The Morning after...

Koh Phangon

You wake up... No.Wait. Wake is a strong word since you were never fully asleep. A better word is rouse. You rouse, your mind snaps back fully from a dream that was dreamt with your eyes open. Wait, was it a dream or a memory. You become conscious of your surroundings. Your in, what amounts to, a shack in Koh Phangon. Your lovely girlfriend is sleeping blissfully next to you. A distant bassline still thumps, it seems to be syncronized with the pounding in your head. Ahhhh yes, you remember now... the full moon party. You try to recall exactly what happened last night, but your memory seems to only give you glimpses. You remember the thump of trance, mekong whiskey and coke served in buckets, milkshakes(you wince...oooh the milkshakes), people fire dancing- their faces bathed in the eerie glow of the flame attached to the chains that are being whipped about, a beach three quarters of a mile long with 8,000 dancing, drinking, exstatic people.

You look at your watch, shit its only 8:30, you've only been in bed for an hour and a half. You try to wake the sweet and innocent next to you, but she's not having it, even though she got a couple of more hours of sleep then you, she still went to bed way past her bed time.

So you lie in bed another hour, strands of your recollection slowly coming together. Finally, your girlfriend wakes up, and in a daze, you tramp off to find breakfast and a bathroom(since your room doesn't have one). As you get closer to the beach, the pounding music gets louder, and when you turn the corner and step on to the sand you think to yourself that you might have gone to bed a bit too early, over half of the people from last night are still dancing at 9:30 in the morning. And then you get closer and when you see the hollowed eyes, and green complexion, you realize how they did it. You've seen the same look in the mirror many a morning, and you know, as bad as you feel, it could have been much worse. You and your love sit and eat breakfast, watching the zombies stagger by, some stopping in and buying water or asking for breakfast("I don't care what you bring me, just make it greasy"). Later, you stop and say goodbye to the two swedish girls, and the german couple that you've been hanging out with and make your way to the taxi stand for the bumpy ride back to the wharf. The taxis are small pick up trucks that have benches in the back to sit on, and are covered by a hard canopy with a rack to store your luggage. You both jump in the back and sit next to a bunch of very hung-over brits. As soon as your under way, one climbs out the window of the canopy and sits on top of the truck still clutching a large Chang beer. After twenty minutes of steep hills and pot-holed roads you make it to the ferry dock. You step out of the cab, and look up and there's the brit passed out lying, on top of the luggage rack, his beer still clasped in his grubby fingers.

Finally after waiting an hour on a hot and very crowded pier, you climb on to a hot and very crowded boat for the two hour ferry ride back to quiet, comfortable Koh Tao. Another party, Another hang over, Another really long email. talk to y'all later... moe