Partying under a Half Moon

We tore ourselves away from the lovely peaceful beach and the bungalows run by the incredibly camp, rather strange, betel-chewing men (that's the stuff that makes your teeth look like they're bleeding), in search of a new experience at one of the island's famous parties. They're pretty regular there, with Full, Half and Black Moon parties at relevant times of the month. We were pretty happy that our visit fell on half moon, as it's up in the jungle - a labyrinth of UV paint and food stalls, which lead up to a clearing with a stage, huge sound system, a dancefloor surrounding a big colourful tree, and bars, lighting, fountains and dancing platforms built into the trees around the edges. It was beautiful, and full of UV decorations and happy, friendly people. The music was trance mostly, which was great, especially the dj who was also a saxophonist! We had a good dance, watched the fire performers, met lots of lovely people and got our arms covered in UV paintings of flowers. At some point in the evening, I did the inevitable and dropped my camera, half-breaking it. I've already nearly lost it in the sea a couple of times, so at least I still have something I can work with! We both became rather poor towards the end of the night, but some kind soul bought us food and gave us money for a taxi home, which actually turned out to be us both squishing onto the back of a motorbike with a little Thai lady. However precarious, it got us back safely.

It's bizarre how many people you recognise after travelling around the same sort of area for a while. There have been a few of these cases, but the funniest is a couple of twin boys, around our age. We first noticed them in a bar on Koh Lanta, and pondered whether we'd like to go travelling with our identical other half if we had one. They seemed quite reserved so we didn't end up chatting to them. After bumping into them a few more times, on Koh Phi Phi and then Phangnan, coincidentally being in the same place at the same time, we thought it had got to the point of being a bit awkward. But after again literally brushing past eachother a few more times at the Half Moon party, I used a bit of Dutch courage to say hello and how funny it was that we'd been following eachother around. They looked at me like they'd seen me for the first time, and like I was a little bit nuts. Oh well.

Koh Tao

Another hungover and very sweaty ferry journey brought us to Koh Tao, along with a fair few familiar faces from the previous night. There was a collective sense of exhaustion and dehydration from most of the passengers, which made everyone a bit slow and clueless when getting on and off the boat, which I found pretty claustrophobic and irritating. We clambered to find our rucksacks in the pile that the staff throw them off the boat into, and walked across a series of pretty dodgy looking gangplanks and boardwalks, that the dizziness made feel like an obstacle course. 
We headed straight for Freedom Beach, a beautiful stretch of beach with very little of anything except peace and quiet, and secured ourselves a bungalow overlooking the water. Had a couple of very relaxed days there, a lovely visit to a tapas place, and savoured our last few days near the sea. I'm so used to it now I don't want to be away from it, but I'm also rather excited about the prospect of no sand. Our last day we spent on Sairee beach, swimming, napping in the shade, having an amazing massage (the lady walked on my back, which was much less painful than I'd expected!) and a wonderful long yoga class with a French woman. We were absolutely shattered after that, and just ate baked potatoes whilst watching from afar the chaos down the beach. Koh Tao is the number one spot for scuba diving, and so everything is geared towards that. It felt really Western, full of coffee shops and pizzerias, and large groups of young-ish people.

We've now just arrived back in Bangkok, to see in Songkran in style, and to do a few jobs before the next part of my adventure. Cannot believe it's been a month already!!