We didn’t stay on Koh Phangan for very long but the impression we had was that it was very touristy and you’ll struggle to find anything that resembles ‘authentic’ Thai living. It’s a very large island though, so you could probably spend a long time there and not discover all of the view points and nice restaurants. To top it off, it’s very expensive (for Thai standards), so personally I’d only go there for the tourist attractions or if you’re into all inclusive resort, beach type holidays.

There are regular ferries to Koh Phangan from Koh Tao so we just booked onto an afternoon journey the day before as well as booking our room (the beauty of coming to Thailand in low season!).

We stayed at the Cookies Salad resort where you get your own little cabin overlooking the sea- very picturesque.

 

Full Moon Party

Koh Phangan is known as the party island and that’s exactly what we went there for. When on the islands on Thailand, I think you HAVE to experience a Full Moon party if one is on (don’t worry if not, they have parties on half-moon and new moon too). We were advised to take as little as possible so that’s what we did- minimal money, and the clothes on our back (and I still lost my flip-flops!).

We initially had the mind-set of going to the Full Moon Party as spectators, to watch the drunkards and find out what it’s all about. So we scootered on down… 5 buckets (1x 300ml spirit, 2x soft drink 1x energy drink at anywhere between £4-10) later and we were partying hard like the rest of them. Apparently there were 30,000 people on that beach -and I could believe it.

Being the idiotic drunken couple we were, we scootered the 45 minute journey back to the hotel at 06:30 AM. We scootered past the police and along the hilly lanes all the while, Ian was saying “This is stupid”, “This is so dangerous” whilst I was asleep on his back on the scooter- never again!

Obviously, the following day was written off whilst we nursed two painful hangovers and thought about how lucky we were to get home alive…

Slip ‘n’ Fly

The day following our slow recovery, we thought the best way to make ourselves feel better was to hurl ourselves down a near vertical slide and be launched 10-15 metres into the air before belly-flopping into a deep pool!

It was great fun- you get so much air time you can ATTEMPT double backflips!

Half way through, a storm hit- branches from the trees were breaking off and one ripped the big slide. When it calmed down, we could all go on the smaller slide which launches you forward rather than upwards- ideal for front flips… Or so I thought- we had to leave after I landed on my face from an attempted front flip and suffered from minor whiplash lasting a few days.

The weather didn’t get better after the storm so we thought we’d cut our losses, skip Koh Samui and head straight for Krabi for some climbing!