O.k. guys and girls: I did survive the (in)famous full moon party on Ko Pha Ngan! But unfortuately not everybody can say the same: Four people died. One was shot, at least two stabbed and done girl fell from the back of a taxi and died. Considering that the number of people who were there was approx. 7.000, this is a ridiculously high number. But apparently it's quite normal.

I mean, look at the Oktoberfest: Approx. seven million people and only one fatality every two years. If we had the same number of fatalities, then 2.000 people would die on the Oktoberfest per year. Imagine!

Still, at that night I didn't see or hear any violence. And in all I had a good night. In a way it was my first proper beach party. After all, I've never been someone to hang out on the beaches a lot. So now I have a rough idea what it is like in Ibiza or even Mallorca. I even started to develop a taste for vodka red bull. Well, after the second bucket I suppose I would even have liked Chang Beer, a completely undrinkable but cheap (and therefor popular) local beer.

The thing that surprsied me most about Ko Pha Ngan so far is that there seem to be only Scandinavians here! At first I thought that it was just our resort that was full of Swedish (mainly), Norwegians (some) and Danish (a few), but it’s the whole bloody island. Seriously: On the full moon party I met more Scandinavians then people from anywhere else in the world!

I went to the party with Nanna, Naja and their three Swedish friends Carolin, Helena and Sandra. I had already met Carolin and Helena in Laos but didn’t really get to know them. So I was happy to discover that Carolin is actually a very nice and intelligent girl. I didn’t get to talk much with Helena, so I can’t say anything about her. The thing I really liked about Carolin and also Sandra was that they didn’t talk any of the usual traveller-bullshit, didn’t try to be overly funny or impress. Something I unfortunately catch doing myself quite often as well, meaning that most of the time you just replay the same old phrases over and over again but don’t find out anything about the people you are talking with. Which essentially means that the whole consversation is wasted time. Carolin and Sandra though were different. Sincere and not full of bullshit. I probably had the best talk with them I’ve had in weeks. Which unfortuantely does say a lot about the quality of the conversations I’ve recently had. I also realized something about my infatuation with Nana. I realized that I wasn’t so much interested in her as a person, but merely felt a strong sensation of possessiveness; a feeling that essentially meant: “Everybody else stand back – I’ve seen this female first!” And this is something that doesn’t have anything to do with the person in question. Which is pretty sad. And thus my infatuation ended.

But of course we didn’t just sit on the beach, talk or have epiphanies. We also drank, walked around, looked at fire-breathers, met old friends from the Asian circuit etc.. Unfortunately there was not a lot of dancing. Ah, well. And it rained! It rained properly. Not just two drops but a rather long, health downpour. I was quite happy with this but apparently rather alone with this feeling since most people immediately ran for shelter. But after the dryness and dustyness of Cambodia I couldn’t do anything else but stand in the rain and feel it fall on my skin.

Eventually (like, 4 a.m.) I got a sick of the whole spectacle and went home to our resort (Hut Sun at Ao Chao Phao) where I slipped into the hammock on my porch, enjoyed the quite and looked at the full moon shining on the sea. Within minutes I fell asleep and was apparently snoring so badly that a Chilean guy who wanted to go to bed woke me up and suggested very strongly that I should go to bed because of the mosquitos. The next day he told me that it was because of me snoring :-).

So that was my full moon party. It was good but not the best party in the world. It’s worth seeing but I don’t think it’s really worth travelling to, if you are not on Ko Pha Ngan or Ko Samui anyhow.