Well after a year of travelling around Australia and New Zealand, I finally came to the end of my trip, but had the bonus of stopping in Thailand for a month. Oz was cool, got to go to six or so free parties and a really good trance festival. The parties in Oz are good, but are still developing at the minute. Good tunes at most of them, a few dodgy DJ's allowed on the decks. The venue's are pretty amazing though - Small deserted beaches, old cinemas, parties deep in the woods around Gosford and Byron. The good thing about Oz is they have so many locations for parties, but own transport is a must. Not a problem hearing about them as Sydney and Byron have a good underground network of soundsystems and contacts. if your heading out there, give me a mail and I'll pass you on the relevant mailing list/websites to check.
So back to Thailand and I landed in the overcrowded, polluted and counterfeit paradise of Bangkok. Two days was enough for me and I had to get out. Got myself a bus ticket and headed down to Koh Phangan in the south. Ferry across the Gulf of Thailand and then a crazy taxi ride along the 12k dirt track to my accommodation. I stayed at Thong Nai Pan Yai beach - really chilled beautiful beach and a great bar to get wasted at. Full moon was on the 2nd of October, I got there a few days before and decided to stay away from Hat Rin until full moon a few days later.
The night of the party and I had a longboat ticket to get around to Hat Rin beach. It got to about 8pm, when the longboat drivers told us that the sea was too rough to take the boats out. I managed to get myself on a speedboat, which was still operating. Thirty or so of us on the boat and just about enough room for everyone. The boat left the bay, switched it's interior lights off leaving only the light from the red flashing strobe to see the looks on everyone's faces as we jumped over waves - people were screaming at the front - top fun! 20 minutes or so later and we caught our first glimces of the infamous full moon party.
The cliffs surrounding the bay were illuminated by a powerful revolving light from the other end of the beach . The bass line thump of 15 soundsystems all mingled into one, as we got closer. Reversing the boat near to the beach, we had to jump into waist high water and wade through the sea to dry land. I walked along the beach, stumbling through the masses dancing. Most of the bars along the 500metre beach had their own soundsystem playing trance, techno, drum and bass, house, cheese and everything else. Paradise, Vinyl Club, Orchid were the better one's. The Orchid was first port of call - they had hardstep, jumpup and oldskool drum and bass sets from Thai and UK DJ's. The place was pumping all night. The MC's were English and not to bad, really enjoyed getting wasted here. Paradise and some other place at the other end of the beach played decent psy-trance all night, I hung around here for ages. Majik mountain at the other end of the beach, has a cafe on the cliff side serving mushroom shakes and omelettes, and a good place to chill. Smoking on the beach is a bit dodgy, and not recommended as undercover cops walk around. 50,000 Baht fine if caught with any amount! (1000 squid). Thai chemists are great though - much better than Boots!
The Vinyl club played techno all night and competed with a soundsystem literally 5 foot away....mismatch of beats if stood in the right place. 5000 people getting wasted, I saw a few casualties passed out on the beach. Everyone pisses in the sea, so best not to go swimming in there... still didn't stop loads taking an early morning dip! The night went pretty quick as most parties do. Sunrise came and the heat from the sun warmed up the place. A refreshing rain shower happened at 7.30am, before most of the systems switched off. About this time I ran into a few people I knew from the resort. One of the Thai guy's from there took us to an after party high on the hill. The place is basically a bar with a wikkid view from the dance floor of the next island, Koh Samui. 200-300 people out of 5000 that were on the beach knew about it. The first set was from a Thai DJ playing some decent trance, then followed by an Irish DJ who got chucked off the decks by the owner after scratching too much. The owner is a huge bloke not too be messed with, and a talent for spinning minimal trance tunes. I didn't hear a mistake in the 6 hour set I was there for. The sun shone bright with the occasional warm rain shower to cool things down a bit. Around 4pm we started to make a move home, grabbing a taxi we headed back to the resort along the 12k track, had dinner and carried on drinking and toking before eventually falling off the barstool. Great experience, and so glad I got to go to the after party as that was definitely the highlight of the night.
I moved to Koh Samui after the week was up, and ended up at a crazy party a few days later. I'd been out drinking in town - Thai whiskey mixed with diet pills, beer and shots....so I was already in quite a mess before I got to the party. The Ritual/Freedom party at Rocky bay near Chaweng was on a stony beach with one really loud techno soundsystem. Loads of people were there. I was pretty wasted and walked to the ocean's edge, spotting some people on the rocks literally 5 metres away, I misjudged the depth of the water and fell over in the sea fully clothed. Cut my feet up on glass that covered the beach - many parties had taken place here before. Fell over lots, bruised myself in many places, not really noticing the pain until the next day. The night went pretty quick, and I met a few people (I think!), and still to this day I don't know how I got home. Really enjoyed myself, simply coz of the craziness of the night. Woke up the next day at 5pm, tried to stand up but realised I'd cut both of my feet up real bad - pretty tricky backpacking around Thailand when you can hardly stand up! Thailand was a cool place to visit, get yerself out there!
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