Had Rin, Full Moon Party Beach
Had Rin is one of the most developed beaches on the Island with the area adjacent to the beach housing shops, restaurants, resorts and pools and other services. The beach gets very busy once a month around the time of the full moon party. In other times the beach is still a popular place for those looking for an active night scene. Most of Koh Phangan is very quite in the evenings but Haad Rin always has busy bars and dance floors even two weeks from the full moon.
The road to Had Rin turns and snakes, ascending and descending through the rugged mountains that cascade down to the shore line below. Haad Rin has a pier and has a regular boat service to Bang Rak on Koh Samui, on board a ex-fishing boat named the Had Rin Queen. Taxi's depart from Thong Sala to Haad Rin regularly through-out the day.
There are two beaches to Haad Rin, Sunrise which is where the full moon part is held and sunset side which is where the pier is located. The better of the two beaches is the sunrise beach, although more crowded then sunset and accommodation tends to be cheaper on sunset.
One of the big resorts is the Drop in Club, that has a Thai Style villa complex built around an open air swimming pool.
There are plenty of shops in Had Rin, second only to that of Thong Sala and there is a load of inexpensive clothes shops and small jewelry and music retailers, some local and some part foreign managed. This includes an Indian jewelry shop that sources most of their stock like gem stones and jewelry pieces from you guessed it - India. If that wasn't enough, it's possible to get fitted with a suit by a tailer right on the beach.
There is a an array of restaurants, a few that stand out are: The arena, Nics, Emotion of Sushi and Omgarnish. There are to many Thai restaurants to choose from and Chicken Corner is a popular quick snack bar just up the small soi from the middle of sunrise beach. Another popular place to eat is at the Same-Same viking restuarant which do stone baked pizza once a month and a large Thai buffet around full moon, a cooking school is also on offer here.
As well as retail shops there are other services including banks that have money FX exchange booths and there are many ATMs in service around the village.