Island Haze

Days 17 - 22 (16/04/08 - 21/04/08): Haad Rin, Island of Koh Phangan, Thailand.

I arrived on the island in the early hours of the morning, to be greeted by the waiting taxi touts, all eager to ship the arriving tourists off to the popular beach destinations around the island. I however, had a different destination; the island hospital. The nurse was very nice, considering it was just after 6am, and cleaned and dressed my very infected and bulging toe. She also gave me a course of anti-biotics and told me to keep my feet dry - absolutely no swimming!

Being by myself, and in the early hours of the morning, I was at the wrath of the taxis and had to pay an exhorbitant price to get to Haad Rin, the main tourist town on the island. I wasn't originally planning on staying here, as the beach isn't that good, people only come here to party. But as I wasn't able to swim, and needed to get my dressing changed each day, it was a viable choice. The small town had numerous medical clinics scattered around it. Obviously to cater for all the western tourists who rented scooters, and attempted to venture the islands perilous, hilly and unkempt roads. There were quite an astonishing number of young travellers walking around with bandages, crutches and large sections of road rash. Bikinis and togs don't do much to protect you when coming off a scooter.

The next 6 days or so were all rather repetitive, and I'm afraid they make rather boring reading. As I said before the only reason people come to Haad Rin is to party, and party is what you do. The town is an interesting place, completely packed with foreign, all in the under 30 age group. There is the odd elder holiday-maker, and they really stick out like a sore thumb. The town is a small warren of streets and alleways, packed with restaurants, eateries and bars. As well as a far amount of other shops, all designed to extract money from young tourists: tatoo and piercing parlours, massage shops, funky clothing stores. During the day it is a rather quiet place, filled with people walking too or from the beach, or catching a quiet bite to eat at one of the many restuarants, that are often playing movies at the same time. (Or 'Friends', the locals seem to love that show and assume all Western travelers must love it as well).

At night the place is filled with young people out to party. The main beach becomes packed with young people, dancing, singing, partying, or just sitting on the beach and swapping the requisite travel stories. The drink of choice on the island are known as 'buckets', which are sold by what appears to be every man, woman and their dog. The beach is lined with an unbroken line of small stalls, behind which resides a local, screaming and yelling at you to buy a bucket from their stall, instead of their neighbours. Even though they are all selling the same thing for the same price. So, a 'bucket' is a small plastic bucket, much like one a small child would play with on the beach. This 'bucket' then comes filled with the liquer and mixer of your choice, generally either vodka or the local Thai whiskey, and a large number of straws. Buckets, as the saying goes, are very dangerous things indeed.

I swear it was hotter here than anywhere else. At least on the Perhentians and in Malaysia, the temperature slightly dropped at night, not so here. Even in the middle of the night, sitting around doing nothing, sweat would be running of your forehead and into your eyes, your shirt wet and everything sticky. And because of the humidity, nothing dries, you are always covered in sweat and always feel wet. But once you realise this fact, you just accept it and don't let it bother you.

So as I was saying, I wasn't allowed to swim, and so tended to avoid the beach in the day, (besides it was way too hot). In fact, I was reasonably nocturnal for most of my time on the island. Sleeping during the hottest part of day, under the fan in my room, waking up in the mid afternoon for some food. Although the heat also wrecks your appetite, you just don't feel hungry at all. For some of the days, I was only eating one small meal a day (something which is very odd for me!). The local nurse would change my dressing, and maybe spend a short time in one of the many overpriced tourist trap internet cafes. At night, after grabbing some dinner, sometimes with people I knew, sometimes not, I would head down to the beach for the nightly socialising. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, I'd head back to my room, and the whole simple process would begin again.

I managed to meet quite a few travellers who I had met earlier on my travels, as I said, everyone was heading to this island for the monthly full moon party. On my fifth night of the island (20th April), it was full moon, and the accompanying party. The full moon party is supposedly the biggest party in the world, the entire beach gets filled with people. Personally, I didn't think it was that good, although admittedly, I was pretty tired after four days of late nights. However, for the first few nights the beach area around the main bars was entirely filled with people, so what difference does it make that for the 'official party' the whole beach was filled? You can still only see and interact with the the few hundred people around you.

I spent the day after the full moon party recovering, hanging out with Helen, a British lass I had met earlier on the Perhentian Islands. Her Irish friend had joined her, and so we spent a quiet evening having a good curry, and then treating ourselves to a Thai massage. I got a head, shoulders and back massage, which while good, was also very painful as the massuese really working at the knots in my back and shoulders. But an hour massage for $10NZ, is really pretty good!


The original plan had been to relax for a few days on one of the supposedly spectacular beaches on the north of the Island, and then go to Koh Tao, another island just north which I had only heard great things about. However, after five days of partying on a beach, I was quite sick of it all, and wanted to be somewhere without sand. I still shouldn't be swimming, the nurse was very clear on that, although my wound was healing up nicely, and the anti-biotics had done their job. So I didn't figure there was any point in spending more time at a beach. Helen had also independantly reached the same conclusion, she too was sick of beaches, and so we made our plans to leave the island and head to the heat, craze and uniqueness of Bangkok.