Excerpts

Koh Phangan is an island in the Gulf of Thailand. It is located about 600 km south of Bangkok and about 15 km from its sister island Koh Samui. It takes about 3 1/2 hours by ferry from Surathani on the mainland and forty-five minutes from Koh Samui. Koh Phangan is the largest of Koh Samui's neighbouring islands with an area of 168 sq km. Over 70% of its total area is mountains with the highest point on the island reaching 627 metres. Rain-forest covers Koh Phangan's mountain-sides while the lowlands are dotted with beaches and coconut fields.

Thong Sala is the main town of the island and the departure point for the ferry to Koh Samui and the mainland. The majority of the population lives in small farming and fishing villages around the island. Currently about 8,400 people permanently live on Koh Phangan. Some are Chinese whose ancestors migrated from Hunan more than a hundred years ago. While more than 95% of the islanders are Buddhists, a small number of Muslims live in Ban Tai Village a few minutes from the harbour. There are only two seasons: the hot season lasts from February to April and the rainy season from May to January. The heaviest rainfalls occur between September and November when high winds and waves occasionally cut off the island from the outside world. The temperature throughout the year only varies between 20C and 36C.

Traditionally, the most important form of agriculture has been coconuts. Each month, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui produce more than 1 million coconuts for export to Bangkok. Fishing supplements agriculture for many inhabitants and the breeding of fighting cocks is a favourite past-time for the locals. For most of its existence, Koh Phangan has been surviving as a local backwater with minimal infrastructure. Like Koh Samui, Koh Phangan has maintained a strong tradition of local autonomy. In spite of occasional visits by Thai monarchs, there has only been loose control of the islands by central authority.

The de facto control of local affairs traditionally rests in the hands of local strong-men whose power is almost absolute. With little formal employment available, drinking and gambling have traditionally been the favourite pasttimes for males on the island. Settlement has been restricted to a few flat areas along the coast as the bulk of the island consists of either mountains or jungle.

Family and communal ties represented the most important resource for the inhabitants. Divided into just 45 family groups, loyalties are circumscribed and operate for the mutual benefit of extended families. Control of the land rests with the heads of these family groups whose authority is rarely questioned. Conflicts within these extended families are primarily resolved by negotiation rather than violence. However, the islands have retained their traditional reputation for blood-feuds and their remoteness makes it not surprising that they continued to act as a refuge for outlaws from the mainland until the 1970s. As no permanent police presence was established on Koh Phangan until the early 1980s, coming there meant, at least temporarily, to escape the attention of the authorities. Even after this date, the police tended to be regarded as outsiders by the local inhabitants and were careful not to offend local power-brokers.

The merchants in the harbour-town and the villages on Koh Phangan are mainly Chinese, as the locals had little inclination or capital to engage in trade. Few had even been to the mainland and those who did usually only visited the provincial capital. A trip to Bangkok was an extraordinary event and to leave Thailand was almost unthinkable. Little did the locals know that their remote, occasionally sinister, and beautiful island would, within a decade, be thrust into the international spotlight as a haven for a culture that was yet to be born in the "techno" clubs of Detroit.

1) Koh Phangan as Tropical Hideaway : 1982 1986

Since the early 1980s, visitors to Koh Samui had embarked on day-trips to Koh Phangan. Occasionally, these visitors were forced by adverse weather conditions to stay overnight, so enterprising locals built rudimentary accommodation. In the subsequent years, as Koh Samui began its course from traveller-centre to fully fledged resort, increasing numbers of travellers would visit Koh Phangan in order to experience a more relaxed way of life. The earliest touristic development occurred on the beaches close to Thong Sala and involved the accommodation of a small number of Western visitors by local families.

However, due to its isolated nature and white sandy beach, Haad Rin, situated immediately opposite Koh Samui, became the first destination on the island to attract foreign visitors in large numbers. Surrounded by mountains, this 300 metre stretch of beach was cut off from the rest of the island and was only accessible by boat. Haad Rin actually consists of two beaches - one each on either side of Cape Rin at the south-east corner of the island. In 1982, the only permanent structures at Haad Rin were three or four barns which were used for the coconut harvest for short periods of the year. The families who owned the land lived at Ban Tai village about 6 km away while, the main population centre, Thong Sala, was more than three-quarters of an hour away by boat. Once it became clear that catering for these visitors had commercial potential, some members of Ban Tai village's extended family groups who owned the land, moved there permanently. Several sets of bungalows were built in quick succession. They offered only rudimentary accommodation and sold Thai food to the visitors.

