Dancing in troubled moonlight

Full moon is experienced in a very different way by the visiting backpackers and the locals on Koh Pha Ngan. The backpackers usually see it as an once-in-a-lifetime option joining a wild and unique beach party. The locals mainly experience the event as another sleepless night.

Once one of the Gulf’s peaceful small fishermen’s isles, Koh Pha Ngan has famous all over the globe mainly because of the extremely popular full-moon techno parties attracting thousands of young visitors along with loads of cash.

All over the island travellers will notice the numerous psychedelic posters and flyers, announcing another full moon rave party. The main ingredients for the popular party include: a variety of alcoholic beverages, around-the-clock techno music and both legal and illegal substances.

The problem, obviously, is that all night dancing and sleeping on the beach the entire next day isn’t appreciated by everyone. The majority of the island’s population is involved in daily commerce and agriculture and they would like to hit the sack early.

Once the full moon parties were hardly ‘bothered’ by the law and enormous signs advertising atmosphere-enhancing products such as “amphetamine tea” and “special mushroom omelettes” were common. However, the scene changed during the mid-90s when local policemen started cracking down on illegal substances and other craziness.

Last November Surat Thani’s governor received a letter full of complaints, which was written by Ban Tai village residents. One of the letter’s complaints was that the all-night dance music disturbed the sleep of over 100 households but even worse was the drug dealer’s activities, hanging around guesthouses trying to sell cannabis to tourists. According their letter reports of theft increased and more serious travellers were shunning Pha Ngan.

Recently the cops paid a visit to the Half Moon Party in Ban Tai and the organisers received orders to close it down because it was “very late already”. The Ban Sabai Day party next day received a police visit as well and similar orders were given to the organisation.

It wasn’t instantly clear what caused this change of policy. However, the islanders are sceptical as there’s a huge load of money involved, making it difficult for the mandate to hold but it also gave them hope that finally some officials might take their complaints seriously.

The monotonous techno beats booming out of enormous and powerful speakers often make the earth shake for more than halve a mile in each direction. It seems that for a long time the sound had deafened all the authorities whom never took the time to seriously have a look at the complaints.              

After complaints received from the school in Ban Tai, the Black Moon Party was relocated into the lush Ban Khai jungle. However, the event’s amount of visitors significantly decreased and promptly the party was being held again at its original spot.
One of Khao Tam temple’s annoyed nuns received plenty of publicity when she achieved having the Shiva Moon party to close down. Later the nun suddenly withdrew the objections and the dance beats resumed as usual.

The party organisers receive 300 baht per ticket, and a cut of 100 baht is given to corrupt officials to ignore the complaints. There are just a few residents of Koh Phangan who earn decent money from the “techno-tourism” scene while the majority only suffer sleepless nights without any favour in return. Somehow it isn’t even possible to let the organisers pay tax and the civic administration in Ban Tai has to cover the expenses for the afterwards beach clean-up.

Now there are plans for introducing a “party zone” to avoid staging the parties within a short distance from the central communities of Ban Nuea, Ban Nok and Ban Tai. Organisers could unite pointing out a special zone in the jungle’s dense woods. An ideal choice would be a location behind natural hillside as it would reduce the music’s volume. 

Complete Koh Phangan travel resource