I came to Kho Pha Ngan because I wanted to see some quiet and clean air after Bangkok.

I had spent some time pondering where I wanted to go next, decided I didn't want to go to a jungle, I wanted (post - Muay Thai) something easier. I was actually feeling ready to leave Thailand - I felt like I had now had my Thailand experiences... was ready to leave with the intention of returning in August. Plus, May has been an expensive month. What with learning how to cook Thai food in Chiangmai, how to ride Thai Elephants in Lampang and how to Thai box in Bangkok... plus buying also a digital camera and helping Can, I need a cheap month or two to balance this one out.

But I came to Koh Pha Ngan, and I've had a very difficult time working out how long to stay. I haven't really liked the island so far, haven't really felt in the mood for a big party, haven't felt particularly close to most of the fellow travellers here. However, against that is the feeling that I should see a full moon party (in a few days on the 3rd), that I should just try and relax and have a good time.
Plus, I've received a few emails recently commenting that my attacks on "touristy places" are unfair and have gone too far - in short, that I am a bit of a travel snob. These emails did prey on my mind a bit as I lounged around my west coast guesthouse. I wasn't really enjoying it, but wondered if I should try and get to like it, stop being such a snob about this backpacker destination. The other travellers there were nice people, friendly, maybe I should just relax and stop mentally complaining.

--

The boat over to Koh Pha Ngan had been an interesting study. I wondered what all the other full moon seekers would look like, would they be hippy gurus or bone thin ravers? Unfortunately, they looked pretty much like backpackers everywhere. This ship felt like it was carrying the youth of the world, well the youth of the first world at any rate - endless heads reading or dozing in the sun.
I got chatting to an older Australian man, he had clearly been living in SE Asia for a long time. I asked him how the island had changed, he laughed - originally the full moon party had been for the locals, they would walk the beach drinking and chatting. Now, it is huge, "but still, something to see", he smiled.
Even long before we docked, Koh Pha Ngan's pier was crowded with locals shouting and waving at us. "Taxi, taxi?", "Where you go"? They were attempting to have screaming conversations with us over a good twenty foot watery gap. I had decided to cop out of this, and already agreed to take a look at a guesthouse a rep had been telling us about on the boat over. I just figured it might be the right thing to do given the crowds and how expensive I'd heard it was to get around the island. I was heading to the west coast, away from the party area, Hat Rin, on the south east.

This guesthouse, Sunview, is nice enough I suppose. I have a cabin on the hill, a path leading down to the somewhat lackluster beach. The main guesthouse area at the top of the hill by the road has cushions to recline on and serves meals through the day. As far as I can tell, lounging on these cushions is what most of the people staying here do every day. Get up around lunchtime, eat breakfast, lounge, eat lunch, lounge, start drinking, lounging and chatting, start smoking maybe, evening comes, drink more, late at night sit and talk.
The thing I think that upsets me here is not any of the above, isn't the lounging, it's the mediocrity of it all. If we came to the island for the beaches, why are we staying 200m from a really nothing special one? If we came to get away from it all, why are there bars nearby playing Red Hot Chili Peppers over and over all day (the first playing of Californication was wonderful, the second and third less so). If to go somewhere cheap and idlyllic, why is the food here in the guesthouse so expensive, and the different curries on the menu all taste rather similar? If to drink, why don't we get blasted on Thai whisky, rather than just always holding a beer bottle? If to relax, why not find a deserted beach with more friendly staff serving us? If to watch DVDs, why are we watching some awful made for tv film about small town fisherman hunting a giant squid? In fact, I think one of the staff chooses the films, we just half blankly watch.

From looking at the people hanging around my guesthouse, or from what I've seen around the island, I don't get the impression the full moon party will be that crazy, that insane, the unforgettable experience of one's youth. Perhaps some years ago, but most of the people here look too clean cut, too (I include myself here wholeheartedly) boring in comparison with the myth we are expected to create on Thursday night. It feels as though everyone here is expecting someone else to bring the party, we are all going along to witness rather than contribute.
I don't know whether to stay or go. There are additional concerns about staying, such as my visa expires shortly and I will have pay a fine if I hang around the island, plus I still haven't been able to send money to Can yet and want get that finished this week if at all possible.

