Happy 2553!

When I was 17 I wanted nothing more than to be in a field full of people, all dancing away to very loud, repetitive music and not stopping until the sun came up, or the drugs had worn off. I wished it were 1988, or 1992, or some other time when things like that happened quite regularly.

These days such things are much lower on my list of priorities, much, much lower, but this didn't stop me enjoying what was probably the closest thing I've come to those hankerings on new years eve. For those who don't know, a Full Moon Party is celebrated at every full moon (obviously), involves a lot of fire and fluorescent body paint, and alcohol is served very literally by the bucket load. A variety of music is played, but most of it goes bang bang bang bang. Since the 90s they've been occurring all over the world, but the first one was thrown right where I was, on a beach in Ko Pha Ngan.

Before I could delve in though, there were things to attend to. I'd agreed to meet Debbie, who I'd met previously in Bangkok, and I'd agreed to meet Arnaud, the French guy who I'd met in my first week of travelling in New York. I arrived at Debbie's hostel, and as it turned out there'd been something of a cock-up with the booking. The manager of the place, probably one of the people who really did dance around to shit music in fields in 1988, books rooms from above an Israeli restaurant when it gets really busy. The trouble is, the Israeli men decided those rooms would better accommodate their friends, so when Debbie and the manager went to check it out, there was apparently some attack involving big sticks. So Debbie had no room. The place looked dodgy anyway, as you can imagine. I was staying in Ko Samui, a neighbouring island which is nice and quiet. I had a spare bed in my bungalow, so I offered to take her in, so long as we could blag her on to a ferry. Crisis over.

The next stop was to find Arnaud. We did, surprisingly easily. The night, apart from Debbie's hiccup, was turning out to be a breeze. Arnaud had brought with him a friend he'd met on his travels called Jean Christoph, another Frenchman with a beard and an excellent hat. Me and Arnaud caught up for a bit as we strolled by some of the things you might witness at a Full Moon Party: a beach lined with bars and stages, each with it's own DJ; men skipping double-dutch over blazing ropes until they catch their feet and bail; and people weeing in the sea - it seems there was a reason that I found the Gulf of Thailand so warm. We got more drinks in. Served in small plastic buckets, you mix and match spirits and mixers to your desire. Most of the cocktails contain Red Bull, which over here seems to have something of methamphetamine about it.

For something that officially calls itself 'The Countdown Party' there was very much a lack of countdown. We'd lost track of time, and we'd lost track of Arnaud, too. We stood waiting for him to catch us up, and then Debbie went to use a convenience (a proper one, not the sea). Suddenly there were fireworks and a couple of cheers. But more than cheers there were bemused faces that said 'is it midnight?' My watch made it three minutes to twelve, which I decided was close enough, so me and Jean Christoph shook hands, wished each other a happy new year, then sort of stood there awkwardly as we waited for the other two to return. Debbie was somewhat irritated that she'd been in a queue for the bathroom when the big moment came. Really though, it wasn't such a big moment. The party had been going on for days before, and would continue, no doubt, for days after. On a timescale like that, that moment was as small as all the others.

By 4am myself and Debbie decided we were tired and should head off. She'd done well. A whole day spent crossing Thailand from Krabi by bus, then finding her accommodation was cancelled. If I were her I'd have given up a lot sooner. All we had to do was get back to Ko Samui. This wasn't the easiest part of the day. The pier was badly organised, too many people for too few boats. A crowd of us gathered and crushed together as we all so urgently needed to get home. When the pushing started, we got out, and waited for the crowd to clear. It didn't, and instead we got an expensive long boat across the sea, but it was worth it just to get to bed. We arrived at 7am.

The next day was excellent. We slept in until about 4pm, then had some lovely food in Fisherman's Village overlooking the sea, then in the evening some chilled out cocktails and beers on the beach. I really enjoyed Debbie's company too, even if she is from Essex. The day after though I left her in Samui to go to Phuket. This was a relatively stressful road journey that involved a lot of waiting and transferring from bus to bus. At one point, a girl who'd had her money stolen was shouted at by the bus driver and nearly manhandled out of the vehicle. She spent the rest of the journey sobbing and the atmosphere was bleak. Upon arrival in Patong, the busiest area of Phuket, the driver dropped me in the wrong spot and I spent extra money getting to my guesthouse. It was all worth it though. I had the first hot shower I'd had in weeks, made myself a cup of tea, and joined the other guests for watching a couple of movies in the front room.

Patong is probably one of the most Westernised areas of Thailand I've seen. Among all the McDonalds and Starbucks there's also a huge shopping mall that seems quite extravagant. It sort of says 'we can build huge temples of capitalism, too'. One menu display for a restaurant I saw had written, in huge letters, 'yes we can' - surely appealing to those who've taken a liking to America's cool new president. The life of Patong revolves around an area called Bangla Road, which seems to have borrowed it's colour scheme from Memphis and upped the sleeze to 11. Very convincing ladyboys are out on patrol, promoting the various cabarets in the city, and strip clubs are alarmingly viewable to passersby on the street. Although I liked the look of some of the bars, I decided not to sample any of the nightlife and instead decided it was enough just to have seen it.

Phuket is a good spot for hopping to other, more attractive, islands and I took advantage of this by taking a snorkelling tour of the Similan archipelago. Getting there took about an hour and a half by speed boat, and I appeared to be the only person whose first language was English. I seem to remember my sister having a similar experience when touring some islands in Thailand. It didn't bother me too much on this occassion though. The water around the Similans was sublime. So clear, with just the right amount of surf and a variety of marine life to look at through the goggles. Later we took to shore to relax on the sand and climb the fascinating rock formations. You know when you're bored on Brighton beach and you try and see how many pebbles you can get to stand on top of each other? Well on Ko Similan, it looks like God's been bored on a really nice beach.

Today I left Phuket and made my way to Phi Phi, where I'll spend the next few days. I hear it has the nicest beach in the world, even better than Camber Sands. Might explain why it's so busy here and why my accommodation is rubbish. My time in Thailand is short now, and I'll be squeezing as much out of it as I can in the next week.