meatheads who you know are the most homophobic and anti-gay people around while sober. Karma at its finest.
However, there were also a ton of young guys – maybe in their late teens or early 20’s – walking around with lady boys. These kids clearly had too much to drink and had no idea that the beautiful woman they were locking lips with was clearly a man. The biggest commonality they all had was the presence of a big bucket of booze in their hands that they continued to drink well after sunrise. I saw a lady boy take a sip while flirting with a guy then turn her head and spit it out on the sand. It seems that they pretend to be partying with their new lover but in reality are staying pretty much sober.
So if they are not doing it for free booze and they know that when the guy sobers up he will probably no longer be interested, why do they do it? Sadly, the best theory I have is that they rob the guys then leave them. At one point I saw a guy flop down on the sand followed immediately by his lady boy friend. She laid on top of him, caressed him all over, put the back of her head on his chest, pretended to get a text message, got up and walked away quickly. The guy was drunk and didn’t really know what happened, but I saw him checking his pockets and his hand came out empty handed as he stumbled away.
I think this lady boy may have picked this guy's pocket before pretending to get a text and leaving him drunk on the sand
I continued to watch as a group of lady boys hung out together and occasionally split off as one of them spotted the drunkest Westerner they could and began to flirt. Often, within minutes, the pair was kissing. In the background the rest of the lady boys would laugh and cheer her on silently.
All this said, I don’t want to say that the lady boys were the only ones playing the “let’s take advantage of the drunken Westerners” game. I saw tons of real Thai women pretending to be interested in men far too drunk to sweet talk them in any way shape or form. It’s sad to say, but it’s just another part of the business of the full moon party.
Carrie and I with our big bags in front of our hotel getting ready to leave the full moon party
We spent the night dancing and having a blast before going to bed at around 8am. Reuben returned. Karen came back. But where was Claire? This was the question we were still asking at 7pm when I hopped onto the back of a motorcycle driven by a Thai friend I had made. Our destinations? Health clinics and the police station to see if anyone had seen the girl whose passport I held in my hand. None of us knew what to do but we were very worried.
My friend told me that people go missing all the time and if she didn’t show up and we filed a police report that we would have to stay on the island until she surfaced. I had no luck on our motorcycle ride, but upon returning what did I see? Claire chatting with the girls telling a story about meeting new friends and winding up on the other side of the island with no cell phone. Thank goodness she was ok but what an experience for us.
The next day we all said our goodbyes and Carrie and started our 700 kilometer journey north to Chang Mai for some trekking. We had gone against our usual method of travel and booked a direct trip to Bangkok through a tour agent to make our life easier. Our taxi left the hotel at 11am and we next joined thousands of Westerners boarding a boat to what we thought was Surat Thani.
A huge pile of backpacker bags loaded onto the boat from the full moon party
In reality the boat dropped us off a few hours later at some dock somewhere in Thailand where busses waited to take us the rest of the way. We were among the last people off the boat by the time we finally got our bags all of the busses were full and we had to wait on this random dock for nearly two hours before the next bus came.
When we finally arrived in Surat Thani we were left at a bus terminal in the middle of nowhere so we had no choice but to buy their overpriced food. Our bus left 30 minutes late and got into Bangkok 30 minutes early: at 4:30am. We hopped in a cab to the train station, booked an 8:30am train to Chang Mai and waited in the terminal for it to leave.
A twelve hour train ride later we got to Chang Mai. got in a cab, found a hotel and passed out.
Tons of tourists waiting to board the boat to leave the full moon party
Final tally:
3 taxis
2 bus rides
1 boat ride
1 train ride
34 hours of travel
Add the 26 hours to get from Malaysia to the full moon party and you get 60 hours of travel in 6 days. Had we skipped the full moon party and flown from Malaysia to Chang Mai it would have taken 3 hours. Was it worth it? 100%!
Our train ride from the Thai border to Surat Thani may have been the buggiest ever. At one point or another we must have had every single type of insect known to man fly, fall or land on us.
A guy walking down the aisle of the train selling newspapers said “no” instead of excuse me when he needed people to get out of his way. That, and “good morning” seemed to be the only words he knew.
In our group, two people lost three pairs of flip flops.
It was great to have AC and just relax during the day.
This was the first time in my life I saw the sunrise three days in a row.
Our full moon crew was the biggest group we’ve traveled with in all of our travels.
It’s funny cuz it’s true…and because Karen did
All the stores in town sell used flip flops found on the beach. We joked that if we looked hard enough we might find one of Claire or Karen’s missing pairs.
You could even buy single flip flops if you wanted to create your own mismatched pair.
At one point there was a very short man dressed like a leprechaun dancing on a stage.
Our bus from Surat Thani to Bangkok stopped about 15 minutes into the ride for a rest stop and announced that it would be the final one of the 8 hour ride. This came after leaving 30 minutes late.
The trains in Thailand are amazingly clean. On our ride to Chang Mai the floors must have been swept a dozen times.
Second class trains also serve food and beverages for free.
