Full moon party transcript
ROSS COULTHART: Late in the night,under a full moon, on a remote island in Thailand, is a party like no other. A place where young Australians are coming in ever-increasing numbers.
Louise Rawlings: It's fearless, and everybody wants to come because it's a beautiful island. A big rave on the beach, an all-night party.
ROSS COULTHART: It's the biggest beach party on the planet. But there is a dark side to Thailand's world-famous Full moon party.
Linda Freundlich: It was like a horror movie.
ROSS COULTHART: What's supposed to be the best night of their lives, all too often turns out to be the worst.
Father Michael Kelly: These events are schoolies on steroids. This is not just fun, this is lethal.
ROSS COULTHART: Sun, sand and sex appeal. This is Koh Samui. It's where young adventurers from around the world gather before taking a boat to
the nearby island of Koh Phangan where every full moon the party is held.
Among the party-goers are Michelle, Anne, Jess and Ella from Adelaide. All in their early 20s, all fresh out of uni.
ROSS COULTHART: Your mums and dads are obviously going to be worried about you.
Ella Kinnear: Definitely.
ROSS COULTHART: Should they be?
Ella Kinnear: Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: So, you're actually attracted to the risk?
Ella Kinnear: Completely, but I don't think there's much more risk here
than there is anywhere else.
Partygoer: Full moon party, mushroom mountain. Oh, yeah.
ROSS COULTHART: They're drawn here from all over the world by an irresistible myth, the idea that on that island over there is a tropical paradise where there are no rules. Nothing's off limits. You can do what you like, party all night as hard as you like. If you've got any doubts about how attractive an idea this is,have a look at this. This is just some of the tens of thousands of young people who are coming here in the next couple of days.
Louise Rawlings: I think they love the fact that there is no rules. I do. It's one of the reasons I came here was I was sick of rules and regulations and so this is freedom.
ROSS COULTHART: Linda and Louise have lived here for 10 years. They've worked as volunteer nurses at the Full moon party. They've seen the best and the worst. Just getting to the party can be deadly.
Louise Rawlings: The last ferry leaves at 6pm. If you're after that time, you're in the lap of the speedboat.
ROSS COULTHART: What's wrong with the speedboat?
Louise Rawlings: It's frightening.
ROSS COULTHART: The speedboats are overpowered and too often, they're overloaded. It's a dangerous mix. Collisions and deaths are all too common.
ROSS COULTHART: What do you remember of the crash?
Chloe Buckneill:: It was all dark.
Katie Pritchard: All of a sudden, I saw a flashlight turned on and I saw a man standing on the front of the bow with a flashlight turned on.
Vanessa Kelly: Boat, boat, boat. I could hear everyone screaming. Boat, boat, boat when I looked up.
Chloe Buckneill: Nobody slowed down.
ROSS COULTHART: Last year, these four Sydney women almost died when two boats collided.
Chloe Buckneill: I remember the impact.
Katie Pritchard: But I still, to this day,remember the feeling of the boat,the wood breaking in my face.
Vanessa Kelly: And I just remember thinking "I'm going to die now".
Chloe Buckneill: I just remember the sound and we were all obviously
thrown into the water. Nat was to my left and she was - she was gone. She was gone and she was flown out.
Vanessa Kelly: I just remember being pulled out by a Thai man and then being in a lot of pain and not being able to breathe.
(SIREN WAILS)
Natalie Hensby: I remember waking up in hospital, 6 or 7 days later.
Man: Your bones can be fixed. They are fixing all your bones one by one.
Natalie Hensby: I fractured both my collarbones,I broke five ribs. I fractured my pelvis, I shattered my wrist. I broke my foot. I also had a punctured lung.
ROSS COULTHART: It's a miracle you're alive. It really is.
Natalie Hensby: It is. I shouldn't be here.
Adelaide girls: We are going to have a massive night, meet lots of people.
ROSS COULTHART: Our Adelaide foursome take the ferry to the island. From the moment we arrive,it's clear the Full moon partyis very big business. We've only been on the island for a few minutes but already, a local Thai official has taken us aside and told us if we say anything negative bout the Full moon party, we'll be kicked off the island. What you won't find in the tourist brochures are the many deaths, the abundance of drugs and the sexual predators who prey on young women.
