July 26th, 2019
Am I starting to look like a local yet?
Today we left Railay Beach and did a full day journey to Koh Phangan, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. This involved a small, long-tail boat out of Railay, then a minivan ride across the southern part of Thailand’s mainland, then a ferry ride to Koh Phangan. It’s funny traveling the way that we are, when we don’t really have good concepts of any details. There seems to be a bit more of a language barrier here in Thai compared to Malay. Don’t get me wrong, it is still easy to get around and everyone does seem to speak at least some English. Enough to sell you what they are selling, and get you checked into your room etc. I have noticed if you get off any topic other than what they directly deal with, they don’t understand that well (in general). We knew we bought a ticket to Koh Phangan and are confident we will somehow get there but the details of what it means and how long are pretty vague. They usually give you some sort of time schedule, but we have never found it to be accurate as far as when you will arrive. The funny part is when we get on a bus or van, we have absolutely no idea how long a ride it will be. Will we be on the van for 30 minutes until it takes us to a stop, and we get into a different vehicle, or should I get comfortable because I’ll be in this seat for many hours? You never know. Since we don’t have a schedule it doesn’t really matter for us. It’s a totally different way of traveling than what we are used to when we know exactly what’s going on because we have such few days of vacation and have everything pretty mapped out.
When we got on the big ferry and were parked at the dock waiting for takeoff, another ferry was pulling into the dock next to us. I kept saying “that ferry looks like it’s getting really close to us… why is that ferry so close? Doesn’t it seem weird for it to be so close?? “. Without a response from anyone around and no one seeming to care, I just kept watching as it got closer. Right before it hit, I was telling Brendan “Look! Look, its going to hit us!”. He never looked up from his game to see it and then it hit. Our whole boat was jostled. Brendan, without ever looking up even after impact finally said “ya, I did feel something”. There were a few people on both boats looking over the edge at where the boats were touching as the other one scraped by, but no one seemed like it was a big deal. I jumped up to take a picture a little late but maybe this was a normal thing? I certainly couldn’t tell from Brendan’s response or any other passengers that this was anything unusual. Seemed strange to me but as soon as the other ferry was out of our way we took off. No big deal.
We finally arrived in Koh Phangan. This is home of the original, and famous Full Moon Party. This party has a reputation of being the biggest beach party in the world and draws up to 30,000 tourists for full moon. The party has gotten so big they even have half moon parties now. Unfortunately (or fortunately) our timing was not right to be here for full moon or even half-moon. The pros to coming here when it is not full moon is that we miss the 30-50% price increase that happens to everything on the island. We also had many options on where to stay, when during full moon you must book far in advance as every hotel is full. We also missed the flood of 18-22-year-olds that take over the island the days before and after the party. We definitely would have been the senior citizens at the party. We get to enjoy all the beautiful beaches on Koh Phangan without the masses. The cons to missing the party are we did not get to dress in neon clothes and glow in the dark body paint. That definitely would have been my favorite part of the occasion. We also didn’t get the shirt that states we have been to the original full moon party and biggest beach party on earth.
Koh Phangan is beautiful though and has many things to do with or without the full moon. We took a taxi from the ferry terminal to our hotel. The taxi was a pick-up truck that had benches in the back on either side of the truck bed. We shared the benches with a family from Austria, and their 16-year old son thoroughly impressed me with his well-spoken words and passion for cultural and environmental sciences. I wish I knew more kids with a similar mindset and genuine care for society and our planet.
