Christmas and New Year were the two parts of this trip we had pre-booked and planned, having a loose route for the rest of the time but essentially winging it. After a gorgeous Christmas on tropical Koh Tao, we planned to spend New Year’s Eve at Southeast Asia’s biggest, most infamous beach party, the Full Moon Party on Haad Rin, Koh Phangan.
We took the morning ferry over from Koh Tao, and checked into our second nice hotel of the trip – we could get used to this! We spent most of the afternoon chilling and gathering supplies for the party, tacky neon vest tops included.
Full Moon Party Flop
Before the trip we’d been excited to party the night away and watch the sunrise on the beach, but somewhere along our travels we’ve become … slightly less inclined to party. The New Year’s Eve full moon party (not actually a full moon) sees 30,000 people descend on the beach for a night of pure hedonism, and while we gave it a good go, we found it was just not for us, for a few reasons.
We had planned to meet up with a friend of a friend for drinks before heading to the beach, and thought we’d be going with a new group of pals, but meeting up didn’t quite work out. Since we were staying in a hotel rather than a hostel unfortunately it was harder to meet people, and we really hadn’t planned well, focussing more on our body paint than necking buckets, and arriving at the hostels distinctly more sober than the other partygoers.
We met some lovely English girls in the taxi on the way to the beach, and planned to stick with them for the countdown. However, one of them didn’t make it back from the bar in time for midnight, and we lost the other when she went off looking for her.
We spent the rest of the night drifting between groups that were far more drunk than us, and failing to find a group we clicked with. There were times we felt wary of the overfamiliar men in the crowd, and sights of the dirty, plastic-covered beach and people relieving themselves into the Sea did nothing for our flat mood.
The full moon party had the potential to be an excellent night out had we been with one of our earlier travel gangs, but unfortunately with it being just the two of us, and pretty sober, we were just not in the right mindset. However, it was an experience and we’re glad we gave it a go – the countdown and fireworks had an amazing atmosphere and it was a great way to see in 2019!
We rolled home at about 5am, falling asleep in the back of the tuk tuk.
New Year’s Day
We spent the majority of the day lying in, rising at about 2pm, on our first New Year’s Day without a hangover in years!
We spent our limited waking ours lazing around the pool in hammocks, and bobbing about in the ridiculously warm Sea – which was so still it was more like a lake! We may not have had the best New Year’s Eve, but New Year’s Day was delightful.
Time to Evacuate
The next day we’d planned to rent scooters and explore the island, visiting some of Koh Phangan’s gorgeous beaches and waterfalls. We were also meeting up with a very special friend of mine, Anete, who used to look after me when I was 10 years old! After having not seen her for years, she just happened to be staying on the same island in Thailand.
Unfortunately before we set off Anete had some bad news for us – Storm Pabuk, Thailand’s first tropical storm outside of rainy season in 50 years, was heading for the Gulf of Thailand.
We had to completely change our plans and scrap the island exploration, instead booking the next ferry off the island. It was such a shame as all we’d seen of Koh Phangan was Haad Rin Beach and our hotel, but we didn’t fancy the idea of being stranded on an island in a storm. Thankfully we were still able to meet up with Anete for lunch and have a long catch up before our departure!
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to catch our ferry – the last off the island before they were all cancelled for the next 4 days. We were off to Krabi, still possibly at risk, but at least on the mainland so we’d be able to move if necessary. All that was left to do was wait for fearsome Storm Pabuk!
Chloe x
Pint-Sized Adventurers 