As the New Year 2009 blossom may the journey of your life be fragrant with new opportunities, your days be bright with new hopes and your heart be happy with love!

Love to you all & the best wishes from the Koh Phangan Island News Headquarters.

New reports have been received and also officially reconfirmed by Koh Phangan Island News Headquarters that the so called Haad Rin Business Association was again charging an entrance fee of 100 THB only for each foreign tourist arriving for the New Years Eve party at world infamous Haad Rin beach.

What first started as a Full Moon Party entrance fee only for tourist arriving from neighboring Koh Samui Island soon developed to a general Full Moon Party Fee for all foreign tourists wanting to celebrate the bright Full Moon at world infamous Haad Rin Beach at the south coast of Koh Pha-Ngan Island.

Now new regulations by the Haad Rin Business Association have been reconfirmed and a general Haad Rin Party Fee will now be charged of every foreign tourist arriving either from Koh Samui by boat or from any other destination by taxi, car or motorbike.

You've just partied with thousands under the moonlit sand and you're not yet fully recovered from a double dose of vodka bucket induced stupor. So what do you do now? Go beach hopping around Koh Pha-Ngan Island with Safari Boat!

That's right you can go on safari in Thailand, Phangan Style. No other tour on the island offers you the same experience. Phangan Safari Boat Tours takes you to those hard to get to places you've only read about in your big blue guide book. Don't bother trying to get there on a motorbike unless you fancy yourself a regular dare devil. Safari Boat gets you there the easy amphibious way.

Elephants, monkeys, random reptiles and the best beaches in the island's most difficult to reach places are what make this trip a real Phangan Island Safari. Aside from being the only tour in Phangan that offers such a comprehensive itinerary of the secluded northern and eastern coasts, Safari Boat also takes great care of their guests with professional guides and keen attention to detail.

The comprehensive tour package includes hotel transfers, a light breakfast, a hearty buffet lunch, snorkeling gear, accident insurance and a professional guide. All of that for 1,200 baht makes it a bargain. You'll have the option whether or not you want to ride the elephants for another 500 baht.

Full Moon Party Koh Phangan – since more than 20 years the monthly top event at world infamous Haad Rin beach at the south coast of Koh Pha-Ngan Paradise Island.

After 20 years of being free of entrance charge the Haadrin Business Association, locally better known as Haadrin Business Asscosiation, finally decided to enforce an original Koh Phangan Full Moon Party Ticket for EVERY tourist arriving at Hadrin beach during the Full Moon Party night.

First incidents of a Koh Phangan Full Moon Party entrance fee, only for tourists arriving from neighboring Koh Samui Island, have been reported back in September 2008 by our un-corrupted team of investigative douche bags from the Koh Phangan Island News headquarters.

A few days prior to the Full Moon Party in December 12th 2008 the Haadrin Business Asscosiation published an official statement regarding the Full Moon Party issue to all the resorts on Koh Pha-Ngan Island.

Thailand’s escalating political crisis, which saw protestors shutting down both Bangkok’s major airports last week, has prompted a wave of international travel alerts from countries including China, Japan, France, Singapore and the US.

British authorities urged nationals to check with airlines before travelling to Thailand, adding to their increasingly stark warning about the dangers of going anywhere near Koh Phangan’s infamous Full Moon Party location at Hadrin Beach. “You are advised be extremely careful when walking in this area at any time, especially after dark and if possible avoid it altogether,” the Foreign Office (FO) official advice recommends.

“You should be careful about taking drinks from strangers and be wary at clubs and parties, particularly in the Koh Samui area and at the Full Moon party on Koh Pha-Ngan Island where incidences of date rape have been reported. A number of British nationals have suffered severe psychiatric problems as a result of drug use, in a small number of cases resulting in suicide,” they say.

“We receive occasional reports of tourists who have been robbed after bringing visitors to their hotel rooms. In some cases their drinks were drugged. We continue to receive reports of sexual offences committed against foreign women and men,” the FO adds.

On 21st of December 2008, Baan Kai Culture Koh Phangan will be hosting their first "Art Street Festival" from 3pm till late.

The Baan Kai Art Street Festival at the south coast of Koh Phangan Island will have an open flea market, live music, African Drum workshops, DJ friends and open air cinema, showing Ron Fricke's masterpiece "Baraka" - a world beyond words.

Additional there’s kid’s activities and furthermore homemade international food-specialties which will make it a pleasant day for everyone.

More reasons to celebrate with us is the art opening of Peter's sculpture exhibition "Objects" and also his birthday…

We definitely hope it will be in everyone's interest to let the festival take part every month and to finally introduce Baan Kai Culture as an intercultural meeting point for Thai and Foreigners on Koh Phangan Paradise Island.

Everybody who's interested in street art, exhibitions, music and independent documentary movies is more than welcome to take part in the Baan Kai Art Festival.

Please contact Kim (Thai) +66 (0)859090433 or Fenja (Engl.) +66 (0)890713288 at least a couple of days before the event so we can include you in our festival program – thank you!

Let's talk and make the festival a positive enrichment for Koh Phangan Island and enjoy a nice day all together!

Baan Kai Culture Art Street Festival is located in Baan Kai village between Thongsala and world famous Full Moon Party beach Hadrin at the south coast of Koh Phangan Island.

