More than just a Full moon Party - Nadine Blogging

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The first time I came to Koh Phangan, I took the Haad rin Queen ferry from Koh Samui straight to that little bay called Haadrin, the place of the famous full moon party. I thought to myself, jeez Koh Phangan is fucking small. And messy! It reminded me of Ayia Napa in Cyprus, but dirtier. Full of neon colored teenagers stumbling around drunk and loud. A lot of macho energy and high prices. AND FULL!

It was only two days prior to the full moon party and everything was fully booked so me and my traveling mates started our journey over the mountain towards the Baan Tai area to hunt for somewhere to rest our heads. We ended up sleeping three people on a queen-sized mattress that was as hard as rock, in a room full of hungry mosquitos. I woke up at sunrise by the noise of what sounded like farm animals on crack.

At that point I hated Koh Phangan.

Today, I love this silly little island. I even ended up living in just that part of the Baan Tai area with the cracked up noisy animals (and people).

I sometimes wake up right before sunrise when the jungle is starting to sing. Like a concert of crickets, birds, geckos and beetles joining together in a symphony. I love it. A friend of mine hates it and calls it torture.

My living area, Wat Pho, is quite a noisy little place known for its parties, after parties and in general just weird people. You live minutes away from the loud speakers of some of the biggest raves on the island and to add to all the noise my closest neighbor is a music producer.

However, that producer is also of the friendlier and goodhearted kind and he actually gave up his late night of music playing so the rest of the neighborhood can get a good night sleep and wake up fresh with the monks next door and their 7am wake up drumming and chanting.

Continue on the Baan Tai road through Thong Sala and up the coast towards Wok Tum and Sri thanu and a calmer vibe can be felt. Loads of families with young kids but still quite a few parties going on but with a more relaxed, ‘loungy’ feel.

There are some beautiful sunsets on this side of the island.

The coast road from Wok Tum to Sri thanu is one of my favorite drives, especially around sunset o’clock.

Sri thanu is also home to many yoga schools, and the deeper into the jungle you go the more yogis you will find. Vegan restaurants and signs saying “alcohol and drug free zone” become more common.

On this part of the island you can learn more about raw diet, colonial cleansing and weather drinking your own urine is for you or not. I have had some of my more giving and interesting moments in my Phangan lifetime up here, no doubt.

Koh Phangan is such a colorful place with so many different communities of language, culture and hobbies.

There is actually one place where they can all be seen on display together at the same time - Pantip market, or also called- the food market.

At night time I like to go and sit in the middle of this school canteen looking place and people watch. Its like the water whole on the savanna where all the different animals go to put out their thirst. It has become like a little game for me to try and guess where people are from by just looking at them and not by listening to them.

How many times to they kiss on each cheek, what they wear, haircuts etc. I come to realize how plain us Swedes are compared to, for example, Portuguese, Russians etc. Our favorite color is black, it’s not at all common to kiss cheeks or even hug if it’s been less than two weeks since you last saw each other and we rarely talk to strangers. If you do, you are slightly weird at least.

It’s really interesting to see how, even though the island is only so big, people tend to stay on their side of the island and only hangout with just their village inhabitants.

You have the fisherman village Chaloklum up north, the Baan Tai crowd, Baan Kai, Thong Sala, Sri thanu, Haad Tien etc. The yogis, the ravers, the divers, the boxers, the guys bar crew etc. whether you like it or not you will be categorized depending on where you live and who you hangout with.

And it’s amazing that even after all these years, I still get to know people that have been here just as long or longer then me and I have never seen them before!

Such a colorful place and the only time it really gets boring is when it rains. Or even worse, when it rains AND the electricity goes off.
But we are soon to enter the month of March and you really feel how each day it is getting hotter and hotter.

Summer is around the corner and far, far away from rainy boring days. And if it gets boring we can always go to the food market and people watch.