Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Wow I can't believe another year has gone by and it's already 2009! Even more so, I can't believe that I am spending my first days of the year in a beautiful country like Thailand. To celebrate, Jimmy and I were supposed to take a boat over to a nearby island called Koh Phangan island where they throw the famous Full Moon Party. Unfortunately, the bus was late picking us up to take us to the pier so we would have spent the New Year on a boat! So instead we got our money back and headed to the busy streets of Chaweng where we went to a party at The Monkey Bar. They had a huge party on the beach with DJ's, dancing, flame throwers and blowers, fireworks and way too much drinking! They have these things called buckets which are basically the size of a sand bucket you used to make sand castles with and fill them with a mixture of Thai whiskey, redbull and pepsi. Man do they do the trick for a New Years celebration!

At midnight they had a countdown and set off hundreds of fireworks all over the island. They also have these lanterns that they sell on the beach and you light them and they float off into the sky. All through the night the sky was lit up with these little lanterns and fireworks.

The next two days were spent recovering from the party... who knew a hangover could last two days!

On our last day in Koh Samui, we decided to head over to Koh Phanan island. We took a ferry over to the island and rented motorbikes for the afternoon and cruised around the very uninhabited island. It was so much fun because most of the island is covered with these steep little mountains that go straight up and straight down. Being on a motorbike and climbing up to the top was both frightening but exhilarating! At the top you could see the island and the variations in the color of the blue water. It really looked like a scene from a movie. Driving was fun except there are basically no road signs so we just kind of guessed where we were going. Luckily, almost everyone speaks english so it wasn't a problem when we got lost. The island was so quiet and tranquil I felt like I had transported back to years ago. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the Full Moon Party beach just relaxing before we took the evening ferry back to Samui.