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Beware of buckets, flaming ropes and theft of your valuables. Find out everything you need to know before you go to Thailand's Full Moon Party.
Photo © iStock/ViewApart
A few young travelers (up to 20,000) gather every month on a beach on a remote Thai island (Koh Pha-Ngan) and dance the night away in front of a strip of bars and clubs pumping out dance music, while getting wasted on weed, Yaba, mushrooms, XTC or bucket drinks until the sun comes up. The Full Moon Party. Hundreds of thousands of participants over the past 25 years think it’s the best party they’ve ever been to, making it an essential stop on the gap year/banana pancake/backpacker trail. But things can go awry if you aren't careful.
- Crime gangs
- Bucket drinks
- Skip the burning rope
- Theft of valuables and cash
- Party transport
- Party rules
Crime gangs
There is a serious criminal element present, and it’s not uncommon for people’s hotel/hostel rooms to be ransacked while they’re at an all-night party. Management is suitably shocked and alarmed about it, but it keeps happening month after month at some accommodations.
Drug gangs operate at the party and often they can be in cahoots with corrupt police. You buy some cheap weed, get “arrested”, pay 150,000 baht to avoid prosecution, and the same bag of weed is sold to the next sucker.
Yaba (amphetamines) and XTC are highly illegal in Thailand. Buying them from a stranger at the party exposes you to a shakedown, or if the police are genuine, a nasty journey through the Thai legal system.
Bucket drinks
If you stick to the legal stuff – alcohol – it’s very easy to overdo it because the drinks come in buckets!
It’s literally a bucket (like the ones kids take to the beach) filled with ice, M150 (a Thai version of Red Bull which is heavy on the ephedrine), a can of soda, a 300 ml bottle of liquor and 3 or 4 straws. Total cost: 200 baht/$US6 (and that’s expensive for Thailand). Because they’re cheap the tendency is to buy too many of them. If you’re sharing, it can be hard to keep track of just how much alcohol you’ve had.
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Skip the burning rope
If you decide to party hard regardless, fair enough, we’re here for a good time. Unfortunately, lots of people leave the party early having had a bad time.
The day after the party you’ll see people with bandaged hands, legs and feet. They’ve either cut themselves on broken glass that litters the beach (tip: wear closed-in shoes – not flip flops), or they’ve had an encounter with the flaming skipping rope or limbo stick. The idea is to get as many people as possible jumping the rope, and spin it so fast the flames go out. It doesn’t always work out and injuries from a kerosene-soaked flaming rope can be pretty nasty.
Theft of valuables and cash
Lots of people want to capture this great party in pictures or video and there are thousands of clips on YouTube. But hang on tight to your phone or camera as valuable electronics have a habit of “disappearing”. Gang members come for the party, follow drunk revellers around and wait for an opportunity to take phones or cameras.
Only take enough cash for the evening and it’s a good idea to take a photocopy of your passport details just in case you need ID. But leave the valuable and important stuff locked up back at the hotel (and ask them for a receipt when they put it in their safe).
Party transport
Plan your escape carefully.
Scooter accidents
Don’t take your moped. Even if you think you're okay to ride, others might not be. There are plenty of taxis operating all night.
Speaking of mopeds and motorscooters, do you need a license to ride in Thailand and what happens if you don't have one?
Overcrowded boats
If you’ve caught a speedboat to the island for the day and want to get back to Koh Samui, take it easy. Stephen Ryder from ensureasia.com (he deals with ex-pats living in Thailand) says the speedboats don't have a great safety record, and the crew has often been drinking as hard as the party-goers.
Sometimes after a really busy party, there’s a rush of people who have peaked too early and have had enough by about 3 or 4 in the morning. You can get scores of people all vying for the half dozen places on each boat that arrives. The boats get rushed when they beach, so the next time they hang back a little. After a while, you have a mob of drunk, desperate people wading/swimming out to boats. The skippers get worried they’ll be swamped as people clamber aboard, so they grab a few passengers and push the rest back into the water then roar off with throttles wide open.
It might be better to wait for the first scheduled ferry service at 7am.
Party rules
Always take care of each other. Just because this is a beach party a long way from home it doesn’t mean you should let your guard down.
Most people walk away from the Full Moon Party having had a thoroughly good time, if they skip the skipping rope, drink responsibly and leave valuables at home. Follow these rules and you’ll be around to come back to the best beach party in the world again and again.
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6 Comments
Depressing reading. I went to one of these in 1994 when they were still relatively new, small and swet. Sad that the party-goers and organisers have polluted the beach and that criminals and other unsavoury elements ruined what used to be a beautiful experience. Tourists should stop going until this is stopped.
Ive never been to one but reguarly see the impact they have on the surrounding area. Good info tho. Great article
The full moon party (as Khaosod San Rd. and some other places in Thailand) is one of this activity to be avoided especially if you looking for fun or drugs, in a few words the shittiest party in Europe or North America is just far far far better than this shit. I appreciate the effort of the writer to try to make Koh Phangan look like an exotic 'remote island' reality is far away from this, pile of trash are all around in the island and most of the garbage produced by th F.M.P. is going straight into the ocean between the time the party get started and when the organizers begin the beach clean up, during the party the 20.000+ people are pissing and shitting in the ocean and they looking for recreational drugs... OMG weed that is just shit and ridiculously expansive compared to the European standards, MDMA pills that are coming directly from Cambodia where some guy tested it on a rat and see if they were working. Point is as I said, any shitty party (also the one organized by the priest of the local church) is better than this, you'll find better drugs, better drinks and better people and a safer environment.
Well, thank you for the article, I, however, unlike you oldies, have been planning my first solo trip to Thailand, and was really looking forward to this, because I like to dance, and this is like listening to some old fart warning me about the dangers of the war. The writer seems to assume the worst of people, the worst case scenario, oh a broken boat, lets, instead of showing photos of happy party goers- show that broken boat. That broken little boat which had nothing to do with the party as it is a fishing boat. But for effect.
Comments are all negative, how old are you people now? 40? Feels like the music in any dance club is too loud nowdays, yeah? In my experience, having travelled more than 50 countries, even in places where the mafia was so mafia they had to make the hotel we walked into, into a hotel on the spot -- find, most people are good, most people don't buy drugs from the mafia, most people have read all these warnings, like it's CNN news, and maybe the good party goers are skipping the FMP because of all these warnings, and we are left with the fire-rope skippers, because I was WARNED "the island would be full", book ahead! And it's really not. And I for one will be safe because I am an intelligent person, who had trouble spelling intelligent, but still! I shall dance.
Hi!
The article was very helpful for planning my trip to Full Moon party 2019/Feb 20.
Everything went good. Me and my friend had good vibes.
The only thing that I wish were added to the article, to 'Scooter Accidents' part is about the road to the party beach and bikes. I mean, that the way might be too difficult if you have weak bike or not fantastic driving skills.
The trash!! So much litter! I spent the full night until sunrise dancing on the beach and picking up garbage below the water line, that would otherwise wash out to sea at high tide. Others joined me sporadically. At least 6 full garbage bags of trash was confiscated off the beach and we couldn't get it all. This happens every month. I contacted several environmental groups and they said "We can't touch that. Full Moon Party is run by the Mafia."