After Laos I boarded a plane back into Thailand to the Island of Ko Pha Ngan, the location of the (in)famous Full Moon Party. The Full Moon party is a monthly dance party held on (you guessed it) every full moon. It started in the late 1980s when a group of western backpackers decided to celebrate the full moon by holding a rave on the (then) deserted beach. Over time, word of mouth transformed the event into a major pilgrimage for backpackers and also turned it into one of the world’s greatest meat markets.
The event now attracts a crowd in excess of 10,000 people per party and now has offshoots like the Half Moon Party and Black Moon Party. If that’s the trend, why wouldn’t the local entrepreneurs just have a Moon Party to enhance business? So yes, every Full Moon Party is one of the world’s great dance parties and/or backpacker mating grounds.
The Full Moon PartyI arrived in Ko Pha Ngan a few days before the party (I was told this was the best time to go as the beach isn’t crowded with the mass of seedy backpackers who come in from the mainland just for the party). It was there that I rejoined by the other bus passengers and the series of unfortunate events unfolded.
The main beach is littered with attractions to appeal to backpackers, one of these being a big flaming skipping rope. A one bus passenger enthusiastically (and drunkenly) jumped into the flaming rope and surprisingly showed remarkable athleticism to jump (survive) the fire for a whole minute! It was only when another drunk decide to join him that his timing was put off and the rope badly burned his neck.
Not satisfied with his burn mark on his neck, the next day he decided to get a tattoo of his beloved dog on his leg. The tattoo was initially black and white but he was assured the color would come out in the forthcoming days. It did. It was bright pink. So he spent the full moon party walking around with a second degree burn mark on his neck and a flamboyant dog on his left calf.
Impressed by the flaming rope jump, another passenger drunkenly danced on a table and fell off, resulting in a dislocated shoulder and a dodgy $270US makeshift cast. Another guy got provoked in nightclub by a Thai gangster and drunkenly decided to follow him into a dark alley, where he was greeted by four other Thai gangsters, who then beat him to pulp. His was punched so hard that his tooth cut through his lip. Another trip was needed to the local medical center (gee, they sure loved us.)
The aftermath of a friendly chat with Thai gangsters.Another passenger got the phrase “Life is a Wonderful” tattooed on his chest in Swedish. Unfortunately, both he and the tattooist knew no Swedish, so his tattoo was just a jumbled line of characters. He thought it was kind of cool having a misspelled tattoo and he used it frequently as an intro line when chatting up Scandinavian backpackers. Ah well, it worked for him.
Another passenger (yep it’s still going) cut his foot while beach swimming on an ocean rock and as a consequence of his rejecting immediate medical attention, he developed a serious blood infection. And finally, another passenger decided to take out his scooter for a morning spin (while drunk) and he drove into wall, badly injuring his foot. Seeing the alarming medical bills the other passengers incurred, he also rejected medical attention, deciding sleep off his serious foot injury causing blood to be spilt all over his sheets. Mmm yum.
Sleeping off a toe injury.So I’m kinda glad I missed a plane, received a Turkish beating and watched a bad movie. Sure beats burning your neck, dislocating your shoulder, splitting your lip, injuring your foot and displaying flamboyant and misspelled tattoos. Yep, I’m lucky.
I’m not really a fan of raves but I really enjoyed the Full Moon Party, if only to hear the pick up lines heard around the beach. If you’re going to shove 10,000 drunken backpackers together, you’re guaranteed some text book sleaze and damn, was it funny. I saw two Australian guys stopping girls on the beach asking them if they wanted to see them perform a back flip, proposing that one would flip off the other’s back. The girls would reply yes, to which the guys would say “well only if you fuck me first!” Horrified (but sometimes laughing), the girls would walk off only to have the Australian guys make the same to proposition the next passing girl.
On the beach I met three Dutch girls looking for their friend, Susie. After a short description I told them I hadn’t seen her. There was also an American guy in the nearby surf who assured us he hadn’t seen her either. Suddenly the surf receded, only to reveal Susie on her knees servicing him. As the surf rolled back up to his waist, the guy went bright red and again Susie disappeared. Oh, Susie! Don’t you know about the tides – you would have got away with it if it wasn’t for the pull of the moon! It’s actually remarkable how Susie could hold her breath and stay on her knees in the surf… Susie sure was talented!
There’s also a darker side of all the full moon party… I met a girl who said that she was sitting on the beach when a seemingly polite Australian bloke (there’s a theme developing here) sat down next to her. Only seconds into a conversation he pinned her to the ground and started to undo his belt buckle. She quickly kneed him in the groin just as a policeman appeared, who accused her of assault. Luckly a ladyboy saw the whole event and told the policeman the full story. Phew.
Yes, so I finally had some luck in not getting injured and I enjoyed the Full Moon Party! I’ll be keen to go back but I’ll be wary of flaming ropes, flamboyant dogs and back flipping Australians!
Oh, and I wasn’t the Australian mentioned in both of these stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment