Full Moon Party, some small island in Thailand.

Friday 13th October.

by Rob.

Andy and I have some time to kill before he flies home and I meet Nessi in Bangkok tomorrow - just long enough to bring everyone smack up-to-date with the full-moon party review.

Basically, due to timing difficulties, we managed to spoon two days worth of good diving to get the full moon boy in, which meant that tonight we are traveling back rather than clubbing it in Bangkok with Fish. Two days not wasted though! Rowles is now PADI certified, and has what could pass for a tan!

Friday the 13th was the daunting date, the venue: haad rin bay on the mighty isle of kho pha ngan. We left Kho Tao by Mr White's 5pm party boat, a pair of damaged wharfdales sitting atop the sundeck belting out trance tunes to all and sundry. Our team: Rowles (epileptic on tartrazine) and Moffat (the spazzed-out trainspotter) safely stayed below since the skies were darkly ominous, and the air thick with germans.

Below deck they got talking to a right random bunch of people: Christa and Anna (Denmark) were not used to going clubbing often, and already looked lost - clearly they had a lot to learn, but they didn't seem ready to accept lessons from the English boys - in fact they binned our heroes off twice over the course of the evening. Petra and Fin were also aboard from the UK. Fin was clearly drunk before the boat left dock, and a frequent supply of Chang Beer (90% water, 10% formaldehyde, 700ml bottles for less than a quid) saw him in good stead, and keeping up the Irish reputation.

Andy too managed to quaff at least three of these on the boat too. The rain lashed down and the boat tossed from side to side, but for Andy, Chang made light work of the three hour trip and it appeared to be over in mere minutes. Once in Haad Rin bay, a dragonboat delivered safely to within 6 metres of the beach. From there one waded ashore to be greeted by a deafening bass cacophony delivered from sound systems the length and breadth of the sandy promenade. Just as our boat arrives, it stops raining, and the evening is warm and pregnant with four-to-the-floor anticipation.

We sat and had dinner with a by now clearly quite perturbed Danish contingent. Andy polishes off another Chang and loses his sight in one eye. They rightly bin us off and so we go out to look for something more fun. Vodka redbulls are the first obvious port of call but then sadly here the trail goes cold for our dancing wayfarers, as they pass out in the sand at around 10pm, much to the amusement of other party goers.

Quick to rectify the situation, however, Rob recovers the operation and gets them back on their feet half an hour later, whereon the two trusty trancers chance upon a huge soundsystem belting out hard house tunes to hundreds of assembled caners. The modern school of thought suggests mushrooms and slimming pills are the drugs of choice at these parties, but our boys eschew conventional wisdom and keep on drinking vodka and heineken. Unfortunately, after a mere two hours of dancing, the boys were again asleep face down in the sand and being trodden on by mushroomed-up ravers.

The night was still young, however, and somehow the team managed to rally themselves for a third effort. This was to be more successful than the last, and saw them dancing for several more hours on the edge of the bar, a suitable vantage point above and facing the assembled masses. Tunes were played, and Rob decides that now was the time to have his chest painted. Obviously, he looks like a complete twat (pictures may follow, probably around 30 of them - happy scanning drew!).

However, this hard-house seemed much too pacy for so early in the evening, so our boys go in search of something gentler: PvD's Avenue, Beachball and other notable classics in one of the quieter bars on the beachfront (including us, 3 people dancing). Four o'clock arrives. It is at this point that somebody realises that no illicit substances have so far been done and that something needed doing to rectify this situation. However, funds were decidedly low - and our boys can only scrape together a meagre 780 baht between them (about 16 quid). This would need to last until home the next day. The other problem - how to obtain such materials.

Minutes later, a Swedish girl incorrectly identifies our lads as two of her friends, which leads them on to questioning her about the whereabouts of mushrooms. 400 bhat for one portion in the afrika bar. After a heady round of bartering, rob is advised by the barmaid to "be careful" and comes back with two portions and we consume the black gunk on the beach, managing to get sand in there too by accident, which doesn't help the taste.

Our bunch of caners rejoin one of the hard house bars, and with their eclectic dancing style whip the crowd up into a fury of flailing limbs (probably). At about 5 a.m (half an hour later) , Rob starts to feel the effects of the mushrooms and decides to go and sit on the beach and enjoy it. Andy continues apace in the bar having spent considerable time working out at which spot the soundsystem is loudest. This is the point he dances at and of course, ears pay the price for days on end afterwards and rob is doomed to repeat everything he says at least twice or maybe three times at volume. At about 6 a.m, Rob is watching the sun come up, and the clouds are doing some clever things. He really can't be arsed to dance any more. Andy is now wearing his fleece, and has the appearance of a psychopathic vicar - condensation has formed on his upper lip.

At 6.30 am, they're both sitting on the beach. Two people from earlier in the holioday come up to engage in converation, but this isn't happening. At 6:50, Christa and Anna are seen again. They have been sitting waiting for the boat home since midnight, and clearly have another hour to go. When our lads sit down next to them, they rightly fuck off and talk to less twatted people.

Around 7a.m. the bars have given up on educating the masses, and are just pumping out all of last year's Ibiza hits. Andy and Rob from their position on the beach decide they are listening to a cd, and andy apparently identifies it as one of the ones he's got - correctly predicting a mix from "Darude" into "Time to Burn" (rob helping out with the names as andy hums). They decide to give the bar a closer inspection but find that, from the mix of "Children" into "Diving Faces" that they are in fact listening not to a cd but to one of the world's most cnuted DJ's. Rob enters sarcastic phase now, and starts slagging the whole business off. Very Sweaty people are making out all over the beach, and a couple are shagging in the sea.

At around 7:30, sun fully up, the first of two ladyboys tries it on with Rob, who is not impressed at all. The second ladyboy, with yellow "makeup" all over her face actually chases him down the beach. Rob wonders - "How fucked must I look for them to think that 1. I could actually fancy them? and B: I would be willing to part with money for the pleasure of sleeping with one of them?". This is a scary thought.

At 8a.m, with most of the crowd still dancing madly despite a rapidly warming day, we get the boat home. Sadly, for some the night appears to have been too much, and there are piles of bodies all over both the upper and lower decks. Our boatload of nonsense makes it's way back through extremely choppy seas, taking a mamouth 4 hours to return to Kho Tao.

All in all, a blinding night was had. nice work thai fellas.

cheers now,

rob and andy