Greetings and a happy & warm welcome to Koh Phangan Island News, still the one and only website offering fresh & up-to-date news about the Island Of Madness, formerly also known as Koh Phangan Paradise Island in the Gulf of Thailand.

After the recent massive responds to our article about the Same-Same Burger House at Hadrin Beach Koh Pha-Ngan and all the posted surreptitious advertizing about ‘John’s Place’ our Senior Food Analyst from Koh Phangan News headquarters, Fred van den StillLonelyLookingForHotChicks, went on an investigative mission to find out the awful truth about one of the islands most famous Sunday Roasts.

Welcomed by Sir John 1st and his sweaty armpits we were quite amazed by the friendly and relaxed atmosphere John’s Bar & Bistro has to offer. The ambient in the restaurant was real pleasant and warm thanks to our great hosts John 1st & John 2nd and also the wooden interior which made you feel cozy and comfortable.

Main focus of interest was the Sunday Roast which comes in different styles and flavors like chicken, pork, beef or lamb with all the trimmings and whistles starting from 195 THB. The Sunday Roast was well prepared and quickly served by Sir Chef John 2nd and the quality of the roast was good, tasty and fresh.

And again … welcome back to Koh Phangan Island News and the third part of our series called ADSL Report Koh Phangan - CAT Telecom, TOT, TT&T.

So the CAT Telecom cable guys left, sort of loosing their face as they had no clue about operating those high tech devices, and the next day Becki phoned CAT Koh Samui and asked the manager, Mr. Charun, if he’s fucking kidding me?

Well … of course not fucking … just in a nice manner … but please don’t send me over anymore idiots who don’t have any clue what they are doing. Just send me a technician who knows about ADSL and is able to use this awesome device to diagnose the problem of the ADSL line.

And as miracles still also happen here on the Island Of Madness, next day in the morning Becki was finally able to personally welcome the CAT Koh Samui General Manager, Mr. Charun, himself at my place. Impressive!

Mr. Charun, finally a guy who really knows what he’s doing, attached the high tech ADSL diagnose device, ran some tests, finally removed a filter box which was intentionally installed to improve the signal quality but actually did exactly the opposite, and then the ADSL line quality finally improved by an average of 40-50%.

Welcome back again to Koh Phangan Island News and the second part of our series called ADSL Report Koh Phangan - CAT Telecom, TOT, TT&T.

So … after closing that disappointing chapter with TOT Becki went to look for another ADSL provider and finally found CAT Telecom which happens to have a DSLAM just next to my place in a distance of around 1.5 km.

Not sure how much you guys know about ADSL but the location of the exchange point, this co called DSLAM to which your ADSL modem connects to, must be preferably within a very short distance. The shorter the better!

Then Becki signed up with the CAT Telecom guys for a monthly fee of 2600 THB without VAT for a 2/1 Mbit connection and this might sound expensive compared to the other ADSL competitors on the market but what to do if there aren’t any alternatives?

Anyway … because of the massive non existent donations our experienced team of douche bags constantly receives on Koh Phangan Island News for this nice & free public service I finally realized that I could afford this 2600 THB / month most expensive ADSL service in Thailand thanks to the generous help from my non existent financial supporters and their generous non existent donations to keep up the good work we are doing at Koh Phangan Island News headquarters – thanks :-)

Welcome back to Koh Phangan Island News, still the one and only online magazine offering fresh, up-to-date and uncensored information about the island of madness in the Gulf of Thailand.

Well … Becki recently read a report about the current ADSL broadband situation in Germany and the final results were sort of awkward.

So why not publish a report about the current ADSL situation here on Koh Phangan Paradise Island?

First of all I have to say that I’m really more than grateful that it is actually possible to get an ADSL line here on Koh Pha-Ngan. In my point of view Koh Phangan Island is indeed directly at the end of the world, Thailand still is and probably will be a 3rd world country after all and surfing the internet via ADSL here on the Island Of Madness still looks like a big fucking miracle to me ;-) So … really thanks a lot for that service!

Well … don’t we all still remember that noise from the funny dial up analog modem? Depending up the phone line quality we could receive a decent speed of up to 56 Kbits / sec ... browsing the internet took ages and a login into world famous hotmail.com could eventually fill up your whole Koh Phangan holiday afternoon. Haven’t these been fantastic times?

Sawadee Khrap and a very rainy welcome to Koh Phangan Island News, the one and only online magazine offering fresh and up-to-date news from the island of madness in the Gulf of Thailand.

Well … it’s raining a lot on Koh Phangan at the moment and therefore it’s probably a good time to introduce you to some more wicked topics the island of madness has to offer.

The whole story started a few months back after finishing lunch at my most favorite Isaan restaurant close to Thongsala. Filled up with fresh Som Tum papaya salad, Nam Tok Muu & some saticky rice and ready to pay the bill, Pii Nui, the mother of Pii Don, asked me if I do believe in spirits, ghosts and that sort of stuff? Abso-fucking-lutely I replied …

Then Pii Nui showed me a few photographs which had been taken recently when her son Pii Don held a healing ceremony with one of his patients. And the photographs were indeed quiet bizarre with all those orange light strings and that green illuminating thingy behind Pii Don. Something accomplished with the new Adobe Photoshop CS4?

However … as Becki is always interested in that other wicked multi dimensional stuff I realized that I had to dig deeper to get to the core of the story. So I arranged a few meetings with my friend Pii Don to receive some more insights to find out the awful truth!