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THE PHUKET NEWS FRIDAY, MAY 25, 2012

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FRIDAY, MAY 25 - THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2012 THEPHUKETNEWS.COM

TEEN WOLVES SNATCH THIEF GANG ARRESTED P3

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FULL STORY ON PAGE 2

•TheEvasonPhuketresortinRawaiabruptlyclosedonTuesday(May22)

•Identityofnewownersremainscloakedinmysteryandobfuscation

•Allstaffsackedwithimmediateeffect,sayslabourunionleader

Warin Sangkong, deputy president Phuket Island Resort Labour Union

Photo: Helicam Co Ltd

450 MADE REDUNDANT AS LUXURY RESORT SHUTS ITS DOORS

EVASONCLOSES


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NEWSPHUKET NEWS2

Edited by Alasdair Forbes & Claire Connell [email protected]

Sukunya [email protected]

FugitiveAmericanarrestedAN AMERICAN FUGITIVE wanted in California for co-caine possession and sexual assault two years ago was arrested in Patong last Friday (May 18).

Michael Anthony Matos, 46, fled to Thailand on August 28, 2010, after being charged with the offences in California. He has reportedly been living in Patong since then, working with a timeshare company.

His arrest came after Cali-fornia Police, who put him on a wanted list after he failed to appear for court hearings for the offences, tracked him down through a cellphone he had used to call relatives in the US.

Phuket Police, alerted by their California colleagues, arrested Matos as he was walk-ing down Nanai Rd in Patong. They found that his visa had expired, and he was charged with overstaying.

After his arrest, he was handed over to American of-ficials who flew him to Bangkok for deportation to the US.

Five held fordrug-dealingFIVE SMALL-SCALE DRUG dealers were arrested on Mon-day night and Tuesday morning (May 21 and 22) in a series of raids in Patong by Kathu Police.

At 8pm on Monday, acting on information received, police first raided the Nanai Rd home of Jamnong “Bank” Samlee, 29, from Phuket. They seized 0.4 grams of crystal metham-phetamine (ya ice).

Two hours later Supansa “Rin” Muenkan, 24, from Amnat Charoen province in Isarn, and her partner Nipat “Peet” Hasbuk, 32, from Phuket were arrested at a restaurant on Ratchapatan Nusorn Rd after being found in possession of 6.6 grams of ya ice and 8.1 grams of marijuana.

The fourth arrest was made at 4am the next day when Chin-nawut “Ball” Wangsuk, 24, from Phuket, was arrested at a convenience store on Nanai Rd after being found in pos-session of 0.4 grams of ya ice.

Finally, one hour later, Tawatchai “Bin” Tongmak, 19, from Pattalung province, was arrested near the Club Coconut Resort on Nanai Rd. He was found to be holding 0.4 grams of ya ice and 11 methamphet-amine pills, or ya ba.

Bunglers failto open safe BUNGLING THIEVES ON Tuesday (May 22) tried to open a safe containing gold, watches, rings and other items valued at B200,000 but succeeded only in setting off the alarm attached to the strongbox.

Sommart Chokekuea, 40, reported to police early this morning that he was attacked by three masked men who broke into his house on Soi Nak in Chalong with the aim of emptying his safe.

Despite the masks, Mr Sommart recognised one of the three as his former partner,

Sonthaya Thanawaroa, 27.Mr Sommart said the trio

covered him with a blanket and Sonthaya punched him repeat-edly and then stabbed him in his chin when he fought back.

After attacked Mr Som-mart, Sonthaya and others attempted to open the safe but Sonthaya failed to remember the combination for the lock.

This set off the alarm. The three rushed out of the house and jumped on a motorbike, taking the safe with them.

Police are now tracking them down.

Punched and stabbed: Sommart Chokekuea.

Union fury at Evason layoffs

The Evason Phuket resort in Rawai, understood to have been sold recently

by owner Sonu Shivdasani, was abruptly closed on Tuesday (May 22).

All 450 staff were laid off with immediate effect, accord-ing to a labour union leader.

Warin Sangkong, deputy president of the Phuket Island Resort Labour Union, told The Phuket News that the layoffs had come as a shock, although there had been indications that not all was going well with the resort.

“Since the beginning of last month there were very few people checking in. We tried to meet with the new owners on Friday (May 18) to ask what was happening, but they refused to meet with us.

“We tried to set up another meeting for Thursday (May 24) but we were then told that the resort was closed with

immediate effect and all staff were laid off.”

After a meeting to discuss their options on May 22, some 100 of the laid-off employees decided their representatives would meet with officials from the Provincial Labour Office the following day, but this

meeting was inconclusive.Although the staff have

been told that they will receive full severance compensation, with the amount depending on their length of service, they decided that the amounts were not enough, and they would demand a doubling of the

compensation payouts offered.If the new owners did not

comply, they said, they would take legal action.

This is the second time this year that a major resort has been closed after being sold. At the end of March the Laguna Beach Resort in Cherng Talay was shut down. There, too, many of the staff, particularly those who had been there for many years, were laid off.

Despite strenuous efforts to contact the new owners for comment, The Phuket News was unable to reach them, or even to discover their names before the press deadline.

A knowledgeable source explained that the sale of the resort followed the sale by Mr Shivdasani of the management company, Six Senses, to an American investment group, Pegasus Capital Advisors. The resorts themselves, however, were not part of this deal as they are owned by a number of companies and individuals.

The Evason in Rawai has

been in need of a makeover for some time and it appears that the new owner has bitten the bullet, closing it and clearing out dead wood among the staff.

Asked just who owns the Evason now, and who or-dered the layoffs, a Six Senses spokesperson replied, “Sonu Shivdasani has sold the Evason Phuket resort to a third party that is not Pegasus.

“Evason Phuket has been sold as the resort did not fit with the new Soneva Group’s strategic plans. The property was not part of the sale of the Six Senses brand.

“We are not in a position to disclose information about the new owner at this stage.

“We understand that the new owner [intends to carry out] a major refurbishment of the resort and will not be operating it during this period.

“We are working hard to provide alternative employ-ment and we hope we can keep redundancies to a minimum.”

Editorial: Page 11

The good life suspended: the infinity pool at the Evason.Photo: Herbert Ypma


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3PHUKET NEWS


SNATCH. GRABTeenage robbery gang rounded up by police

Six members of a gang of teenagers wanted by police for drive-by

snatch robberies of tourists have been rounded up by Kathu Police.

The break in the case came when police arrested the gang’s leader, Chaiprasit “Jiw” Boon-yok, 20, from Songkhla.

Jiw was arrested near the Banzaan Fresh Market, oppo-site Jungceylon, after a tourist reported being robbed on Monday night (May 21). Police went to the scene and spotted Jiw, who looked uncomfortable and acted suspiciously when they arrived.

They grabbed and searched him, finding the belongings reported missing by the tourist.

Jiw named the other mem-bers of the gang, five of whom were quickly rounded up. A sixth member, a 16-year-old from Satun, escaped capture because he had gone home. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Apart from Jiw, all gang members were between 14 and 17 years old, and all had devil and carp tattoos, their gang symbol.

