Koh Phangan Special Police Force Shuts Down Half Moon Party Festival
Saturday March 15, 2008 local special police forces from the island of madness, formerly also know as Koh Phangan Paradise Island, shut down the Half Moon Party Festival in Baan Tai village at precisely 2 a.m. in the morning.
After continuous and massive complaints over the last couple of years from local residents at Baan Tai, Baan Nok and also Baan Nuea village, the main center of the techno party scene, local police forces have finally enforced the shut down of all party activities around Koh Phangan Island at exactly 2 a.m.
Baan Sabai Day Party in the center of Baan Tai village was also closed at 2 a.m. the following day. Jungle Experience Party which was scheduled for 18th March 2008 was canceled by the party organizers due to new party regulations, a reliable island source told.
The reliable island source further added that all clubs and bars at world famous Had Rin beach are also closing their entertainment venues at 2 a.m. in the morning.
The one and only exception to the new strict 2 a.m. closing policy is the world famous Full Moon Party at Had Rin beach Koh Phangan which is held once a month during the Full Moon Night. The world famous Full Moon Party attracts thousands of tourists every month and without this monthly all night long top event the fragile economic system of Phangan Island might collapse as many businesses and bungalow owners heavily depend up on it, an island economic specialist said.
While bars and clubs everywhere else in Thailand were always obliged to the strict closing policy at 12 or 2 a.m. in accordance with national Thai law, “Party Island” Koh Phangan always received a special status thanks to massive corruption of the local district administration, police officers and village chiefs.
Local party organizers might currently be in the process of negotiating with local administration and police officers to lift the strict closing policy as it happened in the past many times. As thousands of party hungry tourists attempt these parties and generate massive income money economics might play an important role in regulating new policies and as everything is possible with money here on Koh Phangan – the island of madness … well … let’s see how long the strict closing policy will last … Business like usual?
Maybe one day the local party organizers of Koh Phangan might feel an intense cosmic spiritual insight, as advertised on their party flyers, and understand that the unfriendly effect they are having on the lives of hundreds of hard working people who also long for peace, love, unity as well as a modest night’s sleep.
Great news for Koh Phangan, but how long will it last? Not too long I think!!
GREAT FINALLY THE ISLAND WILL BE PARADISE AGAIN!!!!! FMP WAS GOOD IN THE BEGGINING BUT ITS GONE BAD LATER YEARS AND TO BIG AND TO MANY OTHER PARTYS SAVE KOH PANANG AND MAKE IT WHAT IS WAS BEFORE.
Does anybody know what the “new party regulations” are? Closing time 2 am is nothing new!
I think it’s good that finally somebody’s reinforcing that law, and hope that the party organizers will respect it from now on. This kind of parties belong to haadrin, not in residential areas.
The tourism industry going to have a tough time in phangan anyway with a looming global recession main headline on bbc news yesterday about economy and large us investment bank sold for fraction of what it was worth a year ago and panic in the stock markets! Was planning a holiday to phangan in next month but was coming for the parties may reconsider especially with weak pound! I’m sure some of u will say good riddance we dont want your sort in phangan i may be a pill head but i am always very respectful make an effort to speak thai and have spent a lot of money in phangan over the years, and i always try and keep my environmental impact to a minimum wherever i am! Im sure word will get around that the parties are dieing off(apart from full moon)and numbers of tourists will drop even more(excluding the 4 day full moon peak). I only went to black moon, half moon and ban sabai so cant comment on others and in retrospect the people living near them do have to put up with a lot especially black moon as is near to bantai and all night but i thought half moon was far way enough not to be heard although people on here have said wind direction is a big factor, and ban sabai has been 10am to 2am for some time now.If shiva and jung experience were stopped all together(not many people go anyway so not benefiting tourism on the island) how would locals feel about ‘putting up with’ half moon going all night for the good of the islands economy as it attracts up to 2000 revellers making the party the week after full moon particularly important! I would also like to add that you get bad disrespectful people in any walk of life you only have to look at samui to see that and most party people are much plesanter than beer swilling sex tourists. D uk
What makes you think, that you and your kind are better than “beer swilling sex tourists”. If you are respectful why you support the nights of noise in the villages. You must be blind or deaf if you believe that nobody get disturbed by the Halve Moon Party. Good you stay home “pill head”. We don’t need you here!
