Lunar Eclipse...and rabies strikes again

So Nicola and Ella and I as well as two germans from our same bungalow caught a saeungtheuw that night to head up to the half moon party. Unlike the fullmoon party which is on the beach and attracts up to 30,000 people, this one is in the jungle and gets only 5-10,000 people. We arrived in the jungle around 10:30pm. When we got to the entrance, there was a large sign that said due to the current political problems and state of emergency declared in thailand, the party would no longer go until 6am, but only until 2am, but they would be charging 300baht instead of 400. We paid to get in, bought some overly expensive beers and a bucket to share between ella, nicola and I and got ready to dance. The setting was amazing. In the middle of this jungle, with all sorts of cool lights and decorations up; multilevels of dance floors, several bars, etc. The music played was all kind of the same eurobeat stuff. I've never been to a rave, but I guess the same as what they play there. Pretty easy to dance to, you just do whatever you like. Some people running around with glowsticks or naked or whatever. Most people fairly drunk or on drugs. But at about midnight the music stopped, and it was announced the party was over due to the state of emergency thing. Pretty unbelievable if you ask me. Here we are on this tiny island way south of bangkok. 70% of the people on the island are tourists, and the thais here only care about tourism, not what's going on in bangkok. To me it is much more dangerous to shut down a crowd of 10,000 drunk and drugged ravers than to let a party in the middle of the jungle in a small island in the middle of the ocean go on. Luckily for the like 10 policemen on the island, the huge crowd only booed, griped, and searched for a refund (the ticket sellers were long gone). The large party mainly moved back to Haad Rin, the main beach, but as we were quite far from there and the taxis can get away with exhorbitant fares, we just headed in our small group to the 7-11 nearby to stock up on much cheaper beer and head for the beach. Ella, Nicola and I ran into another brit, a crazy israeli just prancing around in his briefs, and two swedish girls tripping on mushrooms. We all headed to the israelis bungalow on the beach. He had a nice outside set up so that we cold all sit there as he was living in this bungalow for 8 months...just partying everynight and painting or sleeping all day. We didn't do much, just chilled and talked and laughed at the swedish girls. Around 5:30am with the sun starting to rise, nicola and I decided it was time to go back to our bungalow, the moonflower. Ella had passed out in the hammock and she told us to leave her, so we set off for the fairly long walk back to the moonflower. At one point a dog came charging after us (the dogs on this island seemed to be particularly nasty) but I pushed nicola into the ocean and jumped in after her and the dog left us alone. We finally arrived at our bungalows. Nicola gave me a goodnight kiss on the cheek (I don't really think that is british tradition, but I was too drunk to think about it at that point, so I just returned it and went off to bed).I woke up around 7:30 (no alarm, just my internal clock as my watch is broken) as I had a fairy to catch that morning. As I was brushing my teeth out by the beach, Ella came running up with tears running down her face. She had been attacked and bitten by one of the dogs along the beach. The bites weren't so bad, but she was more upset about the thought of rabies and thai hospitals...something I could completely relate to and understand. Luckily, she had had the pre-rabies vaccine, unlike myself, so she didn't need to go to bangkok, but could just go to the clinics there.Took the ferry that morning to Ko Samui from Ko phangan. Found a nice bungalow close to a long gorgeous stretch of beach. I rented a motorbike and started exploring the island. Visited a couple temple complexes with huge buddhas overlooking the water. Then I drove to Haad Chaweng, the famous beach there. It's 6km long, and I walked the whole thing that afternoon and then waded out to a nearby island to watch the sunset. The water here is a beautiful light blue and the sand a bleached white. Unlike my bungalow's beach, which was empty, this beach was crowded with euros tanning, eating at seaside restaurants, and getting massages. Samui is quite upscale, modern, and very touristic. Asside from the spicy smell of curry, a few temples, and cars on the left side fo the road, you wouldn't know you weren't in maui or the like. I checked out a couple of the fancy resorts (a habit I must have picked up from my parents), and they were incredibly nice, but really not that expensive compared to what I'm sure Hawaii or the caribbean or even mexico is like. And the streets are lined with tourist vendors of all kinds. On the beach where people are tanning (or more usually burning) thais completely covered in clothes and sarong sell curios, food, beers, massages, and anything you can think of to the unmoving tourists. Ko tao was a dive mecca with the average age of people around 25-30. Phangan was party central with the average age of people 20-25, and here at samui it is luxury and hedonism with the average age of people approaching 40-50 (and mostly overweight). It seems to be not so much a place for travellers, but for package tourists and people on shorter holidays. I walked back along the beach that night, but the combination of rain and getting annoyed by so many people trying to sell me cocaine and weed that I went back to the main street of shopping areas to walk back to my motorcycle.The next day, I made it to church, my first successful attempt at church in Thailand and then went out to complete my circuit of the island. Saw the famous grandfather and grandmother rocks: two rocks next to each other that the ocean has carved to look like the male and femal reproductive organs. Checked out some nice beaches and ate mangos and went for swims at them. Checked out a muslim fishing village and a mummified monk who apparently predicted his death. Then took a hike up to some large falls. After getting back to my motorbike it started to downpour, so I had to wait that out. But it made the next waterfall I went to quite spectacular as it was flooding brown water everywhere. Saw a couple of smaller falls that were also flooding and then took a steep road up to near the top of the island to a sweet viewpoint. I thought I could get back to my side of the island by going cross island. I was on a crazy 4wd road for a long time and then it started to get dark. I wasn't sure if the road would ever go down, I feared getting lost in the dark, and I worried about running out of petrol, so I turned around. But it was a fun adventure nonetheless, and the fireflies up there were amazing for sure.On 4/20, a crazy day I'm sure in phangan, and the 10th anniversary of Columbine, I took a ferry and then bus to get to Khao Sok NP. I was greeted warmly by the rainforest with an incredible downpour...what more could you ask for.