Psytrance Forest Rave

Apologize in advance this took far too long to post.  Diablo has been consuming my off-work life.  No excuse!  On with the show.

Last time I met Dale at the Catan Board Game Night he invited several of us to EarthFest 2012.  A 72 hour Psytrance Music Festival in the forest with camping.  Sounded awesome so I was in for sure.  The following pictures are an account of the weekend:

Dale and Fifi picked us up from Damien/Leia's house in Muzha for the 1+ drive to the festival.  Everyone was hungry during the ride so we stopped at a Beef Noodle House for lunch.

Typical Taiwanese appetizers.  Some clear noodles with sliced greens and sesame sauce, beans and cucumbers, and fried 1000 year egg.  Leia and Dale's sister Fran had never tried it before so they gave it a shot.  It looks bizarre but really it just tastes like a regular egg with a little bit of mild flavour.

We found it comical when Dale read off the menu of our choices: "beef noodle soup, beef soup, beef soup with large noodles, soup with beef in it, beef soup with small noodles...".  Everything sounded the same so I just ordered the regular original.

A few minutes outside the festival Rachel and Damien were having car concerns and we met up with them along side of the road.  Turns out that the car concerns were just caused by some clumping up of mud underneath the undercarriage of her car because it had been stuck in a mud pit earlier (you'll see how much mud when you scroll down further).

We arrived at the parking lot.  This place used to be an old private park with a full camping/resort vibe to it.  It's quite run down now though.  You could hear a distant steady bass rythm coming from the forest.  Fran said it felt like Jumanji. lol

I went to use the washroom and there was this really long hallway with doors lining each side, I peaked into one of the doors and this was the view.  Filthy bathtubs in each one.  Not too pleasant!  I figured no one actually used them but I was wrong because the next morning all of them were fully being used.

For the full experience of the next part of the camping trip, check out this music link from youtube and play it loud on your computer speakers as you read the rest of this blog post.

Infected Mushroom - Psycho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=AL94UKMTqg-9C3czldk8adD6Bf858VMXdQ&feature=player_detailpage&v=dLWXSsYJoWY#t=164s

Yay!  We took a small shuttle van from the parking lot up into the hill 1km and found the festival grounds.

It had been lightly raining all day and everything was a bit wet.  It was lightly raining also when we were there, and had poured the night prior.

checking out the camping grounds. fully equipped with choo choo!

found one of the last empty spots large enough for 3 tents.

We set up Leia's tent first.  Unfortunately it was a borrowed tent and we realized that the cover for the top wasn't included.  This wasn't going to work with the rain... lol

Tried draping another tend cover over top of this tent but that didn't work...

Spying into our neighbors' tent

Got my tent set up (blue one on the left).  Bought it the day before online from PC home.  Great deal.  Only $25!

You can see the yellow and teal tent on the left is sitting on top of what was previously Leia's tent.  The yellow & teal tent didn't have a tarp for the bottom so they used the other tent as a base.

inside my tent.  It's a 2 person tent but it's only 200cm long and I'm about 185cm so I have to go a bit on the diagonal

Our sleeping neighbours' foot.  foreshadowing

check out those shoes!

No one thought to bring plastic cups.  Damien fashioned one out of a water bottle.  Is that whiskey?

Leia went for a walk aroun dthe area.  Came back with shoes off.  Apparently the mud was so deep that it was seeping over the tops of her shoes.

Went for a walk and found this temple shelter filled with tents.

Left to right: Dale, me, Damien, Fifi

Afternoon snack!  Homemade raisin bread , cherries, and brie

First time for brie while camping.  Rachel's so fancy...

Add caption

Left to right: Fifi, Leia, Fran (Dale's sister), Dale, Damien, Me

Went for a walk... or a sludge

It was 3 or 4 in the afternoon by this point.  Not that many people milling around.  Looks quiet but this whole time the psytrance is blaring.

Several food vendors lined the area.  Samosas, chinese food, and "Quidillas with Chese"

embrace the mud!  honestly, probably the best decision of the night.  You can start to enjoy the experience of just walking around not worrying about getting your feet dirty.  Everyone in our party ended up shoe-less by the end of the night.

The dance floor!

Not too many people here yet.  Though I suppose that's like a club.  It didn't really fill out until midnight.

It had stopped raining for a while but the mist was ever-present

DJ table

The sun started to go down around 6pm.  Time for the party to start!

I should mention the temperature was perfect.  Probably upper 20's with a light breeze.  At no point was it cold the whole time.

Before we really got into dancing, we had a few drinks and some food.  Leia had brought some wine in a thermos (classy!) and Rachel was mixing some pretty mean Bloody Mary's

Leia on the left is on a contract with Damien at a school in Taipei doing teaching and curriculum development.  At the moment they're roommates.  Leia has a yogurt making machine so she's automatically a friend.  Fran is Dale's sister from Ohio.  She's in between semesters at university and is spending 2 months in Taiwan.

Night has fallen!

Time to rock out!  It was still early when I was taking these pics.  Maybe around 9 or 10pm.  So not as many people as there were later on in the evening, but it's hard to dance with the camera around my neck and I didn't want to slip and dip the camera in the mud so these pics are all from earlier in the evening.

I've never been to a rave or any type of dancing event that was not either: highschool dance mix, R&B/hip-hop club, or classic/modern rock.  To be honest, I absolutely LOVED dancing to this psytrance type of music.  I'm not sure if it was part of the atmosphere, or the setting, or the fact that I'm with basically all complete strangers, but I was able to just let go and enjoy the music, dance, and feel totally not self-concious about anything.  An extremely different dancing experience compared to dancing in a club downtown in Vancouver where you have to dance like a baller (not my thing at all).  This type of dancing felt more like an expression of freedom and that's sort of that dancing culture, which is much more my vibe (no drugs needed).

You have to be careful dancing in this deep of mud!  Most of the time you don't move around that much with your legs and it's mostly upper body movement.  Watch out for rocks and sticks though...tread lightly.

Later on in the evening they started a large fire and some people started doing little fire shows

I went to sleep around 1am from pure exhaustion but awoke a few hours later to blaring music and heavy rain pouring down.  It was raining like crazy and after a while of rain my tent started reaching its saturation point and started leaking.  I huddled all my stuff and my sleeping bag into the middle of my little dry island to wait until the rain slowed.  I sat there for a good 1.5 hours with the music blaring.  Would have been nice to have some company!

The rain started to let up around 7:30am and I emerged when I heard Damien, Rachel, and Leia talking outside.

We decided it was time to head home so we started packing up

It felt like a rush waking up and packing a tent to an all encompassing fast psytrance beat.

Instead of waiting for the shuttle, we packed most of our gear into Rachel's vehicle, and then walked back down the hill to the parking lot.

After 5 minutes of walking and a walk around a bend in the road and the music really subsided.  Silence never felt so good.

You may now turn off the music if you wish.

By the time we arrived back at the car, the rain started pouring down again and we headed out back to Taipei.

The pictures look pretty dirty and muddy but I had a fantastic new experience with new friends.  Who's up for EarthFest2013?