He He
For the poster above: I was expecting such lame comments like the one above. First of all, the party’s have not stopped at all. They just have to shutdown at 2 am. If they start the party at 7 pm. (at that time it is already dark) that is still 7 hours to go. One would might to comment; Who is going that early? If you look at Baan Sabai, there are many going quite early. And why after all people usually keep going late? Simple, because they work all day so only time left is night time. But if you honest with yourself, people here are on holidays, they could easily arrange there time table to go earlier to the party’s. As the poster already pointed out, he or her is trying to be respectful so trying to be a little bit more respectful regarding sleeping hours could not to be that hard.
Regarding the low pound, if the poster would do just a bit research: the exchange rates for the British pound to the Thai baht is almost the same as it was last year at the same time between 63-64 baht for one pound. A very lame attempt to scare locals for having less business because of those new regulations.
I tried to give a balanced view in my above comment and merely posed a question! I dont come to phangan solely for parties but is a big selling point summer is here i’m not going to travel half way round the world to go to parties that fin at 2am maybe i’m the only one i don’ t know merely giving my opinion and by the way i came back from 6 months in phangan exactly a year ago and it was 69 baht to the pound the whole time i was there so dont need to do any research and by the way pound is currently falling not rising people do consider this when planning things. And as for scaring locals hah what a load of rubbish the only REAL local who posts comments on this site is islander the rest are ex pats and tourists!
I hope you visit this page again and see my reply to your post.
The Islander
saw it sucked as expected!
The Bart is between 48-52, i’ve been here since feb 09. It’s never been 63-64 !!!!!
In my opinion, you guys who think that phangan is dependent on the bantai parties, you are completely wrong. For years huge amounts of tourists were just scared away from having a nice holiday on phangan. When word spreads that law and order is back on the island all of you will witness the rising numbers of tourists coming in, rising business and rising development. Just look around you, don’t you think all these parties have blocked any kind of development and investment around bantai? Compare bantai beach with haad yao or thong nai pan and you’ll see immediately the difference. Keep the parties going and you’ll go further back. Life is a change, go for it.
– And, talking again about respect, don’t just talk about it, give back a good night sleep to our parents and grandparents, they were first here, they deserve it.
u r very boriing,u want to have the same shit like everywhere for stupid people…go to samui ,have beer and look for some ladies…u really dont know whats going on in the world..
Good words! I believe that you are right about the dependence on the “Full Moon Side Parties”.
There is no dependence in this way. As soon as all this pill heads are gone we will have much more solvent tourists.
So islander i take it u dont want pill heads coming to phangan anymore but what about the local pill heads what do you propose to do with them?Throw them into thailands wonderful prison system why not just put them up against the wall and shoot them! seems like your bit of a facist to me!=)
What are you talking about bantai beach allready over developed with as many high end resorts as haad yao and thong nai pan is undisputedly the best beach on the island with year round swimming how can you compare the two?
You hit the nail on the head m8 rising development another majorca like island in the gulf of thailand great! In case you guys didnt realise we are all going to have to make drastic changes to our lives in the next couple of decades due to massive oil price rises(unless they start pumping out of the antartic then god help us all) and global warming. Package holidays will become a thing of the past and it will go back to how it was 20/30 years ago few will fly due to prices and changing attitudes! Phangan being a smaller version of samui isnt going to help attract people there especially if it goes back to long term travellers which is what tourism experts are predicting on a global scale! Over developing and attracting package tourists is just fuelling this global warming fire and bantai bankai being so lie lowing will be some of the hardest hit! And although you may be thinking this is some way off doomsday predictors(im not 1 of them think we’ve got longer) are predicting global economic meltdown and a return to self suffiecency by 2012. Parties aside i urge people to see past the $ and fight over development on phangan(and an airport). The more reliant phangan becomes now on tourism the more it will suffer in the future when it has to go back and all the best land has been built on fish eaten etc!
2 day we see flyers with patry at the pirats bar with a open end at 23/3- we se flyers with party at shiva moon at 24/3.
This is new flyers, who think that they are really gonna stop the partys.
I do!
And I as well!
The Islander
i also think so, and it will be the best day of the year 2008
!
What will be the best day of 08 what are u on about?
Wow, so much gloom and doom! Global warming, holiday travel a thing of the past! I’ve never heard such nonsense in long time… Twenty and Thirty years ago weren’t so bad and believe it or not people were traveling still. I don’t know where this story came from; I was thinking that this was about the police shutting down the parties a two o’clock…
Certainly high fuel prices could hurt Thailand’s tourism, but as of right now more and more tourist comes every year. If you speak to many locals they all seem to complain just like farmers do. I think barring something really major occurring that tourism will continue to grow, all be it at a slower rate than we have seen over the past decade.
