Partying with fate in Southeast Asia

After Bali, the backpacking crowd cautiously carries on

By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
October 27, 2002

KOH PHANGANG, Thailand -- The first time I came to this delectably tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand, I stayed on a secluded beach where, at 6 p.m. every day, the generator would make a sound somewhere between the rat-tat-tat of an M-16 and a dozen of those fireworks that are only a big flash of light accompanied by a thundering boom. While most of the young backpackers and travelers picked their heads up slowly from their tropical fruit shakes to offer a somewhat quizzical look, the Israelis all jumped--that sound was all too familiar.

In nearly every country in the region, there is one place where the backpackers take a break and party through the night to unwind from the often difficult and patience-testing trails of which Southeast Asia is replete. Bali was one of those places. Koh Pangang still is. No matter where they were, or where they are going, thousands of those traveling Southeast Asia gather here for the once-a-lunar-month full-moon party, which rages from nightfall of every full moon until noon the next day on Hadarin, one of the island's white-sand, bar-strewn beaches.

But this full-moon party that came off without incident last weekened was like none before, as the backpacking community of Southeast Asia struggled to come to grips with attacks on their own while also trying to decipher the ramifications for traveling in the region.

Nevertheless, while many of the estimated 200 dead from the Oct. 13 terrorist attack in Bali were just such backpackers, going to just such a place, another raging party went on this time around.

My trip back began on Koh San Road, in Bangkok, the backpacking crossroads of Southeast Asia. On its 300-yard-long, neon-light infested street, young people converge to start, end, or take a short break from their sojourns around the region. Like the hundreds of other travel agents on Koh San Road, Suriyon "Tommy" Saritdiwut, 28, who sold me my bus/boat ticket, speaks an effective street-learned English. Despite what happened in Bali, he is not worried about things slowing down in Thailand and says bookings have even picked up slightly since then. Like most locals here, he simply cannot imagine Thailand--a country that takes pride in offending no one--ever being a target for terror.

On the 13-hour bus trip south from Bangkok, Joanne Hunt, 18, and Rachel Adlard, 19, squirmed in the seat next to me. They left England just two days after the Bali bombing for their gap year--a year taken by many Europeans between high school and college for a combination of as little work and as much travel as possible.

Like everyone else I spoke to who had plans to go to Bali, they changed their minds. However, they remained undeterred about traveling in the rest of the region. They were in Thailand to sightsee and party, Adlard said, and having heard about the full-moon party from the book (later made into a movie) "The Beach" and from friends back home who had experienced it first hand, it wasn't something they were going to miss.

Adlard was not alone in her sentiment. Though many travelers said they are now planning on avoiding large gatherings, those coming to Koh Pangang specifically for the party were, admittedly, making a rather large exception to their self-imposed travel restrictions.

"We're here; we have to go, otherwise we'll kick ourselves later. We can't allow fear to set in," said Emma Frost, 22, from England who is traveling with her boyfriend of four years, Jonathan Jones.

Both Frost and Jones heard about Bali while trekking in northern Thailand from two Norwegians who had left Bali just two days before the bombings.

Indeed, stories of near-misses and serendipity ran rampant on Koh Pangang as the boat loads of travelers arrived in the days before the party.

Toby Bellis, 23, from Canada, said he was at the Sari night club in Bali every night for nearly a month. It was the best place to go on the island "after a day of surfing." However, on the night of the bombings, a stomach ache kept him in his room.

Mariah McBean, 28, and Katherine Switzer, 20, also from Canada, had an even more fortuitous story. They had walked into the Sari club just five minutes before the bomb exploded, but ran across the street to buy a bottle of water.

Yet even with their amazingly close calls, and the knowledge that at least a few of the travelers they met died in Bali, Bellis, McBean and Switzer weren't deterred from being in the middle of the party here. "What are you going to do, stay home?" McBean said as the three got together the night before over a drink to talk about how they are coping after Bali. "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. I'm not a God believer, but I am a fate believer."

Tempting fate, though, seemed to be the order of the day, even more so than usual for backpackers who tend to be a bit fatalistic as a group. "Fate does take on a role in life. You could get run over by a car. You have to be cautious, but there's nothing really you can do," said 26-year-old Australian Steve Aronowicz.

"If I die, I die. At least I was having fun dancing," said Randy Ballard, 22, of Reno, Nev. His smirk and half laugh barely covered what appeared to be a permeating unease of a group of people determined to live their lives as they would, despite a nagging feeling that perhaps what they are doing is not the most cautious nor prudent course.

But among this group, caution is not yet the winner. No, they won't go to Bali, but giving up the full-moon party--and more broadly, changing their lifestyle--was too high a price to pay now in exchange for a little more safety.

But try as they might to forget about the danger, a piece of every backpacker's innocence is buried beneath the rubble of the Sari night club in Bali. This time, when a loud smoke bomb exploded in the Cactus, the most popular bar on the beach, it wasn't just the Israelis who jumped. The fear was in everyone's eyes, and real panic was just seconds away.

For now, the party is on. But one more Bali, in a place like this, and the entire Southeast Asian backpacking circuit could come crashing down just like Sari.

©2002 The Chicago Tribune