Pol Maj Somsak Tongkliang explained, “They would rob in pairs, one riding the bike and the other, on the back, snatch-ing the tourists’ belongings. Each duo would rotate, robbing in Patong, Kata and Karon four or five days a week.

“One day a week the gang would all come together in one of these places and ride out together to rob people en masse.

“Most of the stolen be-

longings retrieved were cell phones and cameras. They would sell these and share the proceeds, along with any cash they managed to snatch.

“So far we know they were definitely involved in 17 robbery cases, but we believe that altogether they carried out 30 to 40. We are contacting possible victims to confirm whether their belongings are among those seized.”

Jiw admitted to police that

he and other gang members robbed tourists for the money to buy drink and party at night.

Police also arrested Kitti Kasirak, 28 from Phuket, a salesman in a shop in Big C Supermarket in Phuket Town, who allegedly bought stolen cell phones from the gang.

“We’re invest igat ing the shop owner, too, to see whether he was involved in fencing stolen goods,” Maj Somsak said.

Two of the gang members show their devil (left) and carp tattoos, the insignia of the gang.

Reward set for gemheist ‘mastermind’A REWARD HAS BEEN offered to anyone who can provide information relat-ing to the whereabouts of 57-year-old Mexican woman, Mejia Asseneth, the alleged mastermind behind the May 14 jewellery heist in Phuket.

The Police Commander of Trang Province, Maj Gen Sakorn Tongmunee, declined to specify the value of the reward, but confirmed that it is a ‘reasonable’ amount.

Police also said that anyone helping to hide Asseneth would be breaking the law.

Thai daily newspaper Thai Rath reported online on May 17 that police believe Asseneth is still hiding in Trang.

She is suspected of being the leader of the four-person gang that allegedly stole jewel-lery worth B30 million from a car in Phuket Town on May 14.

Already in custody are 41-year-old Mexican Ruben Gonzalez, Malaysian Rosina Abu Bakar, 42, and Turkish man Riza Balkan, 49, but As-seneth evaded police capture by running away.

The group are alleged to have smashed a car window in Phuket Town. making off with the jewellery. They were apprehended while attempting to flee to Malaysia.

The incident took place on Soi Bang Yai, behind the Big C department store near Central Festival.

Following their capture, Gonzalez and Bakar were transferred to Phuket on May 15, while Balkan remained in the custody of Trang police, as ya ice (crystal meetham-phetamine) and marijuana were found in his possession.

Jewellery owner Thongsak Jittakarnlert reported 600 items missing. However, only 430 items were recovered from the gang.

On May 15 police revealed they had discovered the sus-pects had met on the internet and agreed to collaborate on several jewellery heists.

A notebook found in the suspects’ possession shows they listed several targets at jewellery fairs including Sydney, Phuket and Bangalore.

British court hearsappeal by ‘Pitbull’BRITISH KICKBOXER LEE “Pitbull” Aldhouse was due to appear on Tuesday (May 22) in the British High Court, ap-pealing against his extradition to Thailand to face trial for the murder of American Deshawn Longfellow in Phuket in 2010.

The court is expected to make a “reserved” judgement rather than an immediate one, and it is likely to be several weeks before the decision is published.

Aldhouse claims extradi-tion to Thailand would be a violation of his human rights due to the inhumane conditions in Thai prisons.

If his appeal is unsuccess-ful, Aldhouse will be the first British citizen ever extradited

to face trial in Thailand.British Home Secretary

Theresa May had attempted to block his High Court extradi-tion appeal in December last year, but the judges decided his concerns were genuine and his appeal should be heard.

Aldhouse is alleged to have been involved in a drunken altercation with Longfellow in Rawai’s Freedom Bar in August 2010.

He allegedly then followed Longfellow home and stabbed him to death, before fleeing home to the UK.

He was arrested at Heath-row Airport when records showed that he was wanted on an outstanding, unrelated warrant.

Hotel staffer charged with guest’s rapeCHALONG POLICE HAVE charged 21-year-old ho-tel receptionist Sakchai Tongsidam with the rape of a 22-year-old German female guest.

The incident is alleged to have occurred in the early hours of May 17, when the German guest returned to the Kata hotel following a night out in Patong with her Irish roommate.

Her friend left Patong at about 2am, but the German decided to stay on in Patong

and returned to the hotel at 7am in the company of a male guest.

When the German re-turned she tried to enter the hotel room, but her Irish friend did not respond to her knocking on the door. The German went down to reception to ask for a spare keycard. Receptionist Sakchai accompanied them back to the room with the wrong keycard.

When Sakchai went back to the hotel front desk to get

the correct one, the German’s male friend went with him. Sakchai told the man to leave, as it was hotel policy not to allow non-paying guests to spend the night or walk around the hotel. The friend then left the hotel.

Sakchai then returned to the German’s room and used a key card to open the room next door, into where it is alleged he dragged her, before raping her.

After the alleged at-tack, the German woman

managed to get out of the room and rouse her Irish friend. The two then went to Chalong Police Station to lodge the complaint on the same day.

Police contacted Sakchai and asked him to surrender himself at Phuket Police, which he did later that day. Following the gathering of evidence, he was charged with rape. Sakchai remains in police custody.

Sakchai maintains that the sex was consensual.

The Kakadu National Park.

The Regional Wing ofS i n g a p o re A i r l i n e s

More journeys to treasure at silkair.com

THB 20,280 All in return fares to Darwin from

Fares quoted are for return trip on Economy Class per person, for flights originating out of Phuket only. All advertised fares are inclusive of associated taxes and surcharges only. Fares quoted are subject to change due to currency fluctuation and exclude agents' service fee. Bookings to be made online at silkair.com or through any SilkAir authorised

agents from today to 31 May 12 for travel until 30 June 12. Subject to seat availability. Tickets are strictly not refundable, and change of flight, date or passenger name is not permitted. Other terms and conditions apply.

SilkAir now flies 4 times weeklyto Darwin, Australia.


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German found hanged in his Patong room

A 40-year-old German expa-triate, Ralf Burghardt, was found hanged in his rented room on Nanai Rd in Patong last Friday (May 18).

He is thought to have died three days before his body was discovered. He was found with an electric cable tied around his neck and attached to a shelf above. No violence was apparent.

Police, who found three beer bottles and a liquor bot-tle, all empty, in the room, believe he killed himself because of depression over his broken relationship with a Thai woman.

They said Mr Burghardt had been with the woman for seven months before she left him.

Before killing himself he had discovered that she had sold a bar that he had bought for her. This was apparently the last straw.

New police chiefcalls for safety

The new superintendent of Kathu Police, Lt Col Serm-pan Sirikong, has announced that he wants to improve safety in Patong.

On May 17 Col Sermpan met with bar and club owners in Soi Bangla to discuss how to prevent criminal activities in Patong, especially along the notorious lane.

He said the owners have a responsibility to help po-lice watch out for any sus-pected criminals, in order to provide a safer atmosphere for the many tourists that visit the area.

“Moreover, street ven-dors are not allowed in Soi Bangla.” the colonel added.

