Koh Phangan - Full Moon!

I'm now on Koh Tao, which is a nice rest after a very hectic and drunken 6 days on Koh Phangan for the full moon!

The last week of volunteering was fun, but also pretty sad as we realised how much we were going to miss Surin, it literally felt like home to us after living there for 2 months and we'd made so many Thai friends as well as other volunteers. So I'll definately be back to visit as soon as I can!

Almost all of the other volunteers were easily persuaded to join us at the full moon, so we all headed down together on an overnight sleeper train with beer to start the trend for the week (yes, I was forced to drink beer and can now actually tolerate it ok!). Our hotel was pretty good for Thailand standards, we had hot water, air con and a flushing toilet (!!) and was the centre for all the pre-full moon pool parties so was always filled with travellers.

We quickly got in to a routine of pool parties and drinking on the beach until the early hours of the morning when the sun came up, then sleeping until early afternoon and lazing around, shopping, eating, and preparing to do it all again that evening. The atmosphere was amazing, with UV paint, fire dancers and lights everywhere. On the actual full moon night there must have been around 30,000 people on the beach, and we all managed to survive with no thefts or injuries or anything (we were being very sensible!).

The day after the full moon (after having no sleep) we had to get straight on to a boat to get here to Koh Tao - possibly the worst boat journey I've ever had! It was full of post-full moon travellers and there was a lot of sickness going on! We eventually made it here safely though and have checked in to a hotel right next to our dive centre. It's now just me and Sarah again, she starts her open water course today, and I'll be diving from tomorrow. The dives here are ridiculously cheap, only costing 15-16 pounds including equipment, tank etc!!

Everyone down here in the South find it amazing that we can speak some Thai, even the Thai people are surprised when we order food which is really cool! Oh, I also love fact that it's now december so I get to open my (very squashed) advent calendar!! We're celebrating it properly by playing christmas songs very loud and wearing a santa hat while opening each day.