Full Moon Party: Birth of Christ dance marathon?
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
42
62
Trip End
Aug 07, 2008
Ko Phangan,
Thailand
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
"It's like we're Mary and Joseph, and there's no room at the inn..." one of them leaned her head against a pole as she spoke. She paused. "Except that the birth of Christ is the full moon party."
Indeed. Here's a little background on the Full Moon Party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_moon_party. The party is basically a huge free-entry beach party that lasts all night, sometimes up until the next afternoon
Me and Liz, pre-party
. It's been going on for about 20 years and each month it's a big event, attracting travelers from all over. Every single person that I knew on Koh Phangan was there for the party.We started the night at 7 pm at our resort. Everyone who was staying there gathered for the preliminary festivities. There was drinking, there were some games. There were snacks: sardines (no joke, they smelled!) and also roasted cashew nuts, cleverly displayed in a blue hippo training potty. Sebastian says the potty hasn't been used 'much' for its intended purpose. There was a big thunderstorm, so again, we ordered in Thai food that was delivered to us. There was a lot of talking, laughing and shenanigans, but mainly there was body painting.
Many portions of the Full Moon Party have black light, so a big thing to do is paint parts of your body with fluorescent body paint. Sebastian at first asked that we not do it at the lounge area, but then he changed his mind, and everyone painted each other. It got excessive.
Finally, at midnight, we left. I began to get so bored at 10:30 that I went up to the room, laid down, and played sudoku for a while. I didn't think I could last all 12 hours without some sort of a break!
All 25 people went together on the trek to the beach, but of course, pretty much right away, everyone got lost. I stayed with my original group (Liz, Simon, Magdalena and Barbara) pretty much the whole time.
Cool things to see on the beach: people dancing with twirling ropes of fire
Simon with his blue potty
. People lighting up large lanterns and then letting them fly up into the sky. Fireworks up in the sky every so often. Big signs for "Original Full Moon Party" blah blah lit up in fire. Fire was basically the theme.It had stopped raining, but then it rained more, so we went into a big bar resort area at the end of the beach called Mushroom Mountain (or something) and stayed there for a while, under cover. This was the case until about 2:30 am or 3 am. It wasn't really fun yet.
The fun part happened when we decided to finally make a move. We went down the beach and tried a few different beach bars (mainly judging them on the type of music they were playing) and I was happy when we stopped at Drop-In Bar. We stopped there because we finally found most of our fellow Last Resort-ers, but I liked the music. Think dance versions of everything ranging from The Killers' "Mr Brightside" to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" to 50 Cent's "In Da Club." Good stuff.
Basically, I danced from 3am-6am with everyone. People began dropping off--Magdalena and Barbara were the first two to leave, around 4:30am. But I loved the music
Liz and I, body paint
! However, there were times when the music was bad and I was tired and I just wanted to STOP and all I could think about were those two 30-hour Dance Marathon experiences at Northwestern. And DM was actually to raise money for a serious cause (ie, autism). Full Moon Party is just for fun. I could have stopped and went home. I had a goal, though, and that goal was to make it to sunrise.Whilst the dancing was going on, I saw lots of random people that had been on my different buses or boats. I saw that Canadian guy that I had talked to twice in Ao Nang (still don't know his name). I also saw lots and lots of ladyboys as the night got later. However, I never saw any of the WFFT volunteers or Pooja/Jess. Still don't know why our paths never crossed!
Luckily, I didn't see any bad things happening. Nothing bad happened to me. Well, a bird pooped on my shirt while we were sitting at Mushroom Mountain... and early on in the night, something bad got in my left eye. It felt like a chemical, but might have been ash? Don't know. It burned for a long time, then stopped. But nothing bad other than that. People were behaving somewhat respectfully.
Point is..
Laura with good facepaint
. I made my goal. I danced til sunrise. As it began to get lighter, I stopped dancing and walked over to the coast to watch the sun come up. I've seen beautiful ones on Lake Michigan, but sadly, the sky in Thailand that morning was till overcast, so it was an unremarkable sunrise. A few bright streaks of pink, but basically, it was dark and then it was lighter.Many people were sitting and watching it as well, though all the parties were still going full blast behind us. I began to feel achy and tired (and really dirty, from all the sand and sweat and everyone's body paint)... so Steph, Emily and I walked back home. I was in bed by 7 am.
I'm glad I went, but it wasn't THE most amazing time. I wouldn't go again, but I'd recommend it if you're ever in Koh Phangan around full moon time. It's worth the experience :)
