On the night of the Full Moon Party at 7pm there was a ceremony held in honour of the late King Rama IV on Haad Rin beach.
Many locals, expats and tourists gathered on the beach where candles were lit and formed in the formation of the king’s symbol and monks chanted to honour the beloved King.
Along with important officials like the Governor of Koh Phangan, expat locals were also invited to make a speech, this included Heinz from Silvermoon Resort, DJ Graham Gold and our very own Sharon Kahati. Sharon was representing the expat community of the island and so here is his speech for you to read if you missed the ceremony;
‘Sawadee kap, my name is Sharon, I am originally from Israel. I came to Koh Phangan 8 years ago and fell in love with Thailand and the island of Koh Phangan and all of its beautiful people and spirit.
I am the CEO and owner of Phanganist.com, the main website of Koh Phangan. I set up Phanganist with one intention and rule, to show all good things about the island and to keep a positive view of this beautiful place.
One of the amazing things I have discovered is how much the Thai people love their king. His legacy is very important to them and I feel very lucky to have made the choice to live here.
King Rama 9 is not only famous here in Thailand but all over the world because he was the most loved and did amazing great things for the people and their country.
Thailand has been in mourning for 30 days, the community have been wearing black and the parties and celebrations were cancelled during this sad time. Tourism was very important to the king, he knew that this was a very important aspect for the country to develop and so tonight although the thai people are very sad and still mourning their big loss, the full moon party will be taking place.
But with this in mind, we ask visitors to still be very respectful of this, respect the thai people, be polite and appreciate the big efforts the thai people have gone to, to host you tonight despite of their sorrow and sadness over the death of their beloved king.
This amazing project that is the full moon party gathers young people from all around the world, mostly for the first and maybe the only time, to celebrate with each other like only young people can.
In today’s world when the distance between different cultures and religions grows big, it is an amazing opportunity to become less distanced and more loving to each other.
Where else in the world will you find Russians and Ukrainians, Israelis and Iranians, and people from many other countries hug, embrace and dance together. Seeing that there are good and kind people in every nation in spite of what is being shown on TV screens. For this, we have the people of Thailand and their country to thank.
Bless the Thai people and community of Koh Phangan and god bless the king. Bless to all of you, have a great full moon party and stay safe. Thank you’.
He did us all very proud as did all the other speakers on the night and Phanganist are very honoured to have been part of this ceremony.
After the speeches there was a very large fire display lit up which read ‘For our King’ and everyone held a candle up to the sky which was a deeply moving experience and we found ourselves very connected to the Thai people which we had the honour to share this moment with.
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