Full Moon Party

As much as I've been enjoying sitting around and relaxing for the past few days, I wasn't going to miss a chance to attend the legendary Full Moon Party while we're here on Ko Phangan. I told myself I had to finish my personal statement for a grad school application by the time of the party, which was good motivation for me to crank it out. So I finished my essay, the sun went down, the music outside got louder, and we noticed a lot more people were hanging out at the bar area at our resort. Party time!

So... these parties are supposed to be "crazy," and come with several warnings of being careful with drinks, drugs, and watching your personal belongings. Of course. We also heard a range of the number of people in attendance at these events-- we heard everything from 5,000 to 30,000 people, partying on Haad Rin beach. I'm not sure how many people there were, but definitely a lot! We wrote the name of our resort on our arms just in case we got lost. It was pretty insane!

But to my dismay, I was kind of disappointed with the party. First of all, I'm not used to drinking anymore and haven't really enjoyed alcohol too much lately. Secondly, people were sloppy and trashed. At any moment, I could look out on the beach and see several people peeing in the ocean. The thing that bothered me the most was how dirty the beach was... I was drunkenly upset at the amount of straws and beer bottles that I saw littering the sand =( Music was okay... No outstanding dancers in sight. I think most people were just there to get wasted. I miss going to Ruby Skye and the electro-techno-disco-love parties in San Francisco where the music is good, dance circles have talent, and I get to enjoy time with my friends. Maybe I would have had more fun under different circumstances. Maybe I just miss my friends...

Don't think I was a Debbie Downer the whole time though! Ana and I always have fun! It just wasn't as epic as I expected.

We ditched the party pretty early and ate a bag of potato chips, but still woke up with hangovers this morning and spent the day sleeping and hiding from the rain. Oh yeah, by the way, the sun decided to go on vacation on the third day that we got here. It's mostly been overcast these past few days... Luckily it didn't rain during the party, but today we got soaked walking back from dinner, and we also heard thunder! At least we got a couple of days of sunshine though. We're off to Ko Samui tomorrow, and hopefully the weather changes so we can lounge in our swimsuits once again!