tl;dr THE FULL MOON PARTY, PARTIED ALL NIGHT, PARTIED INTO THE DAY, MET RANDOS, AND PARTIED!!!!!!!! – 5 activities
Activity 1 – Ferry to Koh Phangan
Took a ferry from Koh Samui to Koh Phangan, not a long ride by any means, but I could feel the excitement in the air from the people around me. I would be staying in a hostel in a 20 person room…now when I say staying, I mean I had a bed that I paid for, but I was really using the hostel for the pool and as a place to store my belongings. I arrive in Koh Phangan in time for lunch, so I check-in to the hostel and explore a bit of the island. I eventually sit down for some lunch.
Activity 2 – Pool Chilling
My hostel has a pool, so naturally, I make my way over to the pool, which is extremely crowded, and meet some people. We play some football in the water and a little horse on the nearby basketball court. We get to know each other decently well and agree to hang out that evening.
Activity 3 – Shopping and Dinner
It is a well known fact that anyone attending the Full Moon Party needs to be dressed appropriately…so I bought myself a FMP tank top (bright neon) and cheap shorts (assuming they would get destroyed from paint and sand). Next on the shopping list was alcohol and paint. As you’ll see in the pictures below, body paint is quite common and I wanted to make sure I was prepared. After the requisite purchases were complete, I had some dinner and got ready for the party.
WARNING, FUN BELOW:
Activity 4 – Pre-game and Painting
I went back to the pool area (which also had a bar) where I met up with my new found friends. We started drinking and actively painting our bodies. I tried painting a watch onto my wrist…that was not a success, before finding out that some of my friends were actually solid artists. All in all, I had the aforementioned watch, a “Big Apple,” NY Mets logo, Statue of Liberty (yes, I had to rep New York as much as possible), a happy face, a flower, and a re-make of the Mike Tyson face tattoo. I also dabbled with painting on some of my friends.
Activity 5 – HERE WE GO!!!!
We left the hostel and reached the party a little before midnight. There is a small entrance fee, but nothing outrageous by any means.
OK, this party is massive. The pictures do not do the event justice. It was a massive stretch of beach with bars and djs across the entirety of the strip. The first few hours, I stuck with the crew I had met earlier. We all took turns running up to the bar and buying a few buckets of alcohol and beer. We had a spot right where the water reaches so sometimes we were ankle deep in water. I was amazed at how we were all able to leave the group and find our way back 20 minutes later.
At one point during the evening, we all split up and went our own ways. I watched people jump the jump rope of fire and jump through the hoop of flames.
I was not willing to do the jump rope because I had seen too many people get burned or almost burned because of other people’s mistakes (multiple people could jump rope at once). I did, however, jump through the hoop of flames (no video of it since I did not ask anyone to film me).
Eventually, the sun started to rise and you were truly able to see the scope of the beach. Although it was not longer packed, it was still decently crowded considering the time.
Over the course of the party, I met people from all over the world, people that worked for my previous employer (but in other countries) and people that did not speak any English, It was truly an incredible experience. Everyone was there to have an incredible time and the atmosphere was like nothing else. Even in the morning bars were packed and people were still going hard (although some people had found comfy napping spots on the beach).
I begrudgingly left the beach to head back to my hostel, get a quick shower in, and get back on the ferry. I had to catch a flight back to Bangkok for one last day in Southeast Asia before Japan.
Andrew's Activities 