The fire skipping rope: Entertaining drunken late night fun, or dangerous and irresponsible?

Anyone who’s ever been to the party island of Koh Pha Ngan in Southern Thailand will most likely be aware that a lot of if the late night entertainment seems to revolve around fire. One such fire related activity is the fire skipping rope, which involves setting a skipping rope on fire so that drunken backpackers can foolishly risk life and limb by attempting to skip through the flames.

For the benefit of anyone who hasn’t been to Koh Pha Ngan, I’ve uploaded a few videos and photos of the fire skipping rope so that everyone can get an idea of what it’s all about.

1) The first video was actually recorded in Koh Phi Phi (before they went all health and safety and replaced their fire skipping ropes with fluorescent blue skipping ropes), but it’s the same idea. They set a skipping rope on fire and then drunken people skip over it. This video features some random extremely cool dude starting off quite well but then making a bit of a mess of his exit.




2) The next video was recorded at Paradise Bungalows in Koh Pha Ngan and is of the same random extremely cool dude who this time makes a much cooler job of his exit.




3) Next up is a fire skipping video recorded towards the end of the evening by which time most people are starting to get a bit drunk.




As you can see, as the night progresses and the alcohol flows, people gradually become less and less conscious of their own safety. This in turn means the fire skipping rope becomes more and more entertaining as a spectator sport as the night wears on.

To explain it in mathematical terms:

‘Personal safety is inversely proportional to the level of drunkenness.’

And therefore...

‘The entertainment value is directly proportional to the level of drunkenness.’


5) Anyway, enough of the science behind it. Here's another video. This time two dudes make it look easy, while a less co-ordinated dude takes a hit to the face.




6) In this last video, the fire skipping rope snaps into two and flies off into the crowd.




And for the benefit of anyone viewing this blog on a mobile device which doesn't display video, here are a few fire skipping photos to round things off.

Drunken backpackers getting burnt on the fire skipping rope.

Some dude doing a flying kick into the fire skipping rope.

Thai safety regulations state that, 'Flaming bottles must be placed no closer than 10 cm from large canisters of methanol,' and at Drop In Bar they always ensure that these regulations are rigorously adhered to.

More fire related escapades.

They also have a fire hoop. This is a brave (or drunkenly foolish) dude performing an impressive dive through the fire hoop.

A photo of a fire juggler with my camera set on trailback mode.

As a final piece of advice, if anyone reading this ever visits Koh Pha Ngan, then I would recommend against trying the fire skipping rope. I've seen several people with serious burns due to a mixture of foolish bravery combined with over-estimating their acrobatic ability, so the fire skipping rope is definitely one activity which works better as a spectator sport!




You can find more fire related antics below:
The fire hoop: Win or fail?
The fire skipping rope ... on crutches!