--

One very interesting experience I had on the island, however, was to attend a Muay Thai match. The night covered about six fights, from nine thirty pm to around midnight. Most of the people in the stands and temporary seats were foreigners - there was a group of Thais standing one side of the stage, and as a few of us from Sunview had bought the cheaper standing tickets, we stood next to them. The ring was brightly illuminated, making the water drenched bodies of the boxers glisten. When one landed a punch that rocked his opponent's head back, a wave of shimmering drops spun across the lit air then disappeared. The first bout was between two very toned Thais - few punches thrown in real anger, clearly neither man going for a knockout. Though equally, it was great to see how they used the different moves Mu and the others had been teaching me back in Bangkok - how they planned their attacks or countered their opponent's.

Then the second match, between two twelve year olds. The small boys wielded immaculate physiques and huge seeming gloves, and one began the ritual dance that precedes most of the matches. I asked the Thai man next to me how old they were, he said twelve or maybe thirteen, but they had been boxing since at least the age of seven. At eighteen or nineteen they would at their peak, by their early twenties their career would be over.
The match began, they launched kicks and punches at each other. Then one of them must have taken a punch or knee to the stomach - he leant his head forward slightly and let fall two huge mouthfuls of sick on to the mat. This did not halt the fight. He moved over to the other side of the ring, and threw up again - his opponent ran to attack him in this moment of weakness, but slipped in the puddle of vomit and fell flat on to the mat. They circled again, the boy clearly had a bit more to get rid of, and as he opened his mouth a third time, his opponent caught him smartly with a well placed kick to the face. The vomit flew out of his mouth in a sideways spray. You can imagine we were a bit bemused by all this - but the watching Thais loved it, it was the funniest thing they had clearly seen for a long time.
The match between the twelve year olds finished (the vomiting boy had won), it was now the seven year olds' turn. These boys' gloves seemed absurdly large for them, but they had been boxing for a while and their kicks and punches used the same techniques their elders' had. I should point out that the seven year olds' bout only lasted three rounds (instead of the usual five), and the referee was careful that neither of them got too hurt. The rest of the fights proceeded - no one was knocked out, although one fight was stopped when a cut opened on one boxer's forehead and his team couldn't arrest the flow of blood. All in all, a very fun and intruiging night, I would like to see the big scale version next time I am in Bangkok.

--

I decided to leave Sunview and Koh Pha Ngan on Tuesday morning, checked out, got to the docking pier - then changed my mind. I realised I wanted to do Koh Pha Ngan justice, I wanted to see the nothern shore of the island, which I'd heard from a few people was the most beautiful and quiet.

--

Bottle beach (Hat Khuat), on the north shore, is only reachable by long narrow boat taxis. A group of us waited in the north coast town of Chaloaklam for enough people to arrive before the boat was willing to leave. As the puttering engine sliced us through the up and down waves, I asked the blond mulleted English man next to me, "How long have you been staying at Bottle Beach"? He had been staying here five weeks, he said it was "paradise on earth". "Secluded, beautiful, people on the beach really friendly, perfect for relaxation, de-stressing after travelling for a while, good fun atmosphere, but by 1am or 2am the whole area is silent". I was immensely reassured by all this, by the look in his eyes of someone who had gone looking for something and had found it. I didn't think I would agree with him that it was a place to spend five weeks at, but I felt strongly he and I would be able to have conversation - more than I felt with most of the travellers at Sunview. I as said earlier, I don't have a problem with hanging out by a beautiful beach - but I wanted to go somewhere where people loved where they were, rather than just uttering that old lazy cliche, "yeah, it's alright, we meant to move on, but we just got stuck here". I think that ultimately, I am a snob, and I enjoy spending time and talking with other snobs.

The bay was a crescent of perfect yellow sand, perhaps three hundred metres long, at the edge of steep green coconut tree hills. Little cabins running along and behind it, a few wooden guesthouse buildings, where food, drink and administration were served.