Col Sermpan replaced Col Arayapan Pukbuakao in April, who was promoted and transferred to Surat Thani province.

Central set tohandle disaster

Central Festival Phuket, together with Provincial Disaster Prevention Centre (PDPC), held a fire drill on May 17, to prepare staff for any future emergencies.

Wilaiporn Pitimanaaree, Central Festival Phuket Gen-eral Manager, said, “We have already had an earthquake in Phuket, which caused locals and tourists a great deal of fear.

“Central Festival Phuket is visited by thousands of tourists every day, so we must act urgently ensure our shopping centre will be in control of the situation.”

IN BRIEF

Paritta [email protected]

Mayor and teamregister for city poll on June 16

The Mayor of Phuket Municipality, Somjai Suwansuppana on Mon-

day (May 21) registered herself and her party, the Khon Noom (Young People) for upcoming municipal council elections.

Twenty four members of the party signed up in four constituencies – six members for each. More than 44,000 people in Phuket Town are eligible to vote in the election on June 16.

The candidates received election numbers from 1 to 6. Mayor Somjai, naturally, was allotted No 1 in her ward.

Alone among the mass of Khon Noom candidates was independent candidate Anan Kormongkontharakul, who signed up for ward 3, receiving the election number 7.

Mayor Somjai told media that, if re-elected, she would focus on developing the qual-ity of life for people in the city.

“We would like to make Phuket Town a ‘Happy City’,” said Mayor Somjai, “by which I mean we will improve the environment, the social milieu and the economics of the city.”

Environment issues must be focused, explained Ms Somjai. She is eager to solve waste and pollution problems by continuing to push a “Sustainable Phuket”

project; Phuket City Municipal-ity was among 10 city admin-istrations that received Asean Environmentally Sustainable Cities Awards last year.

She said she would “inten-sify” the city’s environmental policy and increase green space.

On the social side, Mayor Somjai said she would improve education, especially in local historical knowledge as a way to encourage young people to take care of their hometown.

She will also plan projects related to the elderly and young-sters, to reinforce their roles in society.

On the economic improve-ment side, Mayor Somjai said she has a vision of Phuket Town, including Phuket Old Town, as the centre of the island’s economic life. More projects

related to skills training will be discussed as soon as she is re-elected, she said.

Meanwhile, Mr Anan told The Phuket News that he hopes to be elected to the council so that he can keep a watch on the Municipality’s work.

“I may have little chance of running the Phuket City Municipality,” he said, “but I believe I have a chance to provide an opposition. I want to be an intermediary between people of the city and the mu-nicipality, and to oppose the administration if people disagree with anything [they are doing].”

Mr Anan is known for his involvement in local social work, such as taking care of local Chinese shrines.

The candidate registration period runs until today (May 25).

Garlanded, Somjai Suwansuppana arrives to register for the upcoming municipal council elections.

The king cobra found in Chalong. Photo: Frank Couture

Cobra endsup in the cooking potA 2.5-METRE LONG KING cobra snake made a surprise appearance in Chalong earlier this month, but ended up dy-ing a brutal death and being made into snake soup.

Local residents said the snake was caught in Soi Yod-sanae, the street on the way to the Big Buddha statue. It was spotted in front of a row of houses, attracting a large crowd who came to watch.

As a snake catcher failed to return calls, a local construc-tion worker grabbed a long bamboo pole, made a slip knot and expertly caught the snake. The unfortunate serpent met a tragic end when workers then smashed its head with a concrete block and turned it into snake tom yam.

The king cobra is the world’s longest venomous snake. This species is capable of delivering a fatal bite, and victims need a large amount of anti-venom in order to survive.


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5PHUKET NEWS


French touristdrowns at Karon A F r e n c h t o u r i s t

drowned in rough surf at Karon beach

last Friday (May 18).No lifeguards were present

due to an ongoing contract dis-pute between the the Provincial Administration Organisation (OrBorJor) and the Phuket Lifeguard Service (PLS).

Chalong Police said the man, 53-year-old French na-tional Angelo Piazza, was dragged from the water at 3pm.

Police and emergency ser-vices arrived shortly after, but Mr Piazza was pronounced dead on the way to Patong Hospital.

Eyewitnesses told police that several red warning flags

were positioned along the beach when Mr Piazza entered the water, along with his wife and a female friend. They said it was raining heavily at the time.

A two-metre wave then reportedly rolled through and dragged the three out to sea. A number of local vendors braved the treacherous conditions to come to their aid, but could only save the two women.

An emergency worker eventually managed to being Mr Piazza to shore after about 10 minutes. He was uncon-scious at the time, and died on the way to hospital where the other two were already being treated.

Meanwhile, an official from the OrBorJor has con-firmed that lifeguards will

be back on duty by the end of the month.

Phuket’s beaches have been without lifeguards since April 2 due to the expiration and non-renewal of the previous contract between the PLS and the OrBorJor.

A Tourism Department official from the OrBorJor told The Phuket News on May 17, “We sent a request for all lifeguard companies to apply for the contract, but there were no competitors so we have asked the same company - PLS - to work with us again.” The new contract was signed on May 22. The lifeguards are expected to be back on the beaches by next Monday.

Bank reopens as museumA F T E R A L E NGT H Y gestation, the Peranakan Cul-ture Centre has opened in the old Standard Chartered Bank building at the intersection of Phuket and Phang Nga roads in Phuket Town.

To mark the occasion, the Thai Peranakan Association (TPA) held a seminar on Saturday (May 19) about old Phuket Town, attended by around 50 members and curious local people, and unveiled three exhibitions.

TPA president Dr Kosol Tang-Utai said, “This centre will be used for people to learn

about the Peranakan culture, which was the [first immigrant culture] of Phuket. There are various topics people can learn about, such as the lo-cal economy and social life, Phuket’s police and historical archives.

“This is the first time this old bank building has been used since the bank closed [around 30 years ago],” he added.

Chartered Bank was the first foreign bank permitted to operate in Thailand. The Phuket branch opened originally around 100 years ago at the

start of the tin boom in Phuket. The bank merged with

the Standard Bank in 1969 to form the existing Standard Chartered Bank. Although it has branches around Bangkok and in Chiang Mai, it has never been tempted back to Phuket.

The exhibits, on view until the end of this month, include old Phuket maps and a display on architecture.

The event was also used to announce the winners of a Peranakan food photo contest. The winning photos are on display in the new museum.

The old bank building, empty for decades, has received a new lease on life.

All ready for Youth GamesTHE 28TH NATIONAL YOUTH GAMES official support centre was opened last Thurs-day by Vice-Governor Sommai Prijasilpa.

The Games, which will bring 10,000 young sportspeople from around the country to Phuket, kick off tomorrow (May 26) and run until June 5.

“This centre is now ready to use,” V/Gov Sommai said.

“There will be staff on standby to provide information for tourists and athletes such as the scores and games schedule. There will

also be souvenirs for sale.”The Phuket Provincial Administrative

Organisation (OrBorJor) has also confirmed details for the athletes’ party, to be held around the central stage at Saphan Hin today (May 25) from 5.30pm.

