Only Three Drinks, But They Were Buckets of Booze
After my second bucket of whiskey and Red Bull at the Full Moon Party, I’d officially failed in my plan to stay sober, but succeeded in my plan to not have more than three drinks – I’d only had a bucket of mojito and two buckets of whiskey–all Peter’s fault, a forty-year-old Canadian political science professor who must work very hard to be able to play as hard as he does.
Before we talk about how when someone says, “but you have to go,” why I usually end up going even if I had planned not to, let’s talk about The Full Moon Party of Ko Phangan, Thailand.
Full Moon Party Thailand
The Full Moon Party of Ko Phangan started off as an all-night disco party in the 80s when a group of travelers and expats began meeting every full moon on Had Rin Beach. Cue word of mouth, cut to today, and now The Full Moon Party attracts between 5,000-30,000 travelers and locals every full moon. It’s debauched, and most of the party goers at The Full Moon Party are travelers in their early twenties hooked on their feelings.
People of the world, please, do it the fish, dance for all those who don’t have hands and can’t. Do it for the love of whales, put your hands on your ears and pretend like they’re gills.
The Buddha thinks you should check out The Nomad’s Nomad
I remember at one point in the night thinking, “Perhaps the dancing is good for my back?” The Internet said I needed to keep moving it, so perhaps the fish dance was the key to healing.
When it was time to go, I stayed behind and drunkenly interviewed people, asking them “What’s the moon full of?”
“Peter was worried about leaving you,” Molly tells me the next day, “since you hadn’t drank in so long. We were worried you wouldn’t make it back.”
Full Moon Crew, Molly and Joel, epic couple. Peter, creepily lurks in the background.
Once again though, from one interesting way of looking at the situation, it was technically other people’s fault. . . When I did finally pack it in from the Full Moon Party, my boat drivers demanded double the tariff once we were out in the water. “Oh hell no!” I told them.
Since I refused on poverty influenced principle, they dropped me off on a different beach. I told them I was very unhappy about this and they continued to demand more money, so I put a curse on them. I raised my hand and said,”A curse be upon you! Bad things will happen to you for what you have done!”
They were very upset about this. “Take the curse off!” they demanded. “Take me to The Sanctuary!” I countered. We were in a classic Mexican standoff situation and they left still cursed. The next time a bit of bad luck swims their way, I hope they think of me.
When I later learned the lay of the sand (see what I did there), I would discover I was not far from The Sanctuary, but I had yet to explore the area and was in no state to listen to the directions I asked everyone I came across for.
What kinda person, I wondered as I sat on the beach the next day, spends a week meditating in a monastery and two days later drinks buckets of whiskey and ends the night in the jungle surrounded by a crew of Canadians doing whippets?
It was a good question, and one I reflected on all day to distract my hangover. I thought that NASA should probably study my brain after I’m gone. But probably, I’m as strange to myself as everyone is equally weird to themselves. They say humans are 70% water, but I think we are at least 50% contradictions. There is space within us for a million contradictory nuances and this is what makes life beautiful, meditative, and drunk.
I’m greedy when it comes to the world, wanting hold onto every experience, never really satisfied with being just one person. “I wonder why you don’t stay seven years, instead of seven days,” the Abbot said to me when I left the monastery.
Because Abbot, there are places where the sun warms the sand and this heat travels to your head and intoxicates your mind and encourages you to plunge in and lick the salt from your lips. Abbot, there are people who will change my life that I haven’t even met yet. I don’t know there names, but know they howl at the moon.
Abbot, there are mountains to climb, good to do, apologies to articulate, melodies to compose, new languages to struggle through, old friends to grow with, new borders to cross, and a million more mistakes to learn from. There are buses, planes, trains, and boats to board and every time we decide to do one thing, we are choosing not to do a million other things. We can’t be everywhere, can’t do everything, but we can reach for as much of it as our soul will hold. My soul can hold a week of meditation, three buckets of whiskey and can dance like he’s trying to embarrass his friends.
And I also know that I’ve come to a limit of sorts, my body breaking from the strain of a decade of running and reaching and this new difficulty is hard, but as a part of life, there’s beauty even in it–it’s still a new journey into a foreign land of learning how to live with new limitations and chart a new course with them in mind.
