Every full moon there is a big rave on the beach on a little island in the Gulf of Thailand. During high season, it is the biggest in the world! Read on, please, but I will tell you now that by far my favorite part of the party were the fire twirlers! Fire twirling just may be my dessssss-tiny.
Getting there: No room in the songtaew? No worries! Just hold onto the back! No seriously- HOLD ON. And hold on to your alcohol too!
I have discovered the home base of fire twirlers in this universe, and it is Ko Pha Ngan’s famous beach, Haat Rin. I have seen a lot of bad-ass fire spinners at festivals in the states but nothing to even compare with what was going down during the Full Moon Party. The speed at which these guys (I was the only girl I ever saw with a fire staff in her hands) spin SO fast it is hard to believe- it makes me want to pump iron to bulk up my arm muscles and start an apprenticeship with a Thai master. The twirlers only give themselves about 8 inches of hand space as well, so practically the whole staff is on fire, unlike at home where most twirlers just light the tips of the staff. The Thai boys are daring fate to light them on fire, and I want to do it too.
Fire Limbo!
At the world’s biggest beach rave you also find people on flaming stilts twirling fire poi, fire limbo sticks, and a giant flaming jump rope, which is all fine and good until the naked guy jumps in (everyone’s like AHHHHHHH! Quit jumping up and down over the burning rope, please!!!!) – but then again, as I have said before, you always know it’s a party when the naked guy shows up!
At the Full Moon Party about 90% of the people are about 90% fucked up, which makes for some really interesting firey accidents- I saw the flaming jump rope wrap around someone’s body no less than ten times, and people face-planting into the firey limbo stick.
From booths labeled “Fuck-it bucket” and “Love you long time in a bucket” and
Thirsty? Sober? Have a Fuck-it Bucket!
“Jesus’s favorite” you buy plastic pails filled with a fifth of liquor (your choice) and a couple of cans of mixer. Not doin’ it for ya? Go for the GALLON bucket. THAT not doin’ it for ya? Try a “trance shake” (use your imagination) or buy some mushrooms, available anywhere and everywhere. They even have a new herbal hallucinogen on Haat Rin which lately has been landing farang (Westerners) in the loony bin for days on end. I didn’t try it because I am not stupid- however tons of people on the beach were obviously tripping balls, like the guy who ran up to me and my friend, grabbed us by the arms and screamed in our faces: “THERE’S A PARTY IN THE SKY- and NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT BUT MEEEEEEE!!!!” then threw his shirt into the ocean and ran away zig-zag style up the stairs and climbed up the roof of the bar.
Bar @ the end of the beach, next to the party in the sky!
Haat Rin Beach is a perfect crescent of paradise lined with bar after dance club after booth selling liquor buckets after bar after bar after bar. Bright colored Christmas lights and rainbow spotlights run down the beach; for a few bucks you can buy giant paper lanterns to light a fire under and let loose until they float up into the sky towards the bloated moon, coming together to form Orion’s belt. It is very beautiful, as are the crowds of young men and women dancing and going nuts.
Black Light Art
Besides hella fire twirlers there is also TONS of blacklight body art. They have huge sheets of designs to choose from, and one of the more popular designs by far is the 7-11 logo. What? 7-11 seems to be the national store of Thailand; they are everywhere. Yeah, can I get a big 7-11 across my back? Sweet! Dude! Sweet! Dude!
Music booms up and down the beach: electro, drum and bass, progressive house, breaks, hip hop, tech house, and of course, psy trance. It isn’t the tropics without some frickin’ psytrance! There were probably about 15 different stages set up along the beach; the weird thing is that often the speakers are about 30 feet from each other, so unless you are in the thick of it up at the front, the bass booms together and you hear a trainwreckish mix, like drum and bass and Deadmau5.
I was very disappointed to find that most stages did not have DJs, only music. In fact I saw only two DJs all night, and I was looking- one playing breaks at the bar on the end of the beach with a great view of the chaos, and a drum and bass DJ named Sith. In case you didn’t know, I am a fan of DJs. I think the personal interaction with the audience creates an energy that is missing when all you have are speakers. No DJs? Just lame. Sorry.
Drunken Beam-Boxing
The beach is beautiful, the sand is perfectly soft and white, the night clear, and the party is ON! I wrote earlier about how there are no assholes or jerks on the island of Kho Pha Ngan. Boy, was I wrong! There are TONS of them, and they congregate together on Haat Rin Beach to howl at the moon, get drunk, and box with each other on a balance beam over three mattresses- quite entertaining to watch, I must say.
All down the beach there are eight year-olds selling glowing red horns and flower leis and whatever. The amount of beer bottles in the ocean is only outnumbered by the number of cigarette butts. Partyers just throw their butts into the surf while standing next to an ashtray bucket on the sand, which really ticked me off.
