Koh Pha Ngan, 6/16/11
Koh Pha Ngan's Full Moon Party is a monthly festival with 15,000 drunk tourists, giant beach buckets filled with strong cocktails sold for pennies, pharmacists distributing "Happy Pills" from compartments below their counters, scammers, muggers, pickpockets, undercover police officers, pot, ecstasy, cocaine, hallucinogenic mushroom shakes, a history of drowning deaths, and twelve straight hours of thumping house music.
Needless to say, bring the kids.
We've arrived via the "party ferry", which picks us up from Koh Tao at 3pm, drops us on Koh Pha Ngan at 5, and brings us back at 8:30am. We have no accommodation, planning to simply party all night and sleep on the beach if necessary. If I thought my base camp Sairee area on Koh Tao was tourist-central, I was rudely mistaken. It is practically Easter Island compared to Pha Ngan's Haad Rin area, which is so overcrowded with Western tourists, burger restaurants, and overpriced souvenirs, it may as well be the new Harry Potter wing at Universal Studios.
After losing Claire, Remco and I scan the beach for pre-drinking snacks. Solace comes in the form of barbequed chicken skewers. They're glazed with a teriyaki chili glaze, shishkebabed with grilled tomatoes and pineapple. They're prepared by a 10-year old Thai boy and 5-year old sister in a small alley, which somehow hasn't been found by most partygoers. The young brother and sister man the makeshift pure charcoal grill, roughly the size of a shoebox and glowing white hot, despite the fact that my father still barely lets me use the Weber. Delicious and addictive at 10Baht each ($0.30), we have about 8 each and our early evening becomes a poultry skewer odyssey. The massive chickenpalooza is washed down with a bucket filled with freshly muddled mojito -- hand-squeezed Thai limes (resembling key limes), crushed mint, palm sugar, and a heavy pour of rum. The plastic sand bucket of refreshment is 200baht ($6) and has the dubious honor of turning an innocent child's summer play toy into a catalyst for debauchery. We have two.
Walking around at Haad Rin can be straining on the eyes due to the endless parade of fluorescent polyester tanktops and shorts in shades of orange, pink, green, and yellow. This seems to be the uniform of choice at the Full Moon Party, fitting considering most people have been here for days pre-partying and have clearly lost their minds. Despite losing Claire, Remco and I make quick new friends at a beachside guesthouse by Sunrise Beach. The hostel offers free chicken and salad (don't mind if I do) and plenty of British tourists all to eager to cover new friends in neon body paint. Once this amateur Picasso finishes her masterpiece, I look practically like one of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models who pose entirely in meticulously painted-on bikinis. Or maybe I look more like a hobo who took a swim in the dumpster behind the local Benjamin Moore store. It's one or the other. Either way, Remco and I both look tremendous. Practically glowing in every shade of flourescence (I have a giant flame on my chest, a target on my forehead and tribal stripes covering the rest), we proceed to the center of Sunrise Beach, where the plan is to dance until the beach lives up to its namesake.
We essentially do a pub crawl, dancing to different house music at each, meeting mostly Europeans on their gap year. One rooftop bar has a giant slide we go down repeatedly like giddy schoolchildren. Another we pass by advertises 500B ($15) "magic mushroom" shakes, promising visions of one's power animal and the transformation of one's hand into an object of incredible wonder.
I've somehow lost Remco and part of my mind by 3am. Not to worry since under the bright full moonlight I run into Darcy and Akoon from the Bangkok overnight bus. Desiring a respite from dancing, we lay down on the mountaintop and at stare at the luminescent full moon, which several of my high neighbors are trying unsuccessfully to eat. Darcy has taken to calling Akoon "Hakuna Matata", which is fine by me, as I would sing that song and quote Pumbaa sober. Eight hours earlier, Akoon may have been offended by a comparison to a high-strung meerkat and flatulent warthog, but the moonlight seems to wash away all anxieties. And Pumbaa is practically canonized in my book anyway.
Back down on the beach, we watch borderline unconscious tourists attempting to jump a quick-turning 10 ft inflamed jump rope while others nearby try to bend underneath a flaming limbo pole. No one really wins and if a tourist actually performs well, the rope spinners will just speed up or lower the limbo pole. Everyone laughs when the volunteers hit the rope and catch on fire but the only ones laughing tomorrow will be the pharmacists selling anti-burn cream at sky-high markups.
We're still dancing ontop the picnic tables at 6am. Still drinking Chang, shirtless, paint slightly melted off due to all the flames. Around us, we can now see the worn, sweaty, painted faces of those dancing for ten hours. The beach has become a grave site, filled with those who are either (1) sleeping; (2) in a coma; (3) deceased. The water is packed with those reenacting From Here to Eternity adjacent to those who couldn't find a nearby bathroom. The rising sun paints everything in a heady yellow glow, casting shadows over the longboats and crowds in the distance. It's the most picturesque, serene moment we've had in hours -- all the partygoers are basked in light, becoming near silhouettes. Most of my drunken neighbors pause momentarily to admire a sunrise so strikingly beautiful it could never be rendered by CGI. They stare intently at the shoreline, gaining brief clarity to remember that they are on one of the world's most breathtaking beach islands. Roughly two-thirds of a second goes by before they get bored and go back to drinking their two liter sand bucket of whiskey & coke, the souvenir of which will likely end up on their heads as a decorative hat.
No comments:
Post a Comment