Ko Pha-Ngan is home to the infamous full moon party, a drug-laced day-glo paint affair with hundreds of people. For example, I met a guy that had been rufied at the party. He came to on the beach with almost 8 hours missing, kicking a soccer ball. Everything had been stolen from him: phone, wallet, shoes, even his shirt. Needless to say, I chose to miss the full moon party. I was trying to find a laid back beachy town. I found a decently priced dorm, but it wasn't really near too much. I had to walk a pretty good distance to find an area of the beach that was suitable for sitting. Definitely beautiful though.
I made some friends in my dorm, Simon from England, and Seth and Joel, the Canadian duo. The Canadians had one of those small go-pro cameras and interviewed everyone in the dorm with it. Everyone was really cool and I was definitely glad I had them, considering how my visit Ko Pha-Ngan played out.
The issue with this island is that it's really too big to walk and there isn't a lot of public transport. So people rent motorbikes (scooters) to get around. Great idea, right? Not so much for me. I came up with the great idea of renting motorbikes and riding to a waterfall hike on the other side of the island, followed by the beach. The guys were all for it and we signed our lives away, jumped on our bikes and headed off into the distance.
Long story short, I ended up crashing my motorbike within 30 minutes. Straight was ok, but turning was out of the question apparently. I caught some sand, lost control, the brakes didn't work and crashed into a curb. They also drive on the opposite side of the road. I am sure that didn't help either. Thankfully I wasn't hurt badly, just some fantastic road rash.
The guys were great and brought me to a pharmacy so I could tend to my battle wounds while they brought my bike back to the hostel. Seth documented the aftermath of my crash with his go-pro. Can't wait until that makes it to youtube... The woman quoted me 5,700 baht for damages to the bike, about $200. Mind you, it was all scratches. Only one panel was popped out. I got her down to 2500 baht (You can negotiate anything here), but it still really ruined my day. So we skipped the waterfall, found a beach, acquired some Norwegian girls and I drowned my sorrows in some pina coladas. We hung out on the beach until late when a storm rolled in and we had to run back to our hostel in the tropical rain. All things considered, it ended up being a pretty good day.
I found out later that my roadrash is called a Ko Pha-Ngan tatoo because everyone crashes motorbikes there. Apparently you haven't done Thailand properly until you've crashed a motorbike. So glad I could join that club.
After this incident, I was done with Ko Pha-Ngan and decided to make my way over to Ko Phi Phi. Third time is the charm, right?
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