THE SANCTUARY IN KOH PHANGAN
Ever since Alex Garland wrote his backpacker classic The Beach, thousands of adventurers have been searching for the fabled Thai island that inspired the book. Brigid Delaney took a plane and two boats to check out ....
t may be more than two decades since Alex Garland first published his backpacker classic The Beach. You couldn’t get on a plane or lie on a beach without seeing copies of the book in your neighbours’ hands. It was reprinted 25 times in less than a year and the film rights were hot property. The Beach is a modern take on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The backpacker, Richard, meets an unhinged Scotsman going by the alias of Daffy Duck who gives him a hand-drawn map, with directions to a beautiful island with a hidden lagoon and beach, located in the Gulf of Thailand and inaccessible to tourists. Richard finds it, but he and his fellow travellers are locked in a constant battle to keep it to themselves.
There are many places that claim to be the inspiration for The Beach including the undeveloped Ang Thong National Marine Park near Koh Samui. But there is one place I kept hearing about that was the original inspiration for The Beach: The Sanctuary on Koh Phangan. Even its name has a Beachlike vibe.
One friend who was getting over a break-up went there for a week and ended up staying several months. The visit changed her life, she told me. ‘Get on a plane, do what it takes, just get over there,’ she urged.
The Sanctuary is a hippie resort that specialises in yoga, spa treatment, detoxes and alternative therapies yet also offers a party-vibe if that’s what you want. Accommodation ranges from dorm rooms to self-contained air-conditioned bungalows, high up in the jungle hills.
Because it was less known, it was not easy to find. When the weather is wet you can pay a guy to take the sometimes-treacherous route inland though dense jungle to get to resort but if it’s calm, you can arrive by sea.
I flew from Penang to Koh Samui and caught a boat to Haad Rin wharf, then scrambled down rocks with a suitcase, which got tossed onto a fishing boat, before we took off, away from the hectic beaches that are home to the full moon parties and headed towards a string of beaches that sit at the start of steep hills, covered in jungle. We pulled in to Haad Tien, which is made up of three bays and is the home of The Sanctuary.
As soon I got off the boat, carrying my suitcase aloft as I waded though the water, I was greeted by managers Michael Doyle and Nolan Dalby. Doyle has been on the island for almost 20 years. An
Irishman, he lived and worked for a time in Australia as a psychiatric nurse, before he went travelling around Asia and discovered ‘the beach’.
‘The Sanctuary in the early days was a few hippies on the beach. It started as a communal thing 20 years ago. Ten to 15 years ago they built the wellness centre. Conscious, colourful party people come here,’ said Doyle.
Each year more dorms and bungalows are added on to accommodate the growing word-of-mouth crowds but costs are kept down, which results in an eclectic mix of budgeting backpackers and older, monied travellers having a week or two off from their banking jobs.
The Sanctuary easily fits the description of paradise. And not just because it’s devastatingly pretty with an azure bay circled by palm trees. It’s paradise because it operates like a community but without the boring chores like cleaning, cooking and governance.
People work hard and then come back for six months and chill. The community aspect is strengthened by the fact that many people aren’t just passing through on their way somewhere else – it’s one of those places where people come for a week and stay for months, or in some cases, years.
‘There’s a current between here and Bali,’ said Dalby, who also manages the property. ‘A number of yoga teachers and healers go between the two. We find people changing their flights all the time. There have been people who get to the airport on the boat and they turn around and come back.’ One
Irish guest, Anne-Marie, loved it so much she moved into the bay area permanently.
‘One of the most beautiful things I find is that people really bond,’ she said. ‘You see guests at the start and they are quiet and nervous and then they might do something like a course or a fast – and get great support from the others doing it – and they are friends for life.’
Dalby added: ‘People become friends then come back with each other. That’s prevalent on the island – people work hard and then come back for six months and chill.’ The Sanctuary is a good balance between party and healthy. There is a fasting centre that sits down near the beach and is run by a man by the name of Mr Moon. The fasters sit in lounges away from the main club area, and drink their special detox drinks at regular intervals. Not far away is the restaurant, which is the hub of the community. I was feasting not fasting and each day enjoyed pad Thai or seafood curry served in a coconut.
On my first night, Doyle told me about the parties every Friday night on another part of the island. ‘You go and just connect.’ He took his two peace fingers and pointed them at me – ‘connect’.
‘There are no drugs here,’ he assured me. ‘Through the eyes you have a connection with people.’
At first, I spent time alone in my room, high up in the hills with a balcony overlooking the bay, or reading the Bangkok Post in the restaurant, eavesdropping and scribbling in my journal.
But I soon found my way to the healing centre where you can put your name down to sample various New Age therapies. I signed up for an ‘ecstatic dance’, and
The Sanctuary easily FITS the description of paradise. And not just because it’s devastatingly PRETTY but because it operates like a COMMUNITY but without boring chores like cleaning and COOKING
at dusk I made my way along the trail to the hall. There were around eight of us and we sat in a circle, with Patrick as our guide. He was Australian – from a small town outside Sydney – and had hair so blond it was almost white. He wore those Thai fisherman’s pants with the complicated knotting at the front and more billows than a bagpipe yet he carried it off. He had a sort of regal bearing.
‘I take people into the jungle and we do ancestral movement and games,’ he explained. ‘Everything in the jungle speaks to us. I’m interested in rewilding the human being.’
Patrick had mixed up a drink containing cacao, a chocolate plant. Music played. He passed around the drink and we were asked
The wellness CENTRE stocks plentiful detox books. Fasting and DETOX – together with colonics – is the only way to CLEAN out the MUCK in our guts, apparently, and The Sanctuary offers it all
to state what we were grateful for. There were several fasters in the group whose gratitude seemed deeper and more profound than the gratitude of the eaters, who said things such as, ‘I am grateful to be here.’
The fasters were grateful not just for being there, but also for being. In the darkened hall, the whites of their eyes were illuminated like they were wearing Halloween contact lenses. Their number include a monk, an MBA student, a hypnotist, a lawyer and a traveller who had previously worked in the arts and culture sector in Darwin.
Over 90 minutes I danced ‘ecstatically’, starting with Polynesian-style movements and clapping, followed by call and response
and then just free-form dancing, until I was dripping with sweat. Then Patrick played African drums and guitar and then a flute and we all laid on yoga mats. The candles around the room burned and the jungle made noises and it was incredibly great and peaceful and then there was a tape of an Indian voice saying, ‘Be grateful for everything’, and for a few long minutes, I was.
The wellness centre stocks plentiful detox books locked in a cabinet that smells musty. The first book I pulled out looked old, and was filled with diagrams of intestines. Fasting and detox – together with colonics – is the only way to clean out them muck in our guts, apparently, and The Sanctuary offers it all.
Throughout the week I feasted on delicious hand-made rice paper rolls with prawns, huge chunks of grilled salmon with soba noodles, coconut-battered fried fish with jasmine rice and green curry sauce, fish cakes, fried spring rolls filled with vegetables and prawns, smoothies and juices, fresh coconuts, cocktails, and fresh ginger, lemon and honey tea.
Dalby told me that their regular visitors tend to alternate – they’ll come and enjoy the yummy food, and the next visit they’ll do a detox.
We’ll see.