Myself and 2 other American women from work (the only other 2 Americans....) decided to get away and celebrate my birthday. So off to Koh Samui and Koh Phangan for the full moon party.
It is worth noting that in Thai - "koh" means island. And these are some of the most notable islands of Thailand. Samui is famous for its crystal blue waters and white sands and boy did it deliver on that promise. Whereas, Phangan is famous for the monthly full moon party. People come from all over the world to dance and party until dawn in on the beach. We figured, why not?
Samui is about a 1hr flight from BKK, so after dashing out of work we found ourselves a mere 2 hours later having drinks on the beach. Samui is one of those places where one does some variation of 4 things in no particular order - eat, sleep, drink, swim. To make the most of this we splurged on a super nice hotel…NYC prices in Asia :o But it was worth every penny. The most unusual and striking feature was the red pool…where we spent the late mornings and early afternoons talking about the previous evening and enjoying bloody mary’s.
The full moon party was….well…interesting. There were 30,000 people on a small beach (you could see end to end). There were tons of people from tons of places and the vibe was super relaxed and friendly. We talked to many people and surmised that the majority were backpacking Australians. With that said, somehow I managed to meet 2 NY investment bankers on vacation…this became the joke of the evening as it was like hanging out in a bar in NY with 6 NYers standing around talking about real estate and the best burger in the city.
So we danced until dawn and then took a boat back to Samui where we embarked on all possible combinations of eat, drink, sleep and swim.
Just another typical island weekend in Thailand….