The Westerners who came first were similar in outlook to the drifters who had discovered Koh Samui in the previous decade and were quite content with these basic conditions. Spurning the established tourism infrastructure on Koh Samui, the original Western visitors to Koh Phangan were eager to immerse themselves in the local culture and to interact with the local population. While staying on Haad Rin, due to its superior beach and established accommodation, they spent a lot of time in the Thai villages of the island and frequently went fishing with the locals. Rather than simply being regarded as a source of income by the locals, these visitors were subjected to local curiosity and were afforded traditional hospitality.

In the beginning, I could sit down with the family and they would be rapt that a Westerner is there with them. And they can talk to you and watch you and laugh at you. See what you are all about. And they would be really hospitable. (Darren, Australian)

Over the next few years, the number of visitors to Koh Phangan increased at a steady rate. There, the number of resorts gradually rose from 8 in 1983 to 26 in 1986, increasing prospective visitor numbers from 140 to nearly 500 per day (Samui Today, Dec.1990:4). However, while Koh Samui retained its character as a traveller-centre, these who chose to spend time on Koh Phangan only represented a small minority of the subculture. Tourism development remained concentrated at Haad Rin Beach where fourteen bungalow resorts had come into existence. In comparison, on the 10km stretch of coast from Haad Rin to Thong Sala, only a further twelve sets of bungalows had been built by 1987 (Samui Today, Dec. 1990:4). The rest of the island remained virtually untouched by tourism.

2) Koh Phangan as Traveller Centre 1987-1989

In 1987, travellers largely abandoned Koh Samui as a subcultural destination due to rising prices, drug busts and the massive influx of conventional tourists during "Visit Thailand Year." In spite of authorities being aware that travellers displaced from Koh Samui would congregate elsewhere, no plan existed to channel that outflow to suitable alternative sites. Instead, like a stream finding its old course to the sea suddenly blocked, the flow of travellers was left to find its own alternatives. Within less than a year, Koh Phangan went through the transformation from hide-away to traveller-centre and mirrored Samui's earlier expansion following the arrival of mass tourism on Phuket in 1979.

It is likely that Koh Phangan would have remained a quiet backwater for years to come had not the authorities decided to encourage massive investment on Koh Samui. Police crack-downs and massive building activity heralded the arrival of mass tourism and changed the nature of the island from traveller-centre to mainstream resort by 1987. As the result of this outside induced tourism development on Koh Samui, visitor demand and local response caused the rapid and unplanned for emergence of new resorts on Koh Phangan during 1987. These events suggest that induced tourism flows to one destination result in unplanned consequences elsewhere in the region. This inter-relatedness of tourism flows questions the validity of the distinction between outside induced, visitor created and organic tourism as analytical tools.

Most of these coming to Koh Phangan arrived in the sleepy harbour town of Thong Sala by ferry from the mainland. From there, the majority of visitors would head to Haad Rin Beach on the southern tip of the island. Not only was Haad Rin considered to be the best beach of the island due to its geographical features, but also its inaccessibility by road made it too difficult a proposition for conventional mass tourists. The continued availability of cheap marijuana and the absence of a permanent police presence at Haad Rin contributed to the location's fame as a place where neither outraged locals nor eager police would interfere with the traveller's enjoyment of the lifestyle. A jumble of social, cultural and economic factors converged to create a "socially permissive milieu" (Smith 1990a:35) on Koh Phangan and made the locals willing collaborators in the remaking of Koh Phangan into a counter-cultural meeting place. Traditionally, Koh Phangan, like Koh Samui, had been a favourite haven for those falling foul of the law on the mainland. As late as the early 1980s, local fishermen are rumoured to have engaged in piracy. Fishing boat crews from other regions would come to Koh Phangan to gamble, drink and use the harbour-town's prostitutes. The possession of fire-arms by many of the islanders was common in the absence of law-enforcement authorities.