I started to pick up a few of the hundreds of glass bottles floating in the ocean, but then I noticed this guy urinating right beside me into the waves and decided otherwise. People all up and down the beach are pissing in the ocean, dancing in the ocean, puking in the ocean, fucking in the ocean- often within a few meters of each other. Girls who have lost their shirts. Guys eating sand. It is funny and sad all the same.
Fire Jump Rope!
I wish I could report that the world’s biggest beach rave was the best party of my life, but as you might be able to tell by now, it was not. It could have been; maybe I should have had a trance shake. The rave was really pretty messed up, although I wasn’t. When I travel alone I try to keep my wits about me because it is just really stupid not to. No one is getting me home but me, and it would be days before anyone realized Ms. Shilo wasn’t blogging anymore.
That said, the atmosphere of the Full Moon party was great, and had I been there with a group of Seattle homies rather than just a few friends I just met, it would have been a different story. But it wasn’t. I had a great time and danced my ass off in the sand, but I didn’t eat any of it or lose any clothes or go home with a stranger- but yall should know by now that I am not like that anyway.
Round about 3AM I started getting that feeling of wanting to be elsewhere, the feeling of being stuck where you don’t want to be; you know when you are at a party and you want to leave and go home, but can’t, because your ride isn’t ready or maybe you don’t have cash for a cab, or your car is locked with the keys inside or whatever? That is a really bad feeling to have when you are about 36 hours away from your own bed in a foreign country halfway around the world. So I left the party and went home to my little bungalow on a quiet beach and slept a perfect sleep, then got up and played with puppies and had pineapple cheese toast for breakfast. It was fantastic.
I strongly encourage you to check out the Full Moon Parties on Haat Rin Beach on the island of Ko Pha Ngan in the Gulf of Thailand for yourself. And of course, everywhere else in this world!
Much love from the tropics,
Shilo
If it was easy to get here then it would not exist; this place would be filled with jerks and assholes. You have to make a real effort to get this far away from everybody, from everything you know. Time, effort, money. Will. Courage. You all have these things. You could be here right now; you could be here next year. What do you want in your life? I want paradise.
I have not felt this way since I was living in New Zealand, swimming in the South Pacific every day, baking in the sun for hours upon hours. I have stars in my eyes, mosquito bites on my legs, and freckles all over everywhere. I am in paradise.
I order Pina Coladas, Sex on the Beach, coconut milkshakes. I wear a pink bikini and sunglasses and that is it. I eat banana pancakes and red curries. The water is a brilliant aquamarine, warm under the hot tropical sun; home to swimmers in speedos, snorkeling boats headed out for the day, softly crashing waves, and fuzzy green islands jutting up towards the blinding white-hot sun. Neon pink flowers drip off trees and onto hammocks where sweaty children sleep; the sand is as soft as cheese. Fresh fish are grilled just steps away from the shoreline; beers go down quicker than you can say ‘Chang,’ and echoes of electronic music find their way up the cove and into my ears. A scruffy mamma dog nurses three puppies- one white, one black, one tan. Mats are set up on the beach for massages, and beach chairs for bathing. I am in paradise.
1. The show involved much more than just ping pong balls,
you can buy all kinds of randomness: colorful carved soap flowers in painted wooden boxes, genuine fake Rolex’s and Chanel bags (and any other name brand you can think of), birds in little straw cages (to set free), shiny gold bikinis, silver toe rings, slick leather satchels, multicolored silk robes, intricate carved teak wall hangings, long strands of beads, embroidered blankets, Fanta baseball caps, egg and banana crepes, and MC Hammer pants (of course).
Tuk-tuks are little three-wheeled vehicles with a seat in the back for transporting tourists, named after the sound their sputtering diesel engines make. You can fit six fit females in one. The drivers laze about in the back and as you walk by say, “Tuk-tuk? Tuk-tuk?” Even if you have just walked past a line of fifteen tuk-tuks saying no thanks, the next driver will still say it: “Tuk-tuk?” I will be hearing that in my sleep.
hundreds wounded and one dead- I saw it on the Australian news along with a bit of the most recent Obama-McCain debate (McCain is SUCH a douche). My hotel room is super posh with AC, TV, and minifridge. Anyway, the unrest will most likely be over by the time I return to Bangkok (tomorrow) and besides I am a smart cookie who would never get involved in something like that (in a foreign country, anyway). I will stay very far away from any of it, so nobody worry. My mama didn’t raise no fool. I have felt very safe in this country so far and it is like 100 times more dangerous driving on Interstate 5 in Seattle on any given day. So no worries, yall.
SUNDAY began with a bicycle ride around the ruins of Old Sukhothai, many of which are from the 13th century when Siam was rollin’. Now I am not Buddhist; though I do appreciate the philosophy, the one piece that always grabs my mind and stops me is the basic tenet that life is suffering. I am a very very lucky girl, that’s why, and have had little suffering in my life, comparitively speaking.