Food will be organised by teachers and students from Phuket Vocational College.

The youngsters will compete in 40 sports at various venues across the island, the main ones being the stadia at Surakul, Saphan Hin, Rajabhat Phuket and Kathu.

Rescued dolphin diesTHE FEMALE STRIPED dolphin rescued on Sunday (May 20) at Kata Beach, suf-fering from a blood infection, died the following day despite the best efforts of veterinarians.

The animal was seen swim-ming, apparently exhausted, in shallow water off the beach.

Staff from the Phuket Ma-

rine Biological Center (PMBC) and locals had to use a jet-ski to nudge the dolphin towards the shore so that it could be caught and taken to the PMBC at Cape Panwa.

The dolphin, thought to be about two years old, is 1.2 metres long and weighs 20 kilogrammess.

After examining the dol-phin, thought to be about two years old, PMBC vet Patcharaporn Keaemoang said the dolphin had a blood infection.

Despite intensive care at the PMBC, including a course of antibiotics, the animal suc-cumbed to its illness.

This female dolphin was rescued off Kata Beach but died later.

Light rail ‘will happen’ - GovTHE LONG-AWAITED Phuket light rail system will definitely be made a reality, announced Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha on Wednes-day (May 23).

His assurance comes af-ter the project’s approval in principle during the March

visit of the mobile cabinet.Now that approval has

been given, the government requires Phuket authorities to conduct detailed planning studies and submit them to the Ministry of Transport (MoT) for approval.

Governor Tri has request-

ed such studies from the various companies that have shown interest in building the project. Once complete, the governor will meet with MoT to present them.

Nine companies have shown their interest in the public transportation system.


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Bankers help fight ATM fraudThe ATM Service Busi-

ness Club (ASB), under the Thai Banker’s As-

sociation, held a seminar with Phuket police last Friday (May 18) to pass on knowledge about ATM and credit card fraud investigations.

“The more technology develops, the more security systems are put at risk,” said the President of ASB, Pairoj Deeraksa, who organised the event. “So we need to have better understanding of technology to prevent losses.”

Old ways of committing ATM fraud, such as the use of skimmers, would likely disappear soon due to improve-

ments in security, but newer technology was expected to take their place, Mr Pairoj said.

For the time being, how-ever, hand held skimmers are still one of the most popular ways of committing fraud, with criminals usually ap-proaching people while they are using an ATM machine.

Other tricks include tell-ing a person approaching an ATM that the machine is not working. The fraudsters then offer to help the ATM user, taking the opportunity to scan their card.

ASB said that ATM fraud was more likely to occur in tourist areas such as Phuket.

During the seminar, Phuket police were introduced to new investigative technology, such as a face recognition database that can help find criminals involved in ATM and credit card fraud.

However, an IT specialist at the seminar, who asked not to be named, said some police offers were unable to see the benefits of increased use of technology.

“To bring a speedy arrest, police investigations will need to use both data information and experience,” said the specialist. “Generally, police seem more inclined to rely solely on experience.”

Data information included a facial database of criminals and suspects, which would help police to match CCTV camera footage of suspects to those of criminals already in the system.

The IT specialist said the development of investigative technology was a challenge, as it needed cooperation, a large budget, and profound under-standing of how IT works.

Currently, ASB are trying to develop CCTV cameras on ATM machines that can capture high-quality photos of fraudsters, which could be of assistance with police investigations.

Govt to promote cheap foodTHE PHUKET OFFICE OF THE Department of Internal Trade (DIT) is preparing to designate 16 “Cheap Grocery Stores” across the island, as well as name “Blue Flag” restaurants – those providing cheap, quality food.

The projects are part of the govern-ment’s “solutions” to help alleviate the high cost of living on the island.

The 16 Cheap Grocery Stores will be selected from existing local groceries by the DIT and a Phuket subcommittee, which has been set up especially to solve problems related to the high cost of living.

The owners will each receive

B9,000 a month from the government to help compensate for the extra expense they may incur in keeping the prices of their goods low.

The grocery and restaurant project was announced by the government in March, along with other initiatives such as a short-term Cheap Goods Expo.

However, the project has been widely criticised by Thai scholars, who say that the Cheap Grocery Stores will not solve the root causes of the high cost of living.

They argue that the extra expense and time spent on travelling to such restaurants defeats the purpose. Cheap, tasty and perhaps inconvenient.

Ambulances‘to speed uplocal services’THE PHUKET PROVINCIAL Administrative Organisa-tion (OrBorJor) has rented 12 ambulances, to be stationed around the island to improve emergency response and also help local people get from home to hospital for treatment.

Two of the ambulances will be stationed at Karon, while the others will be handed over, one apiece, to Phuket City, Patong, Thepkrassat-tri, Srisoontorn and Wichit municipalities, and to Sakoo, Paklok, Thepkrassattri, Mai Khao and Kamala tambon administration organisations (OrBorTor).

The President of OrBorJor, Paiboon Upatising, said the ambulances were being funded from the budget set aside for the OrBorJor’s Phuket Care 2012 project.

As part of the project, the OrBorJor met with local com-munities and discovered that most local administrations had no funds to buy or rent ambulances.

As a result, getting patients from local communities to the main Phuket hospitals has been a slow process, usually involv-ing contacting rescue services who then have to battle traffic to get to the patients.


thephuketnews.com

7PHUKET FOCUS

Jody [email protected]

Saroj Dulyakon cuts quite an imposing figure: over 185 centimetres tall, he

is rarely seen without his ban-danna, sunglasses and denim jacket, complete with three flags attached to the back; the flag of the King, the flag of the Queen and the flag of Thailand.

As he makes his way to sit down at a table in a café in Phuket Town, the flags flap in the wind – the cape of a sort of Thai superhero. And in a way that’s just what he is, at least to his fellow Yellow Shirt supporters.

Mr Saroj is a self-professed local leader of the Yellow Shirts, also known as the Peo-ple’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD); a group comprising royalists, ultra-nationalists and elements of the urban middle classes.

On May 13, Mr Saroj was woken at his Patong home by the ringing of his mobile telephone; it was his friend and fellow Yellow Shirt supporter. “He told me that Red Shirts had arrived in Nai Yang and were trying to build a village, so I called our group to rally together and got there as soon as I could.”

He ar r ived at around 2.30pm, and although he said he was surprised to see so few people there (less than a hundred) he nonetheless sprang into action, grabbing a megaphone and organising the troops.

“I told everybody to get a tent and prepare to sleep there overnight because we could not let [the Red Shirts] sleep there.

“I spoke with some of the Red Shirts and asked them to stop. I asked them where their leader was and where their representatives were. We live in a democracy; if an MP came down or a Red Shirt leader then we could listen to them. If not, then why were they there?”

Thankfully the Yellow Shirt Protest against the proposed setting up of a Red Shirt village in Phuket ended peacefully and the Red Shirts, or to give them their official name, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), withdrew without incident, leaving everyone to return to their respective homes and causes.

