Full Moon Party

Hey everyone,

Been a while since my last post - Will do my best to sum up whats happened since.

So we were in Koh Tao - and did our diving course which was awesome - Did 4 dives, along with pool training, theory and an exam (easy peasy) So we are both now certified divers for up to 18m.

Saw loads of tropical fish at "Twins" a dive site in Koh Tao, was so much fun. Left Koh Tao on the 18th on the ferry for Koh Phangan. It was rammed full of people going to the full moon party. Luckily we had already booked our hostel and settled in to our 16 bed dorm with one toilet between all of us. In fact its a pretty cool place, this french guy David runs the place and does safety briefings with all the guests to make sure they are safe during full moon. Theres a wii with mariokart as well - had a championship today with Craig, I won. So Chris, watch out, im keeping fresh for when I return and I shall batter you again! Craig has told me to mention that we played FIFA 11 on a PS3 and he destroyed me. I was not happy.

So on the 18th we headed to the beach then up to Kangaroo bar where we bumped into a few people we met in Phi Phi, stayed with them til the early hours then headed back. Spent the next day relaxing and preparing for the big party, both went and got vests and shorts to ruin as you get covered in paint. Had a big meal to line the stomach then it was party time. Played a few drinking games with some people in out dorm, painted eachother a bit then hit the beach with a couple of buckets. Met up with the Phi Phi lot and went from there. The Full Moon Party is awesome, would recommend to anyone to come and experience it at some point, thousands of people on the beach all going mental for hours and hours. Fireshows, Fire high jump, fire skipping, tug of war - all goes on all night for people to compete and win buckets. I did a fire limbo where you do a limbo under a scorching rope.

The word that came to mind throughout the night was 'Primal' - everyone on the beach with the moon out, all wearing next to nothing with paint and art all over the body, playing with fire and dancing...all a bit primal.

We had two meeting points so that when we all inevitably got split up we could meet back up. We had the Blue Tree, this tree thats lit up in the middle of the beach. It became a bit of a joke throughout the night as everyone kept getting lost but finding everyone sat under the big blue tree. We also had a meeting place we found up on 'mushroom mountain', if you go to the toilet, and carry on walking round the mountain theres some awesome little places to sit right on the edge looking out towards the sea and the beach. Felt a bit like the film The Beach as wed found a little place away from everyone else to sit and rest beforer going back to the party.

Got in at around 10am, a few people were still raving like mentalists on the beach when I left.

Woke up at about 6pm today and sorted out our return journey to Bangkok. We leave at 11am tomorrow and get to Bangkok the following morning...staying one night back in the hotel we first stayed in, and then heading up to Chang Mai which is another overnight train journey. Really looking forward to ChangMai, we have a 2 day trek booked, with Elephant riding and bamboo rafting, should be great. Then its off to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia for our second month.

Anyway thats about it for now, hope everyone is well.

Catch up soon,

Jay x

P.S attempting to put photos on Facebook now, including the wonderful Thai Terry Tibbs