Remote from central control, the inhabitants of the islands took care of their own affairs. Communal affairs were dominated by local strong-men who were not answerable to outside authority. Fiercely independent and quite prepared to use violence against encroaching outsiders, the islanders lived in a world of their own only remotely connected to the mainstream of Thai society. Thus, travellers arriving on Koh Phangan entered a society whose traditional dynamics had long allowed those with the necessary political and economic strength to place themselves outside the law. Due to the economic prowess of the visitors, a natural alliance developed between them and the local strong-men who stood to gain from their presence. Being beyond the reach of local law themselves by virtue of their economic and political prowess, these power-brokers extended their protection to discourage local police from harrassing their visitors for personal gain.

The system of patronage and the role of connections as an important resource, which Murray (1991:24) described in regard to community relations in Indonesia, also operates on the islands of southern Thailand. In the absence of other alternatives, patronage and connections to local power-brokers represented the only means of physical protection and economic advancement in island society. Protected through their association with these local strong-men who financially benefit from their presence, the affluent visitors immediately acquired almost "extra-territorial" status. As the prevailing system of family ties and patronage has ensured that some of the benefits gained are passed on to wider community, most locals had little interest in upsetting the status quo. Thus, flexible local mores, economic benefits, endemic corruption and local power politics combined to create a "socially permissive milieu" (Smith, 1990b:35) on the island.

News of an "authority-free zone" in southern Thailand spread by word of mouth throughout the subculture and from there to other sections of the Western counter-culture. The "milieu" itself became a highly successful tourism product and served to attract unprecedented numbers of young Westerners to Koh Phangan over the following years. Virtually overnight a scene developed, populated by visitors who thrived on the absence of stifling rules apart from the subcultural emphasis on tolerance and fairness.

Smith (1990a) reports, almost with some indignation, that in the eyes of most locals on the island of Boracay in the Phillipines, tourism has been very positive and that the "sins of the drifter tourists are being overlooked". In other words, both locals and visitors appear happy with the status quo of touristic development. Are the locals simply blind to negative consequences or willing participants of a trade-off where the economic rewards of providing a "socially permissive milieu" far outweigh the perceived detriment of social mores? While it may be debatable whether locals should be allowed to conduct such a trade-off, it is clear from the experience of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan that host populations as a whole may very well be willing to overlook perceived social misdemeanours in return for economic and psychological benefits.

Lui and Var (1986:211) found that residents tend to have a strong perception of the economic benefits of tourism while reluctant to blame it for any social and/or environmental costs. Ap (1992:675) noted that whether residents tend to perceive the benefits from tourism outweighing the costs depends on the level of material and psychological rewards they reap from the exchange (Ap, 1992:675). Given the substantial material benefits that came to the island, most locals were prepared to tolerate the sometimes outlandish behaviour of their visitors.

Smith (1990a:48) assumes as a "given" that family-type guest-houses would prefer not to cater to backpackers whose lifestyle favours "alcohol and drug abuse, sexual freedom and prostitution." However, where these visitors are the only ones to whom the rudimentary accommodation offered is acceptable and where, in spite of breaking social taboos, these visitors are generally friendly and personable to their hosts, an atmosphere of communal tolerance emerges.

As Erisman (1983:355) has noted, the playground culture of sun-and-sand destinations becomes accepted by visitors and residents alike. The Thai notion of "sanuk" i.e., partying and making happy for its own sake has simply been extended and assures a general local tolerance of unusual visitor antics. Given that on the islands of southern Thailand the use of alcohol, marijuana, gambling, and prostitutes has been part of the expected behaviour of local males for generations, it is not surprising that the visitors' way of life is either actively catered for - or at least not actively opposed.

The spatial separation between travellers at Haad Rin and the majority of the island population may have contributed to the remarkable degree of local tolerance towards the visitors. While Smith's concept of tourism as a cottage industry assumes that visitors are to stay inside locals' private homes (1990b:45), this has clearly not been the case on either Koh Samui or Koh Phangan. Instead, visitors are accommodated in beach-side bungalows serviced by restaurants whose operators maintain a separate living space.

The majority of both islands' populations live in settlements away from the main beach used by the visitors. Whereas, exaggerated accounts of the visitors' lifestyle quickly penetrated the island, few of the ordinary locals witnessed it first hand. Furthermore, the close proximity to Koh Samui had already familiarised Koh Phangan's population years earlier with the appearance and behaviour of travellers by way of inter-island gossip. The procession of visitors disgorged by the ferry twice daily in Thong Sala quickly disappeared to Haad Rin and their enjoyment of sun, sea, sex, music and marijuana generally happened away from the public glare. Thus, the only locals in day-to-day contact with Western travellers were these who stood to financialy benefit from their presence. With everybody benefiting from the status quo, Haad Rin quickly became synonymous with reggae music and marijuana.