Most members of the UDD are from the rural masses of northeast and northern Thai-land, along with the urban lower classes who by and large support exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shi-nawatra, and who claim that his government was dissolved

and power seized from him ‘illegitimately’ by the Thai Army and the judiciary.

Mr Saroj was pleased with the outcome of the standoff but believes that he and Phuket have not seen the last of such attempts. He warned that if – when – the UDD members return he will be ready and waiting, and perhaps next time the meeting will not be so amicable.

“The Red Shirts will prob-ably come back again. This is what the leader told me … But if they come back again, we will protest again.

“The first time you must ask softly. I spoke softly. I said ‘Please, we don’t want this here.’ But the next time I must speak hard. It’s like a child, at first you must be gentle but then you have to discipline him.”

Widening the father/son analogy further, Mr Saroj explains his incredulity at what he sees as the disrespectful behaviour of the UDD.

“How can they behave like this when HM the King is sick? Are you going to treat your father like this when he’s paid for your education and taken care of you?

“King Bhumibol Adulyadej is my father. Thaksin is not my father.”

Mr Saroj claims that the majority of the inhabitants of

so-called Red Shirt Villages see Thaksin as a father figure and, instead of having photographs of the King and Queen on the walls of their homes, they hang images of Thaksin.

“All they see is red, red, red. Only one colour. [But] we have only one flag – which has three colours [red, white and blue], not just one.”

Mr Saroj has the Thai flag placed in the centre of the back of his jacket, flanked by the yellow flag of the King (the colour of the day of his birth, a Monday) and the blue flag of the Queen (the colour of the day of her birth, a Friday).

For Mr Saroj, almost ev-erything about the PAD and the UDD is different and at odds, even down to the ways that they protest.

Referring to the 2008 PAD street protests in Bangkok, the occupation of Suvarnabhumi Airport and the seizing of Government House, which ultimately led to the resignation and exile of Thaksin, Mr Saroj said, “Yellow shirts didn’t try to burn anything or kill anybody and we didn’t try to beat up any Red Shirt supporters. We just came with ourselves...”.

In comparison, Mr Saroj saw the 100,000 strong UDD protest in 2010 which ended with more than 90 people dead and many more injured

as completely different: “When the Red Shirts came they had everything; guns, knives, bombs.”

Mr Saroj believes that the army had little choice but to contain the crowds in any way possible. “They had to shoot. How could they not? They had to stop them … They had to stop it.

“The UDD say they love Thailand, but then they burn it. How can they do that? How does that make sense? If you loved your house would you burn it? How can they say that?”

He adds, “When Yellow Shirts protest, everything is back to normal within a week. We went to Government House and everything was back to normal within a week, but with the Red Shirt protests, some areas have still not yet been fixed.”

In August 2011, Thaksin Shinawatra’s younger sister Yingluck became the country’s first ever woman prime minis-ter, when the Pheu Thai politi-cal party, which has many of same ideologies as her brother’s previous political parties, was elected, replacing the much more PAD-friendly Democrat Party of Abhisit Vejjajiva.

At the time, many in Phuket, and certainly many PAD supporters, feared that this would signal the return of

instability to the kingdom, with Yingluck Shinawatra being a mere political puppet for her elder brother’s policies.

However, Mr Saroj says he was, initially at least, will-ing to give PM Yingluck a chance, “I am Yellow Shirt, yes, but I respected her when she started because Thailand is a democracy, so I supported her. I thought, let her try.

“But now,” he says, “she has failed in everything.”

Mr Saroj claims that the government’s inability to act swiftly to deal with the disas-trous central Thailand floods in October last year, the current state of the economy and even the high cost of fuel are all PM Yingluck’s fault.

“She said, ‘Thai people think only about themselves and how to make money.’ This is not true. All Yingluck thinks about is her brother and not the Thai people...”

Mr Saroj says that his anti-Red Shirt and anti-Yingluck sentiments are not mere knee-jerk reactions, “I was happy when Thaksin was elected because he said he was rich and therefore had no need to

be corrupt. “But what happened? We

found out that he was even more corrupt than the rest.”

The Yellow Shirt leader believes that the future of Thai-land, while currently unsure, may very well rest in Phuket’s hands, “I want Phuket to be the model for the rest of Thailand to show that this is the way to resolve this problem. We can stand up against them but in a non-violent and non-confrontational way.”

The burning of a pavilion at a Red-Shirt Village in Songkhla earlier this month, for example, is something that Mr Saroj does not want to see more of. Whether Phuket sees similar scenes is something that Mr Saroj believes will be down to both sides.

His huge boxer’s hands wave a goodbye as I leave the Phuket Town coffee shop and he responds to my observation of their size with a smile and a clenched fist.

“They must be big to pro-tect my country. To protect Thailand and to provide cover for my people.”

Left and above: Saroj Dulyakon at work and play at Nai Yang and a Phuket Town coffee shop respectively.

The Red Shirt ‘Army’ amass troops in Bangkok during the 2010 protest.

Flying the flag for Thailand


thephuketnews.com

THAILAND NEWS8

Bangkok named city with ‘most Facebook users’BANGKOK HAS NOW surpassed Jakarta as the city with the most Facebook us-ers in the world, according to reputable Facebook statistic website Socialbakers.

Currently the Thai capital is home to 8,682,940 users of the social network, surpassing the Indonesian capital’s 7,434,580 Facebookers.

Asian cities rank highly throughout the list – Mumbai is ninth (3,700,460), Kuala Lum-pur is 14th (3,328,240), Ban-galore is 16th (2,931,460), and Singapore is 17th (2,662,680).

Developing \ countries like Thailand and Indonesia have provided the most explosive growth for Facebook in re-cent years, helping to line the

pockets of Mark Zuckerberg and Singapore’s most famous expat entrepreneur, Eduardo Saverin.

Indeed, India has the third most Facebook users in the world (45,825,620) behind the US and Brazil, Indone-sia is fourth (42,272,040), and the Philippines is eighth (27,088,320), according to Socialbakers.

Facebook has exploded in Thailand and specifically Bang-kok – Thailand’s mega-hub of business, culture, and technol-ogy and home to roughly a third of the country’s population.

In 2011, the number of Facebook users in the coun-try effectively doubled from around 6.7 million to around 13.3 million.Up to 40,000 “Red

Shir t” supporters from across Thailand

converged on central Bangkok last weekend to mark the sec-ond anniversary of a deadly crackdown on street protests, city police said.

A carnival of flag-waving Red Shirts, food vendors and the occasional monk, took over the retail heart of the

city, where the 2010 protests in support of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra descended into the kingdom’s worst vio-lence in decades.

Police blocked traffic at the Ratchaprasong intersec-tion, one of Bangkok’s busiest junctions, as mainly rural working-class Red Shirts ar-rived en masse in coaches laid on by the movement.

“At 6pm there were around 40,000 people at Ratchap-

rasong,” a Bangkok police spokesman said as the rally highlight – a live video link with Red Shirt hero Thaksin – approached.

Red Shirt leaders had an-ticipated between 100,000 and 200,000 people would attend the rally, which began with Buddhist prayers for those killed in the 2010 unrest and will end early Sunday.

