I have lived and traveled in many developing countries, many of which are not yet tainted
by western corporate values or whose culture has not yet become homogenized.
In 2002, I went to live on a dance collective on Kupangon, a small island in the Gulf of Thailand.
I knew tourism was already very prevalent, but I wanted to see the fusion of people,
the gathering point of celebration, and what I found was the perfect microcosmos to help
define the effects of global tourism development in a never shrinking world.
It's sort of a catch-22 in that when you find paradise, you want to go back to paradise
and you want to bring your friends to paradise and you want to tell others, but as a result,
the more people come, the more trashed it becomes and it's no longer a paradise, so
it's sort of a paradox, but a paradise paradox is in play here.
When you shine, you shine.
When you shine, you shine.
When you shine, you shine.
When you shine, you shine.
When you shine, you shine.
When you shine, you shine.
Hi, I'm Gabby and I'm Bill, and we've been coming to Kupangon since about 1991, and those
years we've come here a number of different times, and we've stayed a couple of different
places on the beach, but mostly here at Hadred or at a more isolated beach up on the northern
fall of each.
Well, I first came to Kupangon in 1992, and it was virtually undeveloped.
It was so pristine and beautiful.
I went to travel and went to dance, and went to dance in beautiful places like Kupangon.
And so, even though we're travelers and seemingly strangers everywhere we go, at least in Asia,
there is a sense of community because there's a route within Asia that people that travel
long-term seem to take, and it has a lot to do with the weather.
We come around as the weather changes, like Goa in India and the mountains in India, Bali,
Thailand, and specifically in Thailand we come to Kupangon because up until very recently
it allowed us the chance to hold all night parties and celebrations where we could express
that.
And even though every person is a traveler, you've got to see many faces that you've seen
in dance floors and other places in the world, and that to me was exciting, you know.
A place to re-encounter friends, and to make new friends, and connect with people and the
music, and like-minded.
I went to my first full moon party was on Kupangon, and there were about 100 people there
all together.
It was really amazing.
It was very organic, I guess you could say, down to earth, and not a big tour to do, but
just people dancing on the beach and listening to music and just having a good time and enjoying
being out in nature and dancing to the full moon.
It's really amazing.
The full moon party is a big event in this island.
Thousands of people come from all over the world to attend this festival.
People from all different countries and all over the world are congregating, coming to
this beautiful place and dancing and celebrating together, having something in common, something
to celebrate, something to share.
A lot of times people come out on the dance floor and they don't know why they're there
other than to have a good time, but while they're there they're not thinking, and they
enter that place where they're able to be present and be in the moment, and maybe it's
the only time in their lives, or maybe that's the only space in their lives where they've
ever achieved that.
And what makes this a special place is that people come here to achieve that and all the
music and all the dancing and all the opportunities for that presence, and so that's what keeps
us coming back here, that's what keeps us involved in the underground is the opportunity
to enter that space, be it here or any place else where we're not in our heads, where we're
in the present moment, and from that we can learn, we can be in the present moment and
have the same type of bliss that we find in the dance floor.
But first we have to find it, and people come here and they do find it, and that makes it
an amazing place.
I think dance for me is almost like a spiritual practice, in that it really brings me into
the moment, and it allows me to completely let go of any worries, any thoughts, any affectations,
any sense, in a way it sort of brings me back to myself.
So I would say it's a good birth, yeah, nice dance for the earth, in the sun, it's a nice
use of power, it's like meditation.
The energy, the feeling that we're all coming together, and the rhythm, the dance, the rhythm
of the dance, you know, we have to dance in order to dance as Bhumshanka.
For many years this was really a backpackers' haven where people could go and find cheap
accommodation.
Those kind of tourists now aren't really being catered to as much as people who are on a
week before we holiday from Europe or America.
My nature here, I'm honest with my bungalow, my place has about 25 bungalows and restaurants,
more bungalows, more bungalows building and bigger restaurants, but before we don't have
people here just coconut garden, coconut garden and beach.
That's it, have some four or five house for people stay, Thai people, local people stay
here.
Yeah, I agree for tourists come to enjoy here and stay here because they can relax and
okay, we can have more friends and feeling nicer for not feeling alone, but I don't like
little bit about, I worry about whole beach will be change, change little bit okay, but
if when in the future 10 years next or 15 years next, I worry like they will have good road
and big building, big hotel, I feeling don't like that.
Because when many people come here, it's garbage or lots of button, lots of care for a lot
of, we have more people to come to help to clean everything, keep everything still clean
and keep nature.
I'm pretty shocked at the development now, it's pretty developed all over the island,
all of the beaches are sort of laced with bungalows and there are thousands upon thousands
of people that make their way to Copenhagen during the full moon parties and I guess they're
both positive and negative aspects to the development here, the influx of tourism and
people coming from all over the world to partake in this nomadic dance culture.
Before you were lucky if you got electricity, now a lot of the units are all air conditioned
and most of the new ones being built that way.
It seems in many ways the island is gentrifying and our dance culture doesn't get any longer
with what the developers plan for the side market here.
Unfortunately, the more a place gets developed and the more that this place gets developed,
the more trash the environment becomes and they don't really have an infrastructure to
handle the thousands of people that come every full moon and as a result the environment,
this beautiful pristine environment is losing its charm and in a way it's losing its soul.
This year and last year there's been a lot of changes.
The government in Thailand is getting a lot bigger and is asserting its influence on these islands
and now they're telling us that there's no more all night parties and everything shuts down at 2 o'clock
and the characters change and the people that come to this island are different now.
