Full Moon, here I come!

I know I'm not even done with my London entry yet, but this just is begging to be written about. Thailand is interesting, to say the least! I have spent my time here alternately sighing in contentment over being in paradise and sighing in frustration over...all kinds of things! I had taken sleeping pills and a good amount of wine on the plane, so when I woke up at breakfast time wondering where in the world I was and with a splitting headache, I was reminded that I was headed somewhere foreign by the breakfast they served--nice yogurt and OJ next to chicken curry and rice! And then, the second I got off the plane, the wall of steam that hit me was a quick jolt into the relaization that I was certainly not in England anymore!

The fun continued into the airport bathroom where a funny juxtaposition presented itself--one that seems to represent a lot of Thailand so far--squat toilets (the kind that are just a hole in the floor with foot rests on either side) with an automatic flush!!! I thought this was hilarious, and as I said, it goes well with lots of other things around here. Like, for example, taking your shoes off to enter the 7/11. There are 7/11s on every corner, and here it is considered very rude to not remove your shoes before entering any building. So here I am, wandering barefoot around somewhere that would, at home, be on my top 10 list of places never to be without footwear! Take also the fact that it costs me the same amount for a full meal at dinner as it does for 15 minutes of internet, and the fact that the place I'm staying has a beautiful sea view and hammock out front, but no hot water and no flushing toilet, and this is perfectly normal.

Ok, to back up...I stayed in Phuket for a night, which was ok but nothing special, then went to Koh Phi Phi for a night. It is pronounced Pee Pee, with the Koh usually dropped, so imagine my surprise the first time a taxi driver asked me on the street, "You go pee pee?" Phi Phi was really very beautiful though. Just like you would imagine an island paradise to be...all swaying palms and beautiful sheer rock faces surrounding a pristine white beach and water so clear I could count grains of sand, and the temperature of lukewarm bath water. My bunglaow there was amazing too, but I wanted to move on.

Next stop Koh Phangon, after a frustrating day of travel, in which I was attempting to save money and go my own way rather than just be shuttled onto the tourist buses, etc, but it turns out they are very skilled at making it very hard to do on your own! "No, that bus just left, no, there is no taxi to take you to the station, but OUR beautiful air-con bus is waiting to take you, all for just twice the price!" I had to keep reminding myself that I was still dealing with the equivalent of under $20 for a full day of ferry, bus, more ferry travel, but it was the concept that was frustrating. I finally arrived on the island at 5 am in the pitch dark after a night ferry, and thank goodness I'd met some people on the ferry because I had no idea what to do next. We were soon in the back of a saginathaw (or something like that), which is a pickup with the bed covered and two benches in back, which serve as taxis around here. We were deposited on the beach, and there we waited till guesthouses opened!

My first attempt at a guesthouse seemed ok at first--I was looking for a cheap one because I'm spending a while here, and found one that seemed ok. However, I discovered something not so much to my liking--a GIANT JUMPING SPIDER in my bathroom. As many of you know, I am terrified of spiders, and this one was about 2 inches wide, staring at me from the back of the bathroom door when I closed it. Needless to say, I screamed and ran down to reception, blubbering at the nice Thai girl there to "get it out!" She had no idea what I was talking about, but when I mimed a large crawling thing she produced a huge can of bug spray and headed up to deal with it. That's when I discovered the jumping. She chased it out of the bathroom, and as I shrieked and dragged all my stuff out of the way (much to her amusement) the spider began to LEAP across the floor, under the bed then all around, and finally, finally out the door. I still checked under the bed every time I went in there.

This morning though, I decided I needed to move, as I had been kept up all night by first being scared of being so far away all alone in this place--it's up on a hill and I didn't feel very safe--and then by what must have been an army of cockroaches building a fort or something in the bathroom. No fun, no fun at all. So I moved. I've spent all of today happily working on my "tan" (burn) and reading, so it's been nice. There are a ton of people my age here because in a little while the "biggest beach party in the world" happens right here on my little beach, so that should be interesting! I've been hanging out with a Dutch girl who's also traveling alone, but haven't really made many other friends, mostly because the type of people this things seems to attract kind of annoy me at the moment--the frat-boy-spring-break types, more or less. It's been fun though...more stories from Thailand later, because writing this has already cost more than my lunch and dinner combined!!!

The Full Moon Party was actually really fun--I was quite pleasantly surprised! After a few days on Ko Phangon, I was starting to get annoyed with all the people there--the atmosphere was a bit Spring Break-y with the people that fit that mold--and I wasn' t sure if the party itself was going to be that fun. A conversation between people I overheard on the beach: (Guy walks up to girl on the beach) Girl: "Hey, did you realize it's like 2 o'clock?" Guy: "I know! I woke up and like, looked at my watch and was like, whoa, it's 2 o'clock...and I said, Nick, is it really 2 o'clock? And he was like, yea." Girl:" Seriously, how did it get to be 2 o'clock?" (pause...) Guy: "Yea, I seriously can't believe it's like 2 o'clock." It was all I could do not to lean over and ask them for the time... But even with some slightly annoying people around, it ended up being a really good time. I met some Israeli people the night before and we went out to the pre-Full Moon Party, which was really good too...and the real one was the same, just with about 10,000 more people. It was a little TOO crowded actually, but everyone was in a good mood and dancing and having fun--a good atmosphere. There were also fire shows, lots of food, people passed out right in the middle of the dance floor... I stayed until the sun came up, then went back to get a couple hours of sleep before my ferry left! Next on to Bangkok!