The Red Shirts have called on the new government to

prosecute soldiers and officials responsible for causing the deaths and injuries.

So far no cases have been brought in connection with the violence and Yingluck’s government has raised the prospect of an amnesty for those involved, prompting an outcry from human rights groups.

Central World shopping mall closed early as the crowd packed into its courtyard.

‘Red Shirts’ in capital rallyAgence France-Presse

“Red Shirt” supporters hold portraits of dead protesters during a demonstration in Bangkok on May 19. Photo: AFP

Coconuts Bangkok

THAI board fires presidentTHE BOARD OF THAI Airways International has fired the airline’s president, Piyasvasti Amranand, a year ahead of completion of his four-year term in mid-2013.

Mr Piyasvasti will receive a payout of B5.4 million, equiva-

lent to six months’ salary.The news came too late for

inclusion in the business pages of this issue. Our report on page 13 on the possible launch of a THAI-owned budget airline now appears to have been overtaken by events.


thephuketnews.com

9ASIA NEWS

Agence France-Presse


Controversial Cambodian activist fights sex tradeSold into a brothel as

a child, Cambodian activist Somaly Mam

has become one of the most recognisable, glamorous and controversial faces of the global anti-sex slavery movement.

The quirky, energetic cam-paigner boasts a string of celebrity supporters and has been named a CNN hero of the year, but she is as divisive among anti-trafficking activ-ists as she is beloved by the international press.

Most recently, Mam kicked up a storm of controversy when she allowed her “old friend,” New York Times cor-respondent Nicholas Kristof, to “live-tweet” a brothel raid in the northern Cambodian town of Anlong Veng in November.

“Girls are rescued, but still very scared. Youngest looks about 13, trafficked from Vietnam,” Kristof wrote to his more than one million follow-ers on the Twitter microblog-ging website, in remarks that trafficking experts say raised

questions of safety and consent.For Mam, who created

the anti-trafficking organisa-tion AFESIP and now runs an eponymous foundation, the benefit of the attention Kristof brings to trafficking issues outweighs the security concerns.

“Even if you’re not tweet-ing it is also dangerous... but if (Kristof) tweets it, it’s bet-ter because more people get awareness and understanding,” Mam told AFP in an interview during a visit to Vietnam.

Tania DoCarmo of Chab Dai, an anti-trafficking group working in Cambodia, said the raid coverage was an “un-ethical” PR stunt which broke Cambodian anti-trafficking laws and which “sensation-alises” a very complex issue.

“Doing ‘impromptu’ cov-erage of children in highly traumatising situations would not be considered ethical or acceptable in the West...it is inappropriate and even voy-euristic to do this in developing nations such as Cambodia.”

AFESIP says it has been

involved in rescuing about 7,000 women and girls in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam since 1997.

In Cambodia alone, there are more than 34,000 commer-cial sex workers, according to a 2009 government estimate.

Mam, who is in her early-

40s but does not know her exact year of birth, was sold into a brothel in her early teens by a man who she says was either her grandfather or an uncle and then repeatedly raped and abused until, after watching a friend be killed in front of her, she managed

to escape.Within the anti-trafficking

field, Mam takes a controver-sially hard-line stance: all sex workers are victims, whether of trafficking or circumstance, as no woman would really choose to work in a brothel.

“Sometimes a woman – she tells me she is choosing to be a prostitute (but if you ask) how about your daughter? You want her to be? She’ll say: No, no, no’,” said Mam. “(they) have no choice”.

This position, which under-pins Mam’s reliance on brothel raids as a tool to fight traffick-ing, enrages other activists, such as the Asia Pacific Sex Worker Network, which argues consenting adult sex workers need “rights not rescues”.

Sweeping raid-and-rescue operations and police round-ups of street-based sex workers are not only ineffective, experts say, but lead to “systematic violations of sex workers’ hu-man rights,” New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a 2010 report.

Mam’s organisation, AF-

ESIP, has also been criticised for accepting sex workers picked up during Cambodian police round ups which HRW has said constitute “arbitrary arrests and detentions of in-nocent people”.

Mam dismissed HRW’s assessment.“The first time (a sex worker) come to the shelter she don’t want to stay ... because she don’t know us,” Mam said, adding that women are so “broken” by sex work they want to stay in the familiar surroundings of the brothel.

“I always say: please, can you just stay one or two days, treat it like a holiday,” she said, adding that if women chose to stay in the brothels she respected that decision.

Mam says she tries to listen to and learn from criticism of her tactics and approach, adding that she has “made a lot of mistakes in my life,” and has never claimed to have all the answers to how to end sex slavery.

“What I know how to do is just helping the women.”

Cambodian Somaly Mam speaks on a tour of the New York City Family Justice Center on March 12, 2010. Photo: AFP

Third of malaria drugsin SE Asia ‘are fake’ MORE THAN A THIRD of malaria drugs examined by scientists in Southeast Asia were fake, and a similar proportion analysed in Africa were below standard, doctors warned on Tuesday.

“These f indings are a wake-up call demanding a series of interventions to bet-ter define and eliminate both criminal production and poor manufacturing of antimalarial drugs,” said Joel Breman of the

Fogarty International Center at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The researchers found that in seven Southeast Asian countries, 36 per cent of 1,437 samples, from five categories of drugs were counterfeit.

Thirty per cent of the samples failed a test of their pharmaceutical ingredients.

In 21 sub-Saharan coun-tries, 20 per cent of more than 2,500 samples tested in six drug classes turned out to be falsified, and 35 per cent were

below pharmaceutical norms.Sub-standard medications

are a major problem in the fight against malaria, a disease which killed 655,000 people in 2010, according to the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO).

Many of the drugs that are being faked or poorly manufactured are artemisin derivatives, the study said.

This is a special worry, for artemisinins are the front-line treatment for malaria, replac-ing drugs to which the malaria parasite has become resistant.

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WORLD NEWS10



Climbers die on ‘crowded’ Everest

Three climbers died and two others are missing while descending from the sum-mit of Mount Everest – a toll that raised concerns about overcrowding in the “death zone” at the top of the world’s tallest peak.

The deadly weekend un-folded as an estimated 150 climbers tried to reach the top Friday and Saturday as they rushed to use a brief window of good weather in an otherwise troubled climb-ing season. Many had been waiting at a staging camp for several days for their chance to head to the summit.

Australian named world’s richest

womanAustralia’s Gina Rinehart made history today when she was officially named the richest woman in the world by BRW magazine after pulling off two deals in iron ore and coal. These deals almost tripled her wealth in 12 months to A$29.2 billion (B1.1 trillion) according to BRW Rich 200 list.

Cancer claims Lockerbie bomber

in LibyaAbdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, has died of cancer at age 60, leaving many questions on the attack and its aftermath unanswered.

Megrahi who said he was not responsible for bringing the jumbo jet down on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, was found guilty in 2001 but released in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and was not expected to live long.

Megrahi’s brother Mo-hammed told Reuters he had died at his home in the Libyan capital from complications from prostate cancer.

