Michelle and John: Koh Phangan

I think we have found our favourite Thai accommodation. Again we went for the cheapest we could find. Arriving the day of the full moon party, and booking a day in advance didn't leave us with too many options. However, we are not doing too bad at €32 a night, with breakfast. The hotel is a bit remote, so there is nowhere really within walking distance. The views we have here are amazing, and definitely make up for the remoteness. The staff are lovely, and the service is good. Our room is lovely, and we could fit one of our bedrooms at home into the bathroom! (But even at that size there isn't a bath - we had a few hotels in New Zealand like that, with massive bathrooms, but no bath.)
We have really spent a good bit of time chilling out here - the pool is lovely too. But apart from that we have actually gone places and seen things. The reason we came to this particular island was for the Full Moon Party, on Haad Rin beach. For two people who aren't overly fond of night clubs or dance music we definitely managed to enjoy ourselves! We started off by buying a bucket to share - this is all that was served - a bucket with a spirit and a mixer. Then we went with the crowd and bought some fluorescent paint to do ourselves up. John wouldn't let me paint him (not sure why), and I wouldn't let him paint me (for obvious reasons). With varying levels of success in the painting category we headed onto the beach. There was a massive number of people. Between 8000 and 30000 attend every month, but I don't know how many were there that night. There were different DJ's offering different music styles, and some fireworks and pyrotechnics. It was great!
On Sunday we headed to Thong Sala, the main town on the island to book our transport to Bangkok on Monday. However, everything off the island was booked out until Tuesday, so we had to make do with staying on the island an extra night. (For some reason the hotel gave us a big discount on the extra night. Not really sure why, but we are definitely not complaining). We spent some time in Thong Sala wandering around the shops. We got dinner there too. It broke the bank at roughly €5. Altogether. (I really don't know how we will cope when we get back!).
Today we made the most of the hotels lovely location and spent a lot of time in the pool. We also went to the nearby village, but it was very quiet, so we didn't stay too long, just walked along the beach and came back.
The only big negative is that I am being positively eaten by insects. I have bites all over. :(