Arcadia, a dark place with a giant metaliic purple stage that belches fire. That’s the first impression you get once you wade through the mud to get there. That and ‘AWESOME’.

I’ve been here twice so far. On Friday I came across Sub Source who blew people away with their fusion rock and breaks. Saturday was another favourite of mine, Far too Loud, who played a DJ set of Psy-Breaks.

Standing on the steps below the column of fire feels like you’re at Burning Man rather than Glasto. I spent a good three hours there bouncing up and down grinning like a loon. There were other shows too. A great poi person and a girl doing a hula hoop ring suspension thing. Arcadia - my new favourite place at Glastonbury.  

So that was Shangri La! Crazy, mad and theatrical. We’d seen it while it was being built, but mingling through the Central Square and the Badlands with the crowds at 3am was like entering another world. Because the bars there stay open until 6am it’s the obvious place to head after the music stops on the main stages.

Getting there along the main path was like being in a human traffic jam, but once you turn the corner into Central Square - set out like a normal town square - the mood lifts and there’s space to enjoy the psychedelic projections and amazing, surreal carnival performers including giant puppets and tall mutated bat creatures on stilts.

The overall theme is ‘pleasure utopia’, but there are also areas of ‘pleasure gone wrong’ known as the Badlands. In these covered alleyways there are even more surreal sights around every corner: a shop window displaying mutilated stuffed animals such as a rat stabbed with a carving knife; a stall advertising kidneys and livers for hire; a video wall full of TV screens erasing things…

We ended the night at Hotel Slumberave Metropolis which wasn’t quite as sleazy - or as luxurious - as it sounds. It’s compulsory to leave your wellies at the door to keep the hotel a ‘mud-free’ area of Glastonbury, but it’s not so much fun padding around in socks after stepping in a wet patch of floor. Inside, most people had made use of the changing rooms where you can borrow kimonos and pyjamas and were happily chatting on giant 30 ft beds.

In another corner others were relaxing in the jacuzzi, sipping champagne poured by spangly attendants as trapeze artist Absinthia performed a balancing act overhead.

When we left Shangri La the sun was coming up but the place was still buzzing with people. At Glastonbury there’s always something going on - it’s hard to know when to stop and go to bed!

We’re on our way to Shangri La again. Last night we planned to come and have a good look round all the hedonistic attractions but got side-tracked by news of Lady Gaga’s secret gig in Club Dada. Let’s see what tonight has in store. The path down from the main stages is packed. Everyone seems to be heading down to the pleasure zone - and everyone is singing Hey Jude. Let the pleasure begin. More posts in the morning…