Full Moon Party!

There were a lot of people at the hotel going to the full moon party, so the hotel had their minivan, a songthaew and a pickup truck to take everyone. I was on the songthaew with a bunch of British guys. Erin was in the mini-bus, and I didn't know if I'd see her again at the full-moon party. It was a 15 minute ride to Had Rin, where we all got off. Erin was just buying a bucket. FYI, a "bucket" is a pail that a child would use at a beach to build sand castles. But instead of building sand castles, it's filled with Red Bull (Thai Red Bull, which is illegal in Canada), your choice of soft drink (Coke, Sprite, Diet Coke, etc.) and your choice of alcohol. Most often the alcohol is a mickey of Sangsum, nasty Thai whisky. Many places sell buckets with vodka or rum or what have you, but the Sangsum buckets are always the cheapest!

I ran over to Erin, and bought myself a bucket too. I had recollections of buying a bucket at my first full moon party, and then not remembering most of the night, so I was kinda concerned about it. As a side note, at my first full moon, I remember when I bought the bucket, dude asked me if I wanted something in it....I thought he said ice, but now I'm thinking he may have said something else (ecstacy?)....which is why I was all screwed up on my first party. I inadvertantly drugged myself!

Anyway, so Erin and I and a bunch of others from our hotel started making our way along the streets of Had Rin towards the beach. Throngs and throngs of backpackers, and everyone selling alcohol, mainly buckets. We finally made it to the beach, and you could barely move. That's when I got a huge grin on my face and knew I needed to go. I just left Erin and started walking, people watching, drinking my bucket. One of my first interesting sights was seeing two girls walking out of the ocean with nothing but their panties on. Harhar. At any given time, there are dozens of people (both guys and girls) using the ocean as their personal toilet. People stumbling and falling all over the place. Super loud dance/club/rave music emanating from the numerous clubs dotting the beach. Most of the people would gather round these places, dancing, dancing, dancing. I walked up and down the beach so many times, just seeing what I could see. It was very surreal being there a second time, and it was exactly how I kinda remembered it the first time. My impression was that there were more people this time around.

As I'm walking around, locals keeping whispering to me in hushed tones, "Ecstacy?", "Marijuana?", and other various drugs, all of which I declined.

At one end of the beach is a club setup on a big rock, and when you take the staircase up, there's a sign telling you if you want mushroom shakes, to take the stairs on the right, otherwise stay left.

I had a disposable camera, and took a number of pictures. I was drinking from my bucket for more than 3 hours, and still wasn't finished and was getting sick of it, so left it in a bar with a bunch of other buckets. I had had a few beers at the hotel before leaving for the party, so was kinda drunk, but still very comprehensible. I drank lots of water all night (and had to pee lots....yes, I used the ocean).

At one point, some guy was laying on the beach, looked pretty much passed out. His friend was sitting beside him, looking whacked. Buddy #2 wanted his friend to have another drink from the bucket, so tried to get him to move. He moved all right, he stood up, stumbled about 10 feet backwards and fell on top of someone else, and passed out right there. Buddy #2 laughed and asked me if I could help him drag him back. So, we went over, each grabbed an arm and pulled him back to his bucket. Hilarious.

Lots of fire shows on the beach all night long, which are way cool. You can typically see fire shows on any of the islands in Thailand, always worth seeing.

At about 5:00am, I was getting tired. I hadn't seen Erin all night, and decided to get a taxi back to the resort. I made my way back up to the taxi (songthaew) area, a guy asked me where I was going, I told him, he told me wait in a specific taxi and climbed in the back. There was another girl waiting to get back to her resort as well. The taxis won't leave until there's enough people, so we had to wait about 15 minutes before more people stumbled along and were going to resorts near mine. I got back to the room about 6:30am. I tried to sleep, but was totally not sleepy, and just layed there. Erin stumbled in about 8:30am.

That's all I can recall about the full moon party. I didn't lose my wits about me this time, and it was a fantabulous time. I'm happy I went again!