Another early morning wake up call to catch our flight down to Ko Samui, which we almost missed due to the unexpectedly long line at the airport. Once we were on Ko Samui we caught the ferry across to Ko Phangan, followed by a bogan Aussie-filled taxi to our resort in Haad Tian, where we ate lunch and fell asleep for the afternoon. Who doesn't love a siesta?

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When we finally emerged from our room we ate dinner, drank a cocktail or five and at 10 p.m. made our way to Haad Rin (50 minutes away) for the full moon party. This involved an interesting taxi ride (taxis are pickup trucks with a roof attached - you sit in the back) that started with everyone having a singalong to classic songs to help pass the time. It's great that music can overcome cultural and language barriers. This was followed by us jumping out of our original taxi due to a long traffic jam, then hanging on to the back of another taxi once the cars had started moving again. We eventually made it to the beach party at 11:30 p.m., where we found thousands of tourists (locals say 50,000 people were there) but there was still heaps of room to move around. We bought our bucket cocktails (yes, we were living up to the Australian stereotype), skipped over the fluorescent body paint and made friends with other travellers while waiting for the countdown. On the stroke of midnight a huge fireworks display appeared in the sky, with many breaking right above us. We partied on for a few hours, feeling slightly too old for the crowd but not really caring because there is a lot of alcohol in a bucket cocktail. We somehow made it back to our resort before sunrise (I think).