Linda Freundlich: We recommend a buddy system. If you're going, have a buddy. Whether it's a guy or a girl,but a buddy system and then you sort of promise to stay together.
Adelaide girls: Hey. What's tonight? The Full moon party.
ROSS COULTHART: Our Adelaide girls have a plan to stay safe.
Anne Inglis: The most important thing is to stick together. Don't leave anyone behind and you can't have fun without being safe. Here's to a good night. Cheers.
MUSIC: A new dose of LSD.
ROSS COULTHART: Just before midnight, this is what they walk into. The place is really going off. I'm standing in a bit of beach that's not much bigger - in fact I think it's smaller than Bondi Beach. Imagine tens of thousands of kids squeezed into this really small space. They're all coming in off boats, coming in off Koh Samui. As you come in, you can buy yourself a bucket of booze for $8 or $9. And I'm talking about a BUCKET of booze. The music here is so loud that there are parts of the beach where I can't stand. It's actually belting my tummy so hard,it's physically hard to actually stand there. Everybody here is here to have a fantastic time. They are hot, sweaty, drinking,and raving.
ROSS COULTHART: What are your first impressions?
Anne Inglis: Amazing, amazing. The time of our lives already.
Adelaide girls: Better than anything in Australia.
Anne Inglis: Anything we've ever imagined - amazing.
ROSS COULTHART: In the heat of the night, things get very wild very quickly. The alcohol kicks in and there are drugs everywhere. We are offered hallucinogenic mushrooms,cocaine and ecstasy. Accepting a drink from a stranger is just not a good idea.
ROSS COULTHART: Is there any risk that the drinks are spiked?
Linda Freundlich: Yes, there's date-rape drugs here, there's everything.
Katie Pritchard: 70 percent of injuries that Bumrungrad Hospital receive
from the parties,70 percent of them are rape victims. Girls like us that have been raped because they have been drugged.
ROSS COULTHART: The hospital told you that?
Katie Pritchard: Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: Back at the party, they're playing with fire. What is it?
Girl: Third degree burn.
ROSS COULTHART: The casualties, and there are dozens every night, are treated at makeshift medical tents.
Boy: Awesome. Doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt.
ROSS COULTHART: This young woman has a broken back and arm. Two dozen foreigners, including three Australians, have died at the party
in the past six years alone.
Father Michael Kelly: What you have is a circumstance that permits all sorts of ludicrous self-destructive behaviour.
ROSS COULTHART: Father Michael Kelly is a Bangkok-based priest and a close friend of the family of 19-year-old Joe Welsh, a talented rugby player from Sydney. In January, Joe drowned while swimming at the Full moon party. Father Kelly fears naive young Australians are being taken for a dangerous ride.
Father Michael Kelly: They're going into a circumstance where some very experiences---heads who have turned a dollar out of other people's neediness are quite happy to exploit that need. You know, how many people have got to be raped? How many people have got to die before something is done?
ROSS COULTHART: Is this young man dead? Chatchapon runs the island's
rescue service and the local morgue. What's wrong with this young man? He looks like a foreign tourist. This is his wall of horrors Shot himself? Dozens of foreigners killed, drownings, fatal brawls and drug overdoses.
ROSS COULTHART: How often do you have to send a body home to a foreign country?
Chatcha Fon: It's hard to say, I can tell you an average of one a month.
ROSS COULTHART: But what's killing most of the young foreigners here are motorbike accidents. All too many are not wearing helmets and riding drunk when they leave the party.
Chatchapon: I don't want this to happen. I want them to have fun
when they come here.
ROSS COULTHART: Just before sunrise,we catch up with Anne and Michelle
from Adelaide.
Anne Inglis: We had a great night tonight. He's from France.
Their friends, Ella and Jess,have gone home but these two are still going strong.
Michelle Maricic: Perfect girl for him. Perfect girl. She is beautiful, beautiful.
ROSS COULTHART: What do you think about the notion of this mythical island where kids can go and have no rules and do what they like?
Father Michael Kelly: Well, as one of them said to me, what seemed like the holiday of a lifetime became a never-ending nightmare.
ROSS COULTHART: Father Kelly wants the Australian Government to pressure Thailand to make the full moon parties safer. But most here will tell you that the moment there are rules, the party's over.