IN BRIEF Bust and boomAfter decades of war, Somalia’s capital shows signs of life

Somalia’s last president before the country erupt-ed into decades of war

made an ominous warning: force him from power, and he would leave Mogadishu as he found it, with only one road. The rest he would destroy.

The threat came true: Presi-dent Siad Barre was ousted in a 1991 coup, and the once elegant, Italian colonial-era seaside town was reduced to a wasteland of ruined build-ings in years of bloody battles between rival militias.

Now, 21-years later and eight months after Al-Qaeda-allied insurgents abandoned much of the city following pres-sure from the African Union and government forces, the capital is showing signs of life, with reconstruction underway and land prices soaring.

“Security is still not reli-able, but people decided they wanted to return life to nor-mal,” trader Ahmed Sheikh Gure said.

Though Somalia’s war is far from over, a regional offensive did force Islamist Shebab insurgents from many strongholds and they aban-doned the city in August. The scars of war remain clear, with hundreds of thousands of

African Union troops move on the back of one of their trucks just outside of the Somalian capital Mogadishu on May 22. Photo: AFP

displaced people living in and around Mogadishu, many in basic rag-and-plastic shelters, some in the crumbling ruins of roofless houses.

In Bakara market, the capi-tal’s war-torn economic heart, the signs of battle are fading slowly.

“You don’t even think that war has ever taken place here,” Gure said. “Thanks to God, because people have the op-portunity to rebuild.”

Bakara for many months was the epicentre of violence in one of the world’s most dangerous capitals, forcing residents and businesses to flee.

Despite an ongoing regional offensive with Ethiopian troops fighting in the west, AU troops in Mogadishu, and Kenyan troops with the AU battling in the south, many Somalis are returning, bringing back capital earned abroad.

“People are rebuilding their homes,” government spokes-man Abdurahman Omar Os-man said. “The Somali diaspora are coming back to help ... businesses are reopening.”

Fighting erupted in Somalia in the late 1980s against Barre’s dictatorship, escalating into a brutal civil war following a 1991 coup, with rival militias,

warlords and Islamist fighters battling ever since for control of the lawless nation

Less than a year ago, troops and insurgents exchanged daily mortar fire along frontlines, be-fore Shebab fighters abandoned fixed positions and quit the city.

Now it is the construction industry that is busy.

Reconstruction is expen-sive, but those who can are repairing their homes, plaster-ing and painting over bullet-pocked walls, and blocking up holes punched into masonry by rocket-propelled grenades.

Among the ruined build-ings is a dramatic Catholic

cathedral, built during Italian colonial days. Its stonework was used as target practice by Islamist fighters and now houses displaced people fleeing fighting outside the city.

Mogadishu’s rebuilding has also sparked land speculation, with some fearful that recon-struction efforts may be wasted if the dark days of war return.

Shebab fighters carry out guerrilla attacks including car bombs and mortar strikes. Analysts warn that the rebels, Somalia’s most brutal, remain a serious threat to international efforts to stabilise the nation.

But the March reopening of Mogadishu’s ruined national theatre was hailed as a sym-bolic step forward for the city. As land prices increase and repairs are made, the cost of living rises too, a problem for many in this grossly impover-ished city.

Many borrow money to pay for renovations, then pay off the loans by renting out rooms to those returning to Mogadishu.

“Houses have become very, very expensive – a room that used to cost $10 (a month) to rent ... today, you will not get a room like that for $40,” estate agent Mohamed Abdullahi said.

“God willing, I hope people return and rebuild the country.”

Pastor stirs outrage with plan to let US gays ‘die out’A BAPTIST PASTOR IN North Carolina triggered in-ternet outrage on Tuesday with his call from the pulpit for all gays and lesbians to be rounded up, fenced in like cattle, then left to die.

Reverend Charles Worley delivered his unabashedly homophobic homily at his independent Providence Road Baptist Church in the small town of Maiden, North Caro-

lina. “Build a great, big, large fence – 150 or 100 miles (240 to 160 kilometres) long – put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food,” Worley told his congregation, as seen in a video that went viral on YouTube with more than 305,000 views.

“Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out... and you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out... Do you know

why? They can’t reproduce,” he said.

With some of his parishio-ners in the background shouting “amen,” the barrel-chested Worley, 71, went on to say: “I ain’t going to vote for a baby killer or a homosexual lover.”

That was an apparent ref-erence to President Barack Obama, who four days earlier came out in favour of same-sex marriage, and who is not op-posed – as many Catholics and Evangelicals are – to abortion.

The local Catawba Valley Citizens Against Hate launched a social media campaign to condemn Worley’s sermon and organise a protest at his church on Sunday.

“We need to line the street in front of the church with people with some common sense to tell the world that hate is not welcome in our community. And, believe me, the world is watching!!” it said.

Same-sex marriage is a hot-button social issue looming

over Obama’s bid for re-election in November, and it’s uncertain whether North Carolina, which voted for him in 2008, will do so again.

Obama’s apparent Repub-lican adversary Mitt Romney opposes gay and lesbian mar-riage.

On May 8, North Carolina voters approved a state consti-tutional amendment explicitly forbidding gay marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships.


thephuketnews.com

Changing times“Though the Municipality believed that modernising the Phuket Town Clock Tower would enhance tourism, many locals felt the old Clock Tower was invaluable” > 7OPINION

LETTERS/VIEWPOINT 11

Norachai’s World

Letters to the editor

Editor’s Viewpoint

■ May 25, 1962 – The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.

■ May 26, 1647 – Alse Young becomes the first per-son executed as a witch in the British American colonies.

■ May 27, 1967 – Aus-tralians vote in favour of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian gov-ernment the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.

■ May 28, 1987 – 19-year-old West German pilot Math-ias Rust evades Soviet Union air defences and lands a private plane in the Red Square in Moscow.

■ May 29, 1886 – Chemist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, in the Atlanta Journal.

■ May 30, 1859 – Westmin-ster’s Big Ben rang for the first time in London.

■ May 31, 1929 – The first talking cartoon of Mickey Mouse, ‘The Karnival Kid’, is released.

This weekin history

Letters may be edited for clarity or length. Email [email protected]. Please include your full name, phone number, and email address.

Sea Dragon to the rescue.

Nasty cloud,silver lining

It must come as a nasty shock for someone who has worked in the same place for a couple of decades to be told, with no warning, that you no longer have a job. Here’s your sever-ance pay. Go away.

This is what happened this week to some 400 employees of Rawai’s rather run-down Evason Resort (see front page).

The staff, if they had thought about it, might how-ever have seen it coming. The owner, Sonnu Shivdasani, the darling of glossy hi-so maga-zines, recently sold his Six Senses management company, which managed 14 resorts in exotic places around the world. He also owned the Evason Phuket itself, so it too was probably on his “sell” list.

The new owner, whose identity is not known, wisely grasped the nettle, closing the resort for extensive renovation. This allows him, under Thai law, to duck the massive pay-ments he would have had to make if he had laid off long-serving staff without closing

the resort first.This was a nettle that Mr

Shivdasani did not grasp when he bought the Evason 12 years ago from Deutsche Bank. Some of the staff have been with the hotel since it opened as the Phuket Island Resort more than 30 years ago, the first upscale resort on the island.