It was laid-back and a lot of nice people to have fun with. I slept well at night. Smoked weed and made some good friends. It was a good place. It was laid-back. Not too much pollution. And the other travellers that were there, people also make the atmosphere of a place feel good. (Johnny, Dutch)

Accommodation was provided in the shape of a 12 sq bungalow on a white sandy beach costing the princely sum of US$0.50 per day while local food was available at beach-front restaurants for about the same amount. A leisurely pace prevailed which extended to the staff of the restaurants who frequently would forget or misunderstand orders to the general mirth of all concerned. It mattered little to the visitors that it could take two hours for a meal to arrive when one could watch a deep blue sea roll into a palm-fringed bay. A 300m long beach would be populated by a similar number of visitors who sun-baked nude, played guitar, swam in the bay or talked with each other. The only interruptions came from the occasional long-tail boat's noisy arrival or departure and the petrol-powered generators which provided electricity between sunset and midnight.

Prior to 1987, there seems to have existed little competition between the resort operators at Haad Rin. The head of the largest land-owning family in the area also owned the boat that brought provisions for the visitors. This automatically gave him control of all lines of supply due to the absence of an alternative transport infra-structure and ensured the family's continued pre-eminence in Haad Rin's affairs. Most operators were relatives of this family or originated from the same village, Ban Tai. Thus, Haad Rin simply mirrored the pre-existent village power structure rather than representing a "free-for-all" response to growing visitor numbers.

The organic response to this visitor induced growth stage during 1986 and 1987 appears to have been remarkably similar to that observed by Smith (1992:146) on Boracay in the Philippines. Hastily-built bungalow resorts copied each other's menus and building styles, and charged identical prices for their bungalows and meals. As on Koh Samui, the employees of the resorts were young relatives of these operators or domestic servants who had originally worked in the operator's household. Paid little, apart from food and lodging, and inexperienced with the requirements of foreign visitors, they had little inclination to change from the generally leisurely pace of doing things on the island. And yet within a short time, the arrival of massive additional visitor numbers at Haad Rin changed this atmosphere forever.

The news that there existed another island with a "socially permissive milieu" to take Koh Samui's place quickly spread all over Asia via the subcultural information network. Travellers, whose route might have included Thailand, would take note and make arrangements to meet with others at Haad Rin while still thousands of miles away. Within a year, the number of establishments on Haad Rin doubled. Increasing numbers of young locals were brought in by their families to help run the bungalows and restaurants due to their knowledge of English, albeit limited. Thus, a small Thai community came into existence at Haad Rin.

According to Ap (1990:617), more longitudinal research is still required to evaluate the host's changing perceptions over the various developmental phases of a destination area. While travellers' generally egalitarian ethos tended to gloss over the inequalities between themselves and the locals who served them, it was clearly evident by 1987 that their easy-going hosts were well on the way to becoming hard-working service providers.

Nash and Smith (1991:15) point out that from the host's vantage point, tourism tends to have both negative and positive aspects. This certainly was the case on Koh Phangan as more and more visitors began to converge on the island. With rising numbers of visitors came longer hours, more frequent misunderstandings and a reduced degree of personal closeness between hosts and guests. However, financial returns increased greatly and a new prosperity emerged that brought motorbikes, electricity at night and opportunities for employment to the island community. It would be fair to say that the locals had little time to complain or rejoice as they were too busy to exploit this heaven-sent economic opportunity in whatever way possible.

3) From Traveller- Centre to Party Island : 1989-1994

By 1988, Koh Phangan, and in particular Haad Rin Beach, had become firmly established as part of the subcultural travel itinerary. Returning visitors and guide-books spread its reputation among the wide youth culture in the West. Nobody, however, could have predicted the next turn of events which transformed this small island from just another traveller-centre to a world-famous party destination that would see an eight-fold increase in the number of visitors by 1990 (Samui Today, Dec.1990:4), let alone the eventual arrival of up to three-thousand party-goers at Haad Rin in 1994.

Two apparently unconnected developments thousands of miles apart proved to be instrumental factors in making Koh Phangan famous and infamous at the same time.

