Word: ko
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Thais who have been living on Ko Pha-Ngan for five generations--since their forefathers migrated from Hainan island off the coast of China--the notion of Western kids coming here and convincing themselves that they are pioneering a new civilization is further proof that these farangs (foreigners) are as clueless as they look. For one thing, Thailand is a real country, with real laws that it expects tourists to abide. "I don't know about any 'new civilization,'" says police captain Suthat Phronakson. "What they seem to be doing is smoking a lot of dope, having sex with each...
Foreigners have been dying on Ko Pha-Ngan at the rate of about 10 a year. They overdose. They drown. They crash motorcycles. Captain Phronakson throws a few Polaroids of corpses onto his desk: an Englishman fished out of a well; a German who was attacked by a shark, huge gouges taken from his arms and legs. Phronakson arrests about 10 foreigners a month, usually for drug possession. The word among foreigners is that for a 70,000 baht fine, about $1,800, the Thais will deport you rather than imprison you. As for the Canadian currently being held...
...Thai entrepreneurs who owned the prime Ko Pha-Ngan waterfront were, at one point, the black sheep of their respective clans. Beaches were useless: the prime coconut-farming plots were inland. But with the arrival of the sand-loving farangs, a whole new economy emerged. Families like the Thuaycharoens, known locally as the Khaos, grew wealthy building bungalow complexes and beach bars. Mustachioed Mr. Khao is now governor of the whole province. Bespectacled Mrs. Khao manages their real estate empire from behind the counter of her two-aisle grocery store. The kids who buy rolling papers and beer from...
They think Ko Pha-Ngan is their special place, even though it may be just the latest port of entry for kids in their generation to go off the grid and out of their heads. Previous generations too have wandered everywhere from Key Largo to Kathmandu for post-school, pre-career adventures. A few stumbled upon scenes where they felt, for a few magical moments, that the old rules didn't apply. But just as those paradises were transformed by the brutal economics of tourism, Ko Pha-Ngan is already morphing into a travel brochure. Electricity arrived in 1997. Roads...
...Tamara, stories of a pre-electric island--when it really was paradise--are merely the grousing of the kids who got there first. She doesn't believe she is living the twilight of the Ko Pha-Ngan era. But just as surely as she will eventually return to California and begin the next phase of her life, so too will Ko Pha-Ngan pass from the domain of ravey subculture to just another pretty tourist trap. The Beach was just the latest book to get it right: Paradise will always be lost...