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Comment by camillomiller | Hacker News Reader

This is very good news. Full moon parties are not the stuff of legend, but rather the lowest point of party tourism in Thailand. Although I think that, give it 5 years, something similar will pop-up somewhere in SEA.

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So, the answer to that for you would be to just not go. Thailand is more than just one beach. Many people enjoy this party, I met one girl in Thailand who was a local and loved it, I don't see why you'd be happy about other people not getting the opportunity to do something they enjoy.

I am happy about people doing the things they enjoy, but I’m still free to think that this kind of parties are not good for the environment and for the development in tourism in Thailand, as they favor a type of mass-tourism based on drugs and alcohol binging that has nothing to do with discovering the beauty and the people of one of my favorite countries in the world.

I agree. Unfortunately, equivalents already exist in many places: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan... with Vietnam well on the way.

I was at part of one in 2018 and while not really my cup of tea I'm not sure what's so bad about having dance music and drinking on a beach once a month. Personally I'd prefer a bit quieter and able to chat rather than nightclub volume techno stuff.

>> I was at part of one in 2018 and while not really my cup of tea I'm not sure what's so bad about having dance music and drinking on a beach once a month.

You make it sound like a childrens' party, but my experience from living on an island with a notorious beach resort (Kavos, in Corfu) is that people drink way more than they can handle, vomit everywhere, assault someone, break something, get in a fight, injure themselves or others, pass out on the street and leave a horrible mess of trash, sick and piss behind them.

And often don't even know where they are, literally, because they boarded their plane already off their tits and went back with three months' worth of hangover and never had the chance to visit places or see sights, or anything else than drink themselves blind.

Covid just puts the risk of spreading infection cherry on top of the public nuissance cake.

In the Philippines, Boracay used to be a party destination but the govt banned parties last year.

Or this one in Laos that got shutdown.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/07/vang-vieng-lao...

That was quite a different thing to the Koh Phangan full moon parties. Though they both featured young western tourists drinking a bit much.

I was there 2 years ago, its a beautiful place. One of my fav in Laos. Shame it will be remember in years to come by those incidents.

Oh man I really loved Laos, I'd be interested in knowing about some other beautiful there. I went to Vang Vieng, did the tubing, left the food area half a hour before the cops rolled ~80 euros for $200usd. I could go on, that was a very strange first 24hrs. Best bit was riding out to some hill, having lunch and looking at a cave. I met some sketchy characters there though and I can't blame them for shutting it down, free local booze+ cheap booze+ river+ high rope jumps definitely led to some injuries.

What's the equivalent in Vietnam?

Maybe. Maybe not. Love Parade died out too with no replacement

Zürich Street Parade is almost as big, and equally fun. 1M attendees over 1 day in a city of 400k. It's insanity. Loved going a few years.

Zug der Liebe does exist. (Well not this year obviously)

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