Fullmoon Party

One thing every backpacking Thailand traveller has to have been to atleast once is the Fullmoon Party in Haad Rin on Kho Pha Ngan. Joe and me took a hell-ride there from Thong Nai Pan Noi with a bunch of stoned guys (who let us wait for about an hour, even though we had to meet the rest of the people) on the back of a truck that was fishtailing its way up the muddy slopes of Kho Pha Ngan. I already saw us dead in the drenches, but crazy Joe just laughed his ass off. We made it there in one piece nonetheless. It was one hell of a night, completely insane, but good fun and i ended up with two huge blisters on my feet from dancing too much. 2.5 buckets and 3 Chang-beers are quite a bit for me, but -as always- i still didn't get a hangover the next day. I was lucky my only "injury" were my blisters, since alot of people get injured (mostly various intoxicated injuries or drunk driving, which on these roads is an even worse idea than in other parts of the world) and sometimes even killed. It put quite a bit of a dent into the fun when I was told by a life guard in the morning that i shouldn't go into the water (i was just cleaning a wound on my toe because several people had stepped on it) because five people had died in it that night. They just go into the water (which is a stupid idea to begin with, as almost all the guys take a leak in it), pass out from too much boozing (or other drugs) and drown. We saw one guy being carried off on a stretcher that looked pretty damn dead, and Joe revived one girl with CPR (He's a fuckin hero, not that anyone took much notice of that!). The irritating thing is that this happens on every Fullmoonparty (and the various others they have - Halfmoon, Dark-Moon), somebody said that an average of 3 people die on every party. They didn't even stop the music when a body was found, it seems to count as "collateral damage". I realize that dead people mean bad business, but why not simply prevent people from dying? You don't even have to forbid them to go into the water (the toilets couldn't handle the extra load anyway), just post a bunch (that means about 20, not just a few guys) of life guards that watch out for the people going into the water.
Anyway, we (the Tropical Garden Gang) survived the night without any losses or injuries, and Joe and me were the last survivors, even beating some guys on 3 Es. It took us some time to get back to Thong Nai Pan Noi, we had to travel with a pretty annoying spanish guy that kept buggering the Thai locals on the Taxi on how much they paid for the taxi or how much the sack of rice they had with them cost. Joe said he'd have punched the guy in the face if he had to stay there just five minutes longer, but then again he says that all the time and never does it, cause he's just a really nice guy after all! ;-)