Last year when we visited, things began to change a little.
One of the biggest surprises that we found was the 7-elevens on the island.
There's not one but three and the fact that the all night parties were a little bit more constrained
and there weren't as many of them and that in between the all night parties all the bars and night clubs
had to close at 2 a.m. because of a girlfriend posed by the Bangkok police.
This year it seems a lot worse as the Black Moon party got cancelled.
A lot of travelers were truly disappointed.
But there's not a strong sense of community at the full moon parties
because there's a lot of people that are here for a week or two just to enjoy the celebration
and move on to different places.
The Black Moon party however held a more special place in people's hearts
because it happened right between the two full moons when there's not a lot of tourists in the island
but the long term travelers are here to enjoy the peace and quiet of our beaches.
So that was a huge disappointment to a lot of us and it's made me reconsider
this is the place to come to be that, to dance, to see people that enjoy what I enjoy and share it with me.
Cadrin is more of a party town.
And that's just in terms of our dance and our community.
The more drastic changes are just looking at the island and seeing what the development is doing to me.
But it's just that kind of carelessness and haphazard approach to nature
that is happening within a lot of development on this island.
People are taking old grass bungalows that have to be repaired every few years
and replacing them with concrete structures.
This started really a few years ago when they finally laid an underwater cable
that would provide electricity to the island.
Before that everybody was on generators and that was very limited.
Right now they're building two different sets of piers on this island
and to build the piers of course they have a track to dredge out to coral
so they could extend the land outward.
Coral's already dead, it's been dead for a number of years for pollution and ship anchors
everybody with their boat has to throw an anchor each individual time that they want them more.
A lot of locals don't seem to like it so much.
A lot of development is being done by outside bunny
and a lot of locals are getting very rich selling off their land.
And that development that comes up pretty much knocks down trees,
knocks down the rocks, starts from a level playing surface where there's nothing there
and you can create whatever you want.
Unfortunately with the crater bungalows that are side by side back to back
and there really aren't any sewage systems on the island.
There isn't a way to dispose of that kind of waste except through a septic system
that eventually ends up in the water.
Nobody seems to clean up the rubbish that's thrown about.
Probably I can count on both hands number of garbage cans available to public on this beach.
We can't expect developing nations to provide the infrastructure for our disposable industrialized ways.
In a sense we're blasting from the west.
We are steps ahead in our realization of the effects of waste.
From which we should teach through example.
Water plastic, water bottles are an issue but many of them now are being recycled
from one set or collected up.
We recycle, we take back like pack in the big bag and put back on the board
and bring it back for recycling.
Like bottom like plastic and bottom of beer, bottom of whiskey,
everything take it back to it.
In contrast to Hagrid here, about a week or so ago we went up with some friends
from all the beach again.
That beach is owned by one family and now they,
when Gavin and I were there some six years or so ago there were two bungalows
and two restaurants on the beach.
And now there's like four bungalows and five restaurants, something like this.
But because the whole beach is owned by one family,
it's actually cleaner this year than it was back in the previous years
and the development that's been occurring.
Although it's not done with natural materials,
it would concrete and lock in.
It's being done in a way that's very attractive.
A lot of the underbrush is removed but the main trees are left.
A lot of shrubs are left.
A lot of fur is disappeared.
But they build within the rocks and build around the trees.
They'll just cut everything down.
And I have to imagine that's being done that way because it's one family
and they have control of it.
I think it has a lot to do with it that the family is from this island
and it's not outside money coming into the island.
What I see is that the local people, the people from this island,
when they build they show a lot of respect for the earth, from other nature,
especially for the older trees.
The outside money is not paying that much regard
and I think they're the ones that are doing what Billy mentioned
of just completely racing down a lot and starting with scratch.
And then trying to plant around really quickly but you know what?
It takes years for nature to grow.
And in Bottle Beach I saw that.
I saw that even though they did kill some shrubs to build bungalows,
new shrubs have been planted every day and nurtured
alongside the old trees that were respected and kept in place.
So it's a different attitude towards the island.
When we travel we need to be integral in our world view.
We must meld the wisdom shared through cultures
to create an activated informed world bridge,
one that honors differences and embraces solutions.
The indigenous cultures are becoming diluted
and the young people are giving up the culture
in favor of western ways, in favor of capitalism and being cool.
That's really sad to me because it just feels like the whole world
is becoming organized.
And ancient cultures are being cast aside and cast away.
My hope is that we can embrace these cultures,
respect these cultures, shine a mirror on it,
and embrace these cultures in terms of trying to preserve them
in ways that are truly positive.
I think we need to try not to make too much of an impression
in terms of our own ways and ideals.
The positive being that cultures can mix
and there can be a new hybrid of culture
that's more progressive and that may yield more evolutionary,
more positive traits in human nature.
I may come back to Copenhagen.
There's been many times when I left the island
saying I wouldn't come again and here I am.
The tribal dance culture I feel in many ways
is a return to the tribal roots that need to be renewed
and need to be re-experienced.
So it's very interesting how the western world
is seeking eastern ways and eastern mysticism and philosophy
and the eastern cultures are looking to the west
in many ways for the answers.
It seems like we're sort of moving in opposite directions.
Hopefully what's happening is that as we have a dialogue
with each other we're learning the positive and negative aspects
of our own cultures.
We as the more nomadic dance, tribal dance culture
consciously can choose between, not between,
but can choose the positive aspects of both cultures.
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