Michelle Fleur : Koh Phangan...

Time is a treacherous fiend. I can't believe it's been two months since I returned from holidays! Two whole months and I still haven't finished going through all of the photos I took whilst away. I am determined not to let this task get away from me so I'm dedicating this week to getting these images sorted and blogged so that I can move onto other things and feel that everything is in its right place. Well, I am very happy with today's progress because I can share with you images from our time on the beautiful Thai island of Koh Phangan.

Koh Phangan is a little island paradise a short boat trip away from Koh Samui, one of Thailand's island tourist meccas. Koh Phangan is probably best known in the west for its Full Moon parties - basically backpackers and partygoers from all over the world travel to this tropical locale every full moon to push their body to the limits. I've heard that they are not for the light hearted! We visited Koh Phangan as an after holiday retreat and to spend time with a dear friend who had been living there as a writer for the past several months. It was the perfect anecdote to the weariness brought on by our hectic Japanese schedule, and our ten days on the island went by in a blur of lounging, eating, snorkelling and cocktail imbibing. Yeah, it was pretty nice work on our part!

We arrived on the island in time for Songkran, or Thai New Year, and our first outing was to Thong Sala (the port town on the island) to experience the celebrations of the day. Basically these celebrations involve drenching everybody in sight in water! Lots and lots of water! Water pistols, water bombs, buckets, and hoses were used to drench anyone brave enough to walk the streets. It was a lot of fun and a great way to participate in local tradition. The celebrations also brought a big thunderstorm and lots of beautiful cleansing rain to the island - rain that they hadn't seen for many, many months. Of course rain and thunder gave us the perfect excuse to do very little for a few days, but we spent much of our remaining time by the sea, or in the sea, or in cafe's drinking cocktails. When too much of nothing was done we headed a little further abroad by the use of bike or a hire car which was not too far away from needing some major mechanical work done - haha, it was dodgy!

I took a lot of photos on the island. I still haven't found the time to look at all of them. But I've made a selection of the best to share in this post and to give a feel for our time there. I'll spare you the happy snaps. Although they are some of my personal favourites you probably don't need to see a hundred images of cocktail consumption! :)

Here's my visual ode to our time on Koh Phangan...

Beaches for days...