Full Moon Party

I'm currently back in Koh Samui, waiting for a flight back to Bangkok.

Last night, a group of us from the Coco Garden Guesthouse, next to my bungalow went to the Full Moon Party in Hat Ring, Koh Phang Nang. We were joined by 2 american girls I'd met in Phnom Penh, an australian labor organizer on holiday who wore the most outrageous pants I've seen for the occasion, Renault - a Belgian who loves "musique afrique", a friendly, though taciturn Scotsman, and Tomoko, the travel agent on a mission to "do nothing" from Japan. On a packed beach, there were travellers from from around the world, getting down under the glow of a full moon. Each bar on the beach was pumping their own music and the styles varied from psychedelic trance, drum n base, house, hip hop, r n b. People danced from 10pm last night until 2pm today. I ended up leaving early since I was fighting a cold - which my anti-biotic is starting to beat. The full moon party has become a cliche - but it was fun nonetheless.

In the last 2 days, I managed to get a cold, scrape up my leg falling off a motorbike, get gouged by the rental shop who wanted 11000 bhat for a few scratches on the bike (10000 baht = $250). They had my passport so it was a difficult position to be in - but I managed to bring it down to around 5000. Still a hefty amount considering the repairs would cost no more than 1000 baht at the most. I seemed to unnerve the bike shop manager by suggesting he was accumulating a good amount of future negative karma. We did managed to see a monastary on a hilltop and then spend a few hours in a herbal traditional sauna at another temple that would have been otherwise inaccessible. Nonetheless, I've resolved to be through with renting motorbikes. I saw a lot of people on the island with casts, crutches and bandages from accidents.

I had a strange dream the other night. I was back in New York City, wandering like some ghost. I'd found my old bedroom - but didn't recognize it. Inside, it was overgrown with weeds and plants from neglect. I remember walking around classrooms, presumably from my old college. In one classroom, I heard a sound like a sea monster bellowing being put through a ton of reverb effects - I realized they were playing a video from a concert from my old band from college. It was the end of one of our songs, and I recognized my guitar part being punctuated by Erik's rising drum cadence. I noticed it was a class on Beethoven, and I asked one of the students why they were playing concert footage from our band. The student replied "because it is about personal expression".