Mt Shivdasani’s managers are known to have had prob-lems with some of the heavily unionised staff who did not want to change the way they worked, or to learn new tricks – but he could not weed them out without massive payoffs equivalent to one month’s pay for each year served.

For the staff, this week’s news was undoubtedly shock-ing and frightening. But in fact, for them, it also could not have come at a better time. The island is desperately short of trained manpower for hotels, so all but a handful should be able to find new jobs quite fast.

The new owner is going to find it a lot harder to replace them.

Siren call[Re. New ambulances ‘to speed up medical services’]“Who then have to battle traffic to get to the patients.” Yes, that is a problem, but a larger issue is that fact

the traffic does not move to the left to allow an ambulance with siren on the way to a patient or to the hospital to pass. Too bad there is no budget for driving training.

Scudman

The tip of the iceberg? [Re. B6m cocaine haul inside Phuket parcel]One package stopped, but how many get through? Obviously it’s time to have sniffer dogs at the sorting of-fice. They’d probably find the amount every day.

Agogohome

Sky’s the limit[Re. New ambulances ‘to speed up medical services’]My dream is to set up five rescue helicopters, based at Phuket hospi-tals and ready to take-off 24/7. All people living on the island should pay a yearly membership to the company and donators could help the company to provide assistance immediately with the helicopters to the injured people.

They could reach every part of the island within 10 minutes maximum after the emergency call is received. Strict checks on corruption should be done as respect to the donators and yearly premium payers.

I know, it’s just a dream but I have started work on it in my mind and on paper.

Maybe some day my dream for helping this island may come true.

Dan

A sad end[Re. German found hanged in Phuket room]Amazing Thai women! Once more the interest first, later the feelings of love! When will “farang” learn the lesson? RIP Ralf, unfortunately you won’t be the last cheated!

Ferrer Jane91

History lessons[Re. Phuket old bank reopens as museum]Absolutely wonderful decision to add to our famed Phuket more historical

sites for us locals and of course our millions of tourists who enjoy dis-covering Phuket.

For me, it brings back found memo-ries as I had met the British General Manager and his wife during my early years in Phuket.

Adrienne Tusoni

Thumbs up[Re. Changing times: The secret history of Phuket Town’s Clock Tower Circle]Thanks for the Thai history, which explains a lot of the pre-conditioned tendencies towards a predilection to follow the leader without question towards a conformist society.

mej313

You go girl[Re. Seminars hope to brand Phuket]Good idea Natasha, and good luck with it. Phuket does need a brand strategy and resources to draw de-velopment in the same direction.

Michael Flynn

Teaching thedifference[Re. Taking a bite out of the Phuket shark trade]How about just educating the local sellers not to buy this? There are all these great plans but what about educating the fishermen not to do this? When I refuse to buy from the shark vendor the other vendor asked me why but I could not explain in Thai. If someone can make some basic information in Thai, I would be happy to give it to the vendors.

It should be noted that this particular vendor often has juvenile sharks and rays that are typically found only at the bottom and even under rocks. So one can only imag-ine how they are being captured.

Vivien Faye

Edited by Simon Ostheimer [email protected]


thephuketnews.com

BUSINESS Revival of theDeath RailwayMyanmar planning to restore infamous stretch of train track> 14

BUSINESS/TOURISM12

Edited by Alasdair Forbes [email protected]

TAN Network

SUCCESSStory

GRENVILLE FORDHAM,FOUNDER, IMAGE ASIA

Steady hand on the helm

When did you come to live in Phuket?There’s some de-

bate about this. I think it was September 1998, but others think it was a year earlier. I do know that I arrived in Bangkok on May 5, 1995.

What made you think of starting a business in Phuket?I came here to work as editor of a glossy Phuket magazine.

I soon realised that almost nobody was really tackling the publishing business here professionally; at the same time I started to miss the cut and thrust of business.

After a few false starts, a friend suggested a dining guide – and we were away.

Was this something you had done before, or did you have to learn from scratch? A bit of both. With a back-ground in hotel management, international marketing, prop-erty development and – since arriving in Thailand – journal-ism, I had most of the tools.

I just had to learn how to apply them in a new business environment.

What was your initial invest-ment? My last B500,000. Subse-quently, a couple of investors came on board to help develop an events side to the business.

Landmarks in the develop-ment of the business? Selling the first couple of list-ings in Where to Eat, because I knew I’d got the formula and timing right.

Then launching our sec-ond publication, aimed at the (then) burgeoning property market. Launching the Phuket

Boatshow (2003) and Phuket Raceweek (2004) were major moves for us, but they turned out to be red herrings.

On a scale of 1 for “not at all” to 10 for “absolutely”, how has your business developed compared with your initial expectations?I guess it’s a 10. Starting with such little capital, growth has always been an uphill struggle, so I’m still a bit surprised at where we’ve gone.

What was easiest to do in developing your business?

What was most difficult? Easiest was working out the format and market positioning for our publications.

Toughest, keeping one step ahead of the copycats and rid-ing out the never-ending crises that seem to be a feature of doing business here.

If you were to do this again, what would you do differ-ently? Apart from not going down the events route at all, the only thing I’d do differently is start younger and richer.

How much was culture clash a factor in the way your busi-ness developed?Not at all. I spent eight years in the 1970s and ’80s travelling the world on business, then three years working with Thais in Bangkok, before coming to Phuket.

It’s all about working with, instead of against, the culture.

What do you love/hate most about what you do? Bringing a new publication into being gives me a real kick. Ploughing through accounts I could do without.

How is business right now? Are you affected much by local/national/international economic issues? The collapse of the property

market and the global finan-cial mess hit our clients and therefore us.

Most market sectors are improving and the property industry is coming back slowly.

A lot of my time now is spent on how to tackle new (to us) markets and products and making sure we don’t fall behind our competitors.

Have you been affected by increasing competition? How do you counter that? Competition today is not only more prolific, but more profes-sional.

We have to run faster and be better just to stand still.

Delivering on promises is a cornerstone of our business. Growth comes from product development.

Where do you go from here? Lurching crazily into cyber-space, while keeping our feet planted in traditional publish-ing.

What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs start-ing up in Phuket?Don’t assume it’s easy. Be patient.

Check out your intended market carefully and keep an eagle eye on your bank balance. Make friends, not enemies!

Out of the office, Grenville Fordham’s favourite place is at the helm of his catamaran Nina.

Christoph Voegeli

Manish Pratap

New GM forRoyal CliffROYAL CLIFF HOTELS Group has appointed Christoph Voegeli as General Manager of its Pattaya property.

Mr Voegeli comes to the Royal Cliff with an abun-dance of hospitality and service experience in luxury 5-star properties around Southeast Asia. He previously held the General Manager position at Meritus Pelangi Beach Resort & Spa in Malaysia, part of the Meritus Hotels and Resorts group.

A German national, Mr Voegeli received his Diploma in Hotel Management from Hotelfachschule Sudliche Wