Koh Phangan: Feb 18 - 26

Koh Phangan(flight/ferry)

Full Moon, Partly

Koh Phangan began the bike-free, one-bag-only holiday within our larger trip.

What we thought would be little more than a stepping stone on the way to Koh Tao ended up sucking us in for over a week with its own special gravity.

There were no surprises when we first arrived at Haad Rin's Sunrise Beach. The scenes were of the undemanding hedonism that Thai beaches do so well.

Daylight was a show of frisbee maestros, still, sun-effected skin and people floating beyond the waves in warm Gulf water where barnacle-claimed plastic bottles drifted by.

By night, these same people and more returned in incandescent clothes and body paint to--under the same five dance tracks--pound sand and tables, attempt fire limbo, throw back cheap drinks and stagger past 24-hour fast food and the loud, bored voices hawking taxies and other parties.

We joined in. Briefly, in my case.

It mightn't have been our usual scene. But we had tee-totalled most of the past two months and after India, we could see the appeal of theme-park tourism. The proof was in our presence: no-one flies to Thailand if they’re above drinking from a bucket.

When one night we found ourselves helping to carry into a pharmacy an unconscious girl who had lay on the sand at the same beach party we'd attended, ignored except for when she was robbed until she was finally noticed by a group of good Samaritans, we put her in the recovery position and waited with the group for the doctor to arrive. It wasn't pleasant, but neither was it entirely surprising. This was Koh Phangan, an island famed for its lunar excess.

The surprise was finding an alternative.

It was a large part timing. We had arrived when the moon was barely a sliver. At Haad Rin it was still an island lively enough for Dheiu to stay out until early morning each night, but one subdued by the wait until the next Full Moon Party. The mood was more like a few midweek drinks than a weekend-long bender.

Without 20,000-plus fullmooners howling at the sky, filling up the streets and spilling into the sea, it was possible--after I'd had my few buckets--to find Koh Phangan's lower tempo charms.

Yan's Dorm and Bar made it easier still. Yan's was a few triangle pillow mats, pirated movies, sedative playlists and all-round good company.

It was from there that we were directed to a banana-shake-toting charter boat for a day of snorkelling and waterfall scrambling.

It was from there that we were taken the short distance to the quiet, aptly named Sunset Beach. From its 100-metre long pontoon we floated in the glow of dollar beers and a speech-stopping sunset. We would return later to sit--bobbing with the water--under an infinity of stars stretched to mere degrees above the horizon.

And it was from there that, separately, we hired scooters one street over. We rode by night over winding rises and down flat sandy straights to Tong Sala's food market. The next day we explored the island further, following jungle-cleaving roads to empty beaches and fishing villages.

At Yan’s, our plans to leave soon became a running joke. Every morning we would wake intending to catch that afternoon's ferry and still be there at night with a new reason to stay. Just one more day, we'd say.

We stayed one-more-day at a time for nearly a week.

It would have been easy to stay longer. We certainly wouldn’t be the first. But eventually we forced some will. We had to go or else we'd never make Koh Tao. We said our goodbyes and finally piled into a pier-bound songthaew taxi.

In nearly two months of travel we had left many places, but this was the first real departure.