To get back on the topic of parties! I believe that the party reputation of Koh Phangan is holding back tourist development on this island. I know many bloggers on this site often see the three week package tourist as being some kind of a scourge and I just don’t get it. There just people that are unfortunate to have limited time off and want to have a pleasant holiday on a tropical island. However, I think it’s great that many young people get to party all night and a location that will not disturb other is desperately needed. Haad Rin would be the most obvious location and it could party 365 days a year. Then at least the rest of the island could continue to live in peace and tranquility.
Cheers Glyn
At least one who got it !!! Move the whole party crab to haadrin.
I just heard that 2 people, 1 farang and 1 die were killed in a barfight at the full moon party last night.
Anybody know more?
Its not just Thailand if you look at ibiza they have now gone back to early closing Why u may ask. Well its because the only People making money were the partys. People party all night and sleep all day. Now maybe they will get up early and shop eat and enjoy the beach. Dont forget people can party at home they come here for the thai feeling of chilling out on the beach (Remember the film that made us famous)But i must say that i have all ways liked the half moons and black moons they are well run and always fun partys. anyway life goes on…
The new (half pig, half human, look at Samak properly) goverment like to show power as before Thaksin’s govnt. everything gonna be alright after few months. no worries.
Everything will be alright. Not for the parties but for the villagers!
😉
Don’t you pro-party people realize you are loosing ground? Slowly but surely! Now it is time for the villagers to score points.
Like your comments islander, go ahead!
Loseing! We are merely posting our opinions and views which is what this site is about!
i think you should all take more drugs
Anybody know what the deal is with the April 5th BMP… 2am closeout or bizniz as usual – who got the werd out there?
Well … becki got the word out there 😉 local police and government introduced a new & improved price system. if you want to make party until 2 a.m. you got to pay for it! if you want to make party longer than 2 a.m. until late morning or open end how they call it, you got to pay some more EXTRA bugs to local island officials to make this happen!
so i suppose that half moon & black moon get enough party visitors so they can afford to pay off the police with some EXTRA money for the open end all night long party!
looks like shiva moon doesn’t attract enough party hungry psy aliens as they shut down the party at precisely 2 a.m. on the 2nd april 2008.
hope that helps 😉
Where the hell are we living here??? this is not an island of madness, this is the total A N A R C H Y !
as ive said before in other posts, i lived in phangan for 2 years, but havnt bothered going back for over 4. most of my best thai mates live there and they come and stay with me in the uk whenever they come over but if you ask me phangan has turned into a complete pile of wank. it is full of twats of all nationalities and there are plenty of better places in thailand that you can go and party away from all the twats, jews and all the trouble that goes with it!!
i dont wanna see koh panang looking like samui, samui looks like the cannaris and now the same fuckers that built grand cannaris is building there and i dont like samui. but i found my bubbel at koh panang and i did not attend fmp did it years ago but not enymore. as i said before it has goon bad!!
besides the island is to small and moast of it is nasjional park and protected by the king him self, so an airport that will not happen. and to that am glad.
I have been going to Koh Phangan for about 12 years now. The sooner all the goddamn jungle and half moon and shiva parties, etc etc, are shut down, the better. The FMP is nothing but a drunken pilled out violent mix of shitheads now. Every FMP, there are dramas, people getting murdered, stabbed, raped, robbed, bashed, its just a disgrace. Its about time the speed freaks and pill poppers found somwhere else to congregaate and the sooner the better.
I have NEVER had a problem with any Thai person on this Island, for the simple reason that I show respect to both the people and their Island, and they in turn reciprocate……not really rocket science is it?
Your HUNT against any Moon Party and your suggested closing times are STUPID and UNREALISTIC.
Parties made this island BIG and they all have something of it.
A Shut Down at 2 am is the most stupid thing to say anyway. We all know, that people start going out around midnight and you can not kick them out just 2 hours later. impossible !
I would suggest, that all business people of koh phangan should help to advertise not only the full moon party. also the half moon festival should be on focus, to get not only once a month people from all over the world.
You want to stop, what made YOU and the others big. If there would be no Full Moon or all those others, you would not have had the chance to stay as long as you did and make money of the people which all live from the parties in the end.
The quiet place you want is a FICTION and stopping events where international people come together to dance and celebrate freedom and joy, is simple unreal far away of logic and a real solution for any kind of noise problematic.
Your style is cowboy like and nothing else.
This was also the way how your time ended finally here on phangan and you did ask for this.
So – do not complain and shut down this subjective face news! focus on life