The last few days have been a blur. We spent two nights on Koh Phi Phi, which is probably the biggest party island of all the Thai Islands. But strangely enough, we found it weirdly anti-social. I made an English friend, Nia, in Phuket and we decided to do the islands together. Everyone on Koh Phi Phi were already in their small established groups, and it felt a little bit cliquey.
We met up with other friends we had made in Phuket and hired a long boat to see all the islands. The water was a crystal turquoise green you only see in movies or on advertisements at travel agents. We saw Maya Bay - the beach that the movie "The Beach" was filmed at, and it was stunning, but over crowded by tourists. You also had to pay for the priviledge of 30 minutes on the beach, so instead of forking out the money, we got a touristy group photo and jumped back in our long boat. One thing is for sure - if they can make money off tourists, they will.
Later that night, we did the obligatory party night until the early hours of the morning. My favourite part was the fire shows - Thai men throwing fire batons around, tourists jumping through flaming hoops, tourists doing fire limbo. Tourists getting ridiculously burnt as they misjudged the fire in their drunken stooper and brought down the flaming hoop or limbo pole onto themselves. I tried not to laugh because it must have hurt like hell. The night was lit up like a carnival with the myriad of fire shows dotted all over the beach front.
We traveled from Koh Lanta to Koh Phangan and that took about eight hours. It was a long journey by car and by ferry, so thank god I had my travel buddies with me to keep me company or it would have been a lonely trek. It's amazing how you can just make friends so easily and before you know it - you've formed a tight little group to travel with.
Koh Lanta was beautiful and serene but I felt like it was more geared towards couples or families, it was very low-key. It would have been better if we could have ridden scooters around the island, I think we would have gotten a much better feel for it. But I have a no-scooter policy. Due to the fear of doing damage to myself too early in my trip. I don't know how I would make it around traveling solo on crutches with a backpack.
So we made it to Koh Phangan in time for the half-moon festival. To be honest I found it a little underwhelming. My favourite part was the pre-partying at the hostel and everyone madly painting each other in fluro paint. People I had just met were taking to my face with a paint brush, which was a hilarious way to make friends. The actual half moon party was in a rainforest, but they charged 600 baht to get in and the que was so long that by time you got in, the alcohol-induced buzz you had before had all but dissipated.
But the rainforest was a glowing labyrinth of colours. There were spherical and cubed objects made of fluro string hanging through the sky scraper trees, glowing and alive. It looked like an alien world. Everyone looked like aliens too, glowing with their proud fluro designs and darting around the rainforest, vibrating with an excess of energy. But my favourite part were the hammocks hanging in between the trees. I just liked to lie in a hammock, listen to the music and watch the stars and the pulsating fluro world. It was a pretty amazing sight.
So tomorrow we travel to Koh Tao - and we have added to more solo travelers to our growing group - a Dutch and an Argentinian.
