Full Moon Party/ Whose Shoe Am I Wearing?

I'm off to Koh Pangan, the island where the infamous Full Moon Party is held. From Phuket it's a long bus and then a 2.5 hour ferry ride. The rain chases the ferry out to the island and when the boat docks the downpour begins. I'm completely on my own for now. I fight my way through the pouring rain and hop in the back of a taxi pickup truck. It has benches running the length of the bed, and a roof for protection from the rain but the sides are open. There is a French guy in the back of the taxi with me. I tell the driver to go to Sun Beach Inn where Grant (the guy I met on the bus ride four days ago) has told me he and his friends are staying. The truck grinds and skids up steep hills as the rain pours down and the full moon looms, reminding us of the fun ahead. I figure out where the boys are staying and go find them tucked amidst the bungalows. Our bungalow is a twenty second walk down to the beach. Our group will be Grant and Rich (from the bus), Jamie (their Australian friend), and two blond girls from the UK. We go to a restaurant on the beach and have dinner and drinks while painting each other in neon paint since it is a glow party. At about eleven o'clock we walk to Sunrise Beach where the party is held. We pay three dollars and get snazzy wristbands. We walk down the entry lane and and that's when I see how massive this party really is. People cover the cove for about one third of a mile. There are thousands. Stands are set up for alcohol sales all along the beach. We choose our poison and they pour the short bottle into a bucket with a mixer and some ice, give me four (three of them unnecessary) straws, and off I go. We jump into the waves near the flaming sign and start raging. The waves are clear and penetrated by the bright light of the flames that light a huge sign that reads FULL MOON PARTY 2010. We jump up on the platform attached to the sign and dance like possessed maniacs while the heat of the flames threatens to remove our skin. We jump back into the water from the platforms and are thrashed by the waves causing us to spill our alcohol into the ocean. We go up mushroom hill to examine the sheer magnitude of this party. My God it's huge. The music is bumping all along the beach and is filtered into the bar in which we sit. We drink and take photos for an hour and then head back down to the beach where we grab some food to absorb the alcohol. We make our way to some more music an booze buckets. People are making out, passed out, or pissing into the ocean like it's a urinal. What a display. We dance on the crowded beach where everyone is soaking wet from going in the waves. Two of the boys in our group make out. At one point I stop a fight heating up between Jamie and a drunk Italian. We go on to discover the flaming rope of death. Two Thai guys are on platforms five feet in the air turning a rope doused in lighter fluid and raging with flames. Guys jump it until they trip and it burns them causing them to scurry away from it with burn marks to the legs and arms. This is most likely just an attempt to eliminate the rowdy obnoxious ones with too much testosterone from the party. Just near that is an extremely janky slide with a hump in it that is one story high and shoots you through an arch of fire. The boys go down it naked and suffer the consequences for days. Toward the end of the night on some benches among some passed out people, the sun finally begins to rise and cast its glow over the remaining party animals still raging on. We hop on a table and continue to dance. I sit down near the water and the others join me while the sunrise becomes broad daylight. I get back in the ocean and then Grant decides to put me on his back and do a 'same shorts run' where he runs up to people with the same neon shorts as him and yells, "Same sorts! We have the same shorts!" Grant bought his shorts locally where Full Moon Party merchandise is sold, and everyone goes to get their gear, so you can imagine we're making contact with a lot of guys wearing neon pink trunks. I've had enough of the Full Moon Party so Rich and Jamie agree to walk back to the bungalows with me. People are staggering and limping away from the beach back to their own bungalows for the day. Some have stepped in glass and are bandaged up and most are just still hammered. We fall asleep for the day and in the evening Rich, Grant and I decide to get dinner on our beach called Sunset Beach. What a treat it is to have seen the sunrise on Sunrise beach, and now get to watch the sunset on Sunset beach. Tomorrow we will all part ways and I will spend the next few days lounging on Bottle Beach on the northern tip of Koh Pangan.