My story: The Full Moon Party
I first heard about it in Malaysia, a guy said "You have to go there...the partying was insane, especially the full moon party". I've never really liked partying but I went. We arrived a day before at 6am and it was packed. No rooms available. I felt like Jesus' mother, knocking on every door to find a place to stay. And being rejected. Finally walking back and forth on the beach a while we arrived at a little family own shop, selling all sorts of things I think my grandmother would like. It was a one bedroom house. The shop/living room was downstairs including the kitchen which was half outside. The shower/bath was actually not that bad (the definition and required quality, lowers substantially after a while when going backpacking). So they let us stay. There were four of us and we got the only bedroom in the house, upstairs. This meant that we had to go through the kitchen and the shop/living room every time we wanted to go out or in. The rest of the family, a topless grandmother, and four others slept on mattresses in the shop. But we were all satisfied.
Every month, when the moon is at its brightest more than 2,000 young backpackers arrive to this 20-sq.-mi., palm-fringed, mountainous speck off the eastern coast of Thailand. They come just for the party and then they leave. Most travelers go to Hat Rin on the south east corner. the because you have both some shops, restaurants, clubs and a nice beach there. Other places on this island has a lot less.
On the day we painted ourselves with glowing paint and started to drink around 8pm (which soon became an every day evening ritual). After short time the whole beach became this massive outdoor dance floor. People everywhere, laying, standing, swimming, dancing, jumping screaming…Speakers pumping out rhythms. You could feel it through your bones and your head. Automatically your body starts moving (I guess the fish moved too, further out).
It was just this huge party. One thing that stroke me was that everyone seemed to get a long. What they represent with their nose rings and tattoos and sarongs and dreadlocks, is the possibility that through music, dance and even drugs, there is a sort of liberation from the routine. From the meaningless state between a post-graduate life and a pre-carrier. This feeling we shared made me feel like being a part of a community. With this in common it made us dance with whoever was available and we all just wanted to enjoy and have fun. For the locals we must be have been "a bunch of crazy people, smoking a lot of dope, having sex with each other and walking around in what seems like less than underwear". But the moon was up, the temperature was high. The only thing that mattered was being there. It was bizarre in a way, being on this island in the middle of nowhere, a beautiful island (that has kind of become a prostitute, selling it's virgin and being polluted by us) filled with young westerners, raving and partying under the full moon.
At 10am the next morning we had breakfast. Hungry, dirty (from rolling in the sand), barefoot (from having lost our shoes) wet (from sweat and water) we entered a restaurant together with people we had danced with. It felt good. Nothing mattered, only the present of existing.