It is as HOT AS TEXAS here- no wait, it is hotter. And the hot season does even not start until November. Sweat drips off my ears, my nose, my chin, my elbows, my eyebrows; it pours off in gallons, marring postcards. I stand to buy a coke and walk away leaving a puddle of salty Shilo. It is the tropics, though the Thai people do not seem to sweat at all. Americans do, oh my God. The good news is that having your laundry done is as cheap as everything else. I had a delicious picnic lunch on the grounds of the ancient ruins (along with long-eared cows, kids swimming in ditches, a gaggle of puppies and fishing grandpas in speedos) then hopped a bus further north to Lampang.
In Lampang I stayed at a guesthouse right on the river, made completely of teak- so beautiful and chocka with bright purple bougainvillas, straw hammocks, and manky little dogs. Looked for some nightlife and was told down the road there was a club playing music. “What kind?” I asked. “Disco crap.” was the reply. I went to bed, sleeping beautifully on a very hard bed which seems to be standard here- my Dad would love it- like sleeping on a plank.
MONDAY, yesterday, was one of the best days of my life. Breakfast included banana jam and dragonfruit, which has a delicious neon-fuschia flesh, spotted with black seeds. Took a songtaew (the open-air truck) to the Elephant Conservation center where I got thisclose to the elephants, from 4 year-old babies to 50 year-old grandpas. Elephants once were used for logging in Thailand but after the practice was banned, many of the poor pachyderms were abandoned as useless or became beggars in Bangkok or even meth-heads. Now the Conservation Centre is trying to help them. I saw a big elephant bathing party; watched 
them show off their logging skills, xylophone skills, and painting skills- no shit. These amazing, ancient, gentle creatures paint flowers and trees. I bought bunches of tiny bananas (the only kind here) to feed them, and of course, took a ride through the jungle where I held on for dear freaking life- my elephant was spastic, kind of like me. I also checked out the world’s only elephant dung paper factory where elephant shit is turned into all manner of notebooks, albums, and gift wrap. I bought my brother a souvenir from the dung factory, and myself a sweet piece of elephant art done by a 14 year-old female who is “naughty and likes to eat.” My kind of girl!
Next door is the Elephant Hospital where sick or wounded animals from all over Thailand can get medical care for free. Many elephants have been severly injured by stepping on landmines on the Thailand/Myanmar border; it is SO sad. Fucking humans. It always hits hard when I am traveling how you can be so inspired and disgusted by human nature all at the same time- like seeing shit graffiti on ancient columns in Rome.
Elephants live here in the Conservation Centre with a leg blown off, thanks to this one amazing woman has dedicated her life to providing care for these smart creatures, including prosthetic limbs. The older elephants have a hard go of it, but a younger two year-old named Mosha walks around on her fake leg, painted grey with toenails and everything, like a three legged dog who has no clue something is wrong. I was so inspired by this silly animal, sassy and energetic, who would beg for rice cakes and get them. There were many other elephants there at the center; all with the same life span as humans- they fill your heart and break it all at once.
I made a quick stop by some mineral pools which were lukewarm; much better was the foot massage I got poolside. The masseurs rub sticks in- between your toes, up and down and twisted all around. It is so good you want to run away screaming!
served a feast including pork and tomato curry, zucchini and egg, pork rinds and KFC. During the meal the family played traditional instruments; Dad led the band including nine children. Then even more kids came out, and more- many Thais live in extended families which is SO better than the nuclear family and in fact the way that humans have lived for most of our existence. That way, if your mom and dad turn out to be total freaks, you have options.
The young girls came back out and started twirling swords! Hell yeah! All the crowd freaked out and scooted back, not me though- because I know when you pick up a sword to twirl it in the air, you know what the hell you are doing. ‘Cuz I twirl swords too, and freak people out on a regular basis.
fire codes in Thailand as they do in the US!
slices of watermelons. Being female and dirty dirty dirty I cannot touch a monk or even hand anything to him; I must place it in a bowl and take care not to touch the rim with my polluted self. It’s all that techno music that has made me so damn filthy, I just know it!
temples to a mushroom farm (picked some for lunch), a sewing shop (purses for $1-2), then to the best stop of the day: an elementary school, where I helped teach the little five-year old urchins how to speak English.
them the high-five, a winner with six year-olds worldwide in my experience. It was amazing. Staying with the family was the best experience of my trip so far; they opened their home and shared their food, their children, their bucket shower with me, all with the smiles that characterize the Thai people.
Chiang Mai where I write you now. (Funny, one blog post ago I couldn’t remember the name for songtaew; at this point I will never forget it!). I took a shower, shaved my legs and washed my hair and feel like a million baht! Then I had another massage though this one was a little pricey- $7 for an hour. Oh well, city prices.
WORLDROMPER 