As the boat nearer the shore, he pointed at the east side of the beach - "That's the best place to stay, cheaper bungalows, nicer feel. Other side, more expensive, not so great". I laughed, "You make it sound like two warring camps"! He shrugged with a smile, "It is a bit like that, and during the rainy season, a stream divides the two sides of the beach, so it really is like two separate islands". The girl next to him smiled, "I just realised, that time last week was the first time I'd ever been down to the other side of the beach"!

As I arrived at my cabin, next to me, three people. One practices fire dancing (whirling strings attached to the not yet lit rag weights) while the other two sleep with the intensity of soldiers resting before a battle. They lounge in the sun as though this is the last day they will ever be able to lounge again. I had a big smile - yeah! These were the people I had come Kho Pha Ngan to meet - perhaps the full moon party would be worth experiencing?

I bought a pink dyed sheet-hammock for three pounds, and with some difficulty, have strung it up hanging from the porch of my cabin.

There is a really nice atmosphere here in Bottle. After ten months travelling, I tend to notice atmospheres of places very quickly. Perhaps it's just my mood when I arrive somewhere, but I like to think it isn't just that. Sunview had this real sense that we all had to do the same thing everyday, sit idly around and drink beer, and if I ever went off and read a book, everyone looked at me strangely. Whereas here, the rule of the day seems: do what you feel like. Everyone just does what they want, greets me as I pass. It feels like if you are happy being by yourself, people are happy to leave you alone, if you want a chat, everyone is happy to meet you. The people who want to get drunk and sleep all day do, the people who seem to spend all day in their hammocks do, as do the people chatting and reading books. On some level, the people here know what they like, and have gone after it. Hence several people I've spoken to aren't planning to go to the Full Moon party - they've listened to what it's like, thought about whether they'd enjoy it, and decided they wouldn't. Whereas in Sunview, people would think you crazy not to go, and the rationale was always put to me as, "Oh, you've got to"! This is what I mean by being able to have a conversation. I can have a conversation with the person that loves beaches more than anything - we can talk about why he/she loves this beach so much, I can explain why I love hills and reading in cafes (or whatever). But I find it hard to have such a conversation with people going to a beach because, on some level, "that's what everyone does, and I don't want to miss out". There is a light in people's eyes when they are doing what they themselves have chosen; an easy, inviting confidence. These are the people I travel to meet.

--

I had met two English first year students on the boat to the beach, Lucy and Poppy, and we had a slow dinner and tea drinking evening-into-night on the beach. Sitting on wooden chairs around a wooden table, speakers playing good music a while away, the swosh of the sea back and forth, the almost full moon lighting up a blue cloud night, distant streaks of lightning in a corner of the huge sky.

I woke the next morning to the light creeping through the gaps in my wood cabin, and to the soft wind blowing through the leaves of coconut trees.

--

The next day, I had a great, peaceful time on Bottle Beach, reading in my hammock, hanging out at meal times with Lucy and Poppy, and made a decision. I'm not going to the full moon party. If I didn't have the problems of my visa expiring and money to send to Can, I would have stayed on Bottle Beach a few days longer and gone to the party. But also, I hadn't met anyone who had been and said it was a great transcendental experience. It isn't dancing in a beach in the middle of nowhere - there are now different bar areas with different music. I've been told the beach is fairly littered with beer glass and, while you can dance in the sea, by 2am thousands of men will have relieved themselves in the shoreline - so the water could be very warm.
I told the English mullet guy I was leaving, and asked him if he was going to the full moon party. "Nah, I don't want that wank, same idiots that go to Magaluf and Ibiza, just also one thousand Thai prostitutes".
Plus, I just didn't feel like a big party at the moment. Bottle Beach was what I had come to Kho Pha Ngan for, and I had found it. I don't take pills or smoke, and since the last few months, have really all but stopped drinking beer - I didn't want to be the sober bloke wandering past three thousand party people. I decided to leave, and asked Lucy and Poppy to email me and tell me how it went.

Now, heading to my way to Malaysia, already missing Bottle Beach. Best wishes,

Daniel, Kho Pha Ngan, 3 June 2004