The first island in Thailand that we went to was Koh Phangan. This is where the movie The Beach was filmed. It was so beautiful. We took an hour long ferry after our flight from Bangkok over to the island. The ferry was filled with many backpackers. The island is very small and there are just a few small main roads full of restaurants and shops. As soon as we started exploring the island we discovered that there was Hebrew written everywhere. Apparently Thailand is a popular destination for Israelis and Australians. Koh Phangan is known for it's Moon Festivals that they have every month during the half moon and full moon formations of the moon. We scheduled this island during the Half Moon Festival... however on the ferry ride over we discovered that we had our dates mixed up and the festival was not the night we planned on staying on the island, it was the next night. After getting to our hostel we booked an additional night so everything worked out!
The beach is beautiful! It is a small beach with clear blue water. We laid out during the day time and ended up meeting a few groups of people that were on our ferry. We hung out with a group of Israelis the first night and then some Canadians and Australians the second day. On our first night there was a party on the beach we went to that was really fun. The second night was the festival in the middle of the Jungle. They taxied us out there where there was free neon body paint and a lot of dance music. The festival was so much fun! We met a lot of people from around the world and saw our Israeli friends again.
We are now in Koh Sumi for the night. It rained today so we laid low before dinner and then went to a transvestite cabaret show. The show was a lot of fun! We then walked around to see the night life before heading back to the hostel. This hostel is very nice, it is more of a hotel with private rooms and bathrooms, real towels, and other services. We are heading to Phuket for the last two nights of my Thailand trip tomorrow morning. There is a bus that takes 8 hours which takes up all of our beach time, but we will have a full day on Sunday if it is sunny. We are hoping to finally get a Thai massage in Phuket... we need one.



