Island Bound

After an overnight bus, two minivans, a ferry, and two trips in a Sangthaew (a pickup truck with two benches in the back, we arrived on the island of Ko Pha Ngan in Southern Thailand. An island paradise where you can relax, meditate, snorkel, hike to a number of waterfalls or dance your ass off every night to drum n bass, psychedelic trance, progressive house, or breakbeats until you drop in the sand. Most people who come here are young and the islands population swells depending on the time of the month. Pha Ngan is notorious for its full moon parties where sometimes 20,000 foreigners,(usually Brits) descend on the island for a few days as an excuse to get sloppy drunk on what are called “buckets”. These are a notorious Thai invention that consists of a bottle of Sam Song Whiskey, a can of 150 (which is the Thai version of Red Bull and actually contains Amphetamines), and Coca-Cola. It comes in a plastic bucket with straws and gives you the feeling of being drunk while the 150 gives you energy and a speedy feeling…not my cup of tea. On top of that the music at the full moon parties is cheesy (house music with diva vocals) and the beach where it takes place looks like a garbage dump afterwards as these people think it is the local Thai’s responsibility to clean up after them. Well, we didn’t want to have anything to do with that so we decided to come to the island at the very exact opposite time where there is a much cooler and mellower version called the Black Moon Party that takes place at a waterfall and has some great DJ’s. We are really using this time to record some musical ideas in this tropical setting, meditate and do yoga daily, swim in the crystalline blue waters and catch our breath before we leave for India.
After Pha Ngan we are heading off to Ko Phi Phi to volunteer there and help bring the island back to life. It suffered extensive damage and thousands of people died and lost everything they owned. Just going there helps breaths life into the economy and is a tremendous help. Many tourist offices in Chiang Mai and Bangkok tell people that you can’t go to Ko Phi Phi and that there is no where to eat and stay in order to keep people there, which is untrue. Everyday, a guesthouse, a dive operation, or a restaurant opens proving how resilient these people are. We are looking forward in doing our little part to help these people after they have been long forgotten as people’s attention turns to other disasters like Katrina.