Experiencing the ‘wellness’ culture in Koh Phangan Island, Thailand

Koh Phangan Island is one of Thailand’s most popular tourist spots, the island is well known for scuba diving and snorkeling. Yet another boisterous night-long celebration, the Full Moon Party, which is tied to the lunar calendar, draws revelers to its southeastern peninsula. The island offers a plethora of opportunities for wellness, meditation and yoga.

Gary Marshall CEO, Brand TD by Travel Daily Media talks to Eddy Kukarja, Producer, Stayfly Studio Co., Ltd.,   Koh Phangan Island  about the wellness and wellbeing Industry on Koh Phangan Island.

Brand TD by Travel Daily Media (Brand TD). How does the unique environment of Koh Phangan Island contribute to the overall wellness and well-being of its residents?

Koh Phangan is a very unique island, apart from all the parties in the East, on the other side of the island is known to be one of the world’s top destination for learning Yoga, meditation, Sound healing, and is home to international conscious communities with diverse alternative healthy lifestyles. People come across the world to begin their healing journey here on Koh Phangan. With the rich culture, it is home to many talented artists and musicians traveling in from all over the world to compose and perform world, classical, jazz, medicine, and healing music. Not to forget the wide selections of local fruits and vegetables in weekly markets and regular stalls in community areas. Music and Food are universal language in integrating wellness with everyday living, it transcends all cultural barriers.

And let’s not forget the main reason why we’re here, and that is the natural setting of Koh Phangan. The national park covers a portion of the island, guaranteeing that no matter how rapid the development goes, we will always have waterfalls to swim and deep jungles to hike through.

This answer could be summed up by the 3 pillars of Awakenest (an annual wellness festival on Koh Phangan). These are Yourself, Your Community, Your Environment. When you are grounded enough within yourself, you would automatically want to serve your community, and give back to your environment. Koh Phangan has a lot to offer when it comes to wellness and sustainability activities.

Brand TD: The Full Moon Party is a well known and significant event, attracting many overseas visitors; however, what wellness initiatives or programs are currently in place on Koh Phangan Island to support the community’s mental and physical health?

The Yoga culture is prevalent on the spiritual side of the island, leading to daily practices and rituals that promotes wellness in its most basic level. Sound healing, medicine music concerts, Kirtan chants, Cacao ceremonies, Ecstatic Dance, happens almost everyday on this island providing therapeutic benefits. These activities welcomes everybody to join, which includes local islanders, local expats, tourists, and anybody interested. The local landlords are aware and supportive to the yoga culture on the island.

Brand TD: Can you tell us about curating the wellness festival program to find a balance between spiritual practices and making events accessible to all community members.

At Awakenest, we aim to create a comfortable environment for everyone. It is not a spirit festival, where the target market are people on a similar phase in life. At our wellness festival, we blend all culture, nationality, age, career status, in order for us to fully understand what our purpose really is as a human being, taking away all the knowledge that separates us from one another. We promote enlightenment in a way that wisdom is shared among each other. We promote a healthy lifestyle, and that includes Yoga, meditation, healthy eating, forum and talks on wellness and sustainability, music and sound appreciation, conscious dances, family activities, wellness workshops, while producing zero-waste. Our content are diverse, and in overall a good balance to both Thais and expats.

We involve Thai traditions to our events by incorporating Thai traditional musicians and instruments to collaborate with World musicians, as well as including traditional dances from local schools, aiming to unite everyone on this island. It will take a couple more events for the full integration with local islanders to fully emerge, so we will keep doing more events. There are also local festivals like Chak Phra, a Buddhist celebration with merit making, that is held on Koh Phangan, receiving great attention from travelers.