Haad Rin

After Darshi agreed to rent a scooter for 4 weeks, we asked the rental company every day, but all scooters were fully booked. Nobody here walks, everyone rides scooters.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the easy living with occasional small adventures. So I decided to visit the local temple nearby. It's not famous for its architecture or age, nor for its spiritual significance. Nevertheless, the temple has a calming atmosphere. It's probably a new building but constructed in a traditional style. I don't even know if there is another one. It's located on a spacious natural area with lots of open space and a few large, shady trees. There's also a small pond on the premises. Overall, I really liked it there - natural and simple. The temple was closed and there was construction going on somewhere on the site, so I didn't stay there for too long, even though the atmosphere was harmonious. I walked back along the small road.

The next day, I changed my strategy and asked for the scooter in the morning instead of the afternoon. And there it was, waiting for us. We rented it under Darshi's name, just in case the police wrote down the license plate number when I bypassed the roadblock and decided to investigate. Darshi didn't want to leave his passport for 4 weeks, which I completely understood, so we had to provide 3000 Bath as a security deposit, about €80.

And off we went, with helmets and masks. First, we went to Thongsala to exchange money. It went by quickly. Then we wanted to go to Haad Rin, in the far southeast of the island, where the famous full moon parties usually take place, or used to before everything changed two years ago. Plus, Darshi wanted to meet a friend there who was going to Chiang Mai the next day.

I had gone to Haad Rin two years ago but turned around shortly before reaching the beach because I didn't like everything there. If I had known back then that I was only a few hundred meters away from the beach, I would have kept going. But I only found out now.

From Thongsala, Haad Rin is easy to find, just keep going west along the coast. The road has adventurous curves, inclines, and descents, but also fantastic views. At the spot where I encountered a group of monkeys two years ago, there was now a landslide that blocked half of the road. There were no monkeys to be seen, of course, under these circumstances.

We passed by some very elegant and probably very expensive hotels with exclusive and breathtaking locations. At the entrance of Haad Rin, we were welcomed by a giant figure standing on a big rock, representing the full moon parties in town.

Now we just had to find the House of Sanskara, where we hoped to find Darshi's friend. We kept going, keeping our eyes open, looking left and right, but we couldn't find the house we were looking for anywhere. It was supposed to be right at the beginning of the town. I stopped because I thought we had already gone too far. And just as I was about to turn around, we saw the sign. We had stopped right in front of it.

We were very relieved and turned left. Initially, we went uphill, which worried me a bit since we wanted to go down to the beach. But soon enough, another sign appeared, and the unpaved road started going downhill. We reached the first bungalows and eventually reached the beach, where we parked the scooter and looked for Darshi's friend. We asked in the beach bar if they knew her, but the name didn't ring a bell. Based on Darshi's description, we were led to a bungalow where an older woman was resting in her hammock on the terrace. But it wasn't her. We stood there somewhat puzzled and decided to try the beach. Until then, we hadn't even looked at it, but now we walked through the high palm trees and found a wonderful sandy beach that was about 500 meters long. The wind was blowing and the sea was creating actual waves, which I hadn't seen anywhere else on Koh Phangan. However, the wind and waves also made it unusually loud, which I found quite unpleasant after a while.

First, we settled down in the aforementioned beach bar to recover from the drive and refresh ourselves. I was already hungry again, so we ordered some food. Most of the other guests were Russians, but there were also German families enjoying themselves in the restaurant or in the hammocks tied to the palm trees. The scenery was truly beautiful. I didn't necessarily associate Haad Rin with the best memories, as I believed it was overcrowded, dirty, and expensive due to the famous full moon parties. At least in this area, the beach made a wonderful impression, apart from the ruined building on the cliff. Later, I would learn that there were more of these unpleasant relics from better times further along the beach. The beach was crowded, but far from being overcrowded. There was life on the beach, but there was still plenty of space. However, the crowd changed as we walked further up the beach. Expensive bungalows and hotels had been built there, and the customers seemed to be mostly Russians, which significantly altered the character and energy of the place, and not for the better. The charm had somehow disappeared.

After we had refreshed ourselves and rested a bit, we were getting ready to plunge into the waves when Darshi's friend suddenly appeared out of nowhere, accompanied by a 10-year-old Thai boy. She looked at us in disbelief but with joy, as she had no idea about our spontaneous visit.