A) CRACKDOWN IN GOA

From the 1960s, Goa, on India's West Coast, had been famous for its drugs and beach-parties. A relic from the times of the Hippie trail, Goa had continued to attract these most akin to Cohen's original drifters. This most anti-authoritarian section of the subculture had managed to perpetuate its pleasure-based way of life among a tolerant population for whom the financial gain from these visitors outweighed other considerations. However, due to changes to Goa's political landscape and the desire of international developers to utilise Goa's beaches for their own clientele, police harassment of Goa's traditional visitors increased dramatically during early 1988. As a result, some of these who had come to Goa year after year began to look for an alternative location which would permit them to continue their way of life. During 1988, these exiles from Goa arrived on Koh Phangan, bringing with them the experience of a far more hedonistic way of life than that usually indulged in by today's institutionalised travellers and more akin to the antics of yesteryear's drifters.

B) PSYCHEDELIA REVISITED: THE RAVE CULTURE

Butler and Wall (1985:293) observed that changes in tourism are frequently a reflection of the social and cultural changes that occur in the societies from where these tourists come. This acknowledges that technological advances and social changes in Western society repeatedly give rise to social and artistic subcultures whose members desire to follow a lifestyle outside the dominant paradigm. Stigmatisation of their preferred lifestyle at home means that many of the members of these subcultures are only able to fully follow this alternative lifestyle in spatial distance from the constraints of home society. They therefore venture abroad for the purpose of discovering a "socially permissive milieu" which will accept and even cater to their non-conforming lifestyle" (Smith, 1990b:35).

While the counter-culture lifestyle of the 1960s had perpetuated itself in Goa among a clientele made up of semi-permanent residents and these within the subculture who attempted to emulate most closely their drifter predecessors, the pre-occupation with drugs and parties was no longer typical of the majority of long-term travellers visiting Asia a decade ago. Riley's (1988) description of these she encountered in the mid-1980s, as being only marginally concerned with the more excessive hedonism of their predecessors, was accurate at the time and is still true of the majority of those travelling long-term.

However, by 1987 a novel social and cultural phenomenon became observable in Western society. Akin to the emergence of rock n' roll, a new form of music acquired rapid popularity and created a novel form of communal happening - the "rave" party. Its growing popularity, particularly in England, heralded the emergence of a new psychedelic movement centred on dance, colour, LSD, amphetamines, and Ecstasy.

"Ravers" have emerged as a global community due to advances in information technology that had allowed members of the original counter-culture to utilise the computer as a means of artistic and spiritual expression. By the mid-1970s, Californian bands such the Grateful Dead pioneered the use of computer graphics during rock concerts while ever larger numbers of musicians experimented with the new high quality recording technology which increasingly became affordable over the subsequent years (Rushkoff, 1997:3). Whereas the cultural roots of acid-house and techno music can be traced back to the 1970s, the beginnings of the rave phenomenon have been variously attributed to the techno clubs in Detroit, Ibiza or London. Wherever its cradle, this new form of music hit Europe with a vengeance in 1987. Consisting of digitally sampled sounds from almost anywhere in the world (Rushkoff, 1997:3) and made frequently by amateurs rather than professionals, this dance music quickly gathered a following numbering in their millions. Inspired by psychedelic substances, large numbers of individuals joined together to experience a sense of community and freedom.

Reacting against the drabness and joylessness of economic rationalism as represented by Reagan and Thatcher (Wise, 1994), a new form of psychedelia emerged. Like the drifters of the 1960s, their search for freedom was frequently anarchic and hedonistic in style. And like the "happenings" of yesteryear, rave parties became large communal gatherings of like-minded people in defiance of the authorities. Similar to their drifter predecessors, the new recruits to the rave culture fanned out across the globe to find their niches in "socially permissive milieux" abroad that were prepared to cater to their "non-conforming" lifestyle. So, it is little wonder that those who had visited Koh Phangan during that year found an eager audience among their non-travelled peers when they returned with tales of sheer, almost unbelievable freedom. Fascinated by the fact that there existed a place that was cheap, surrounded by sea and away from the prying eyes of the authorities, many among this audience decided to go directly to Koh Phangan during their next holidays. Whereas the island continued to serve as a rest and recreation stop for long-term travellers, Koh Phangan in 1989, for the first time, experienced a massive influx of short-term counter-culture tourists recruited from the emerging rave culture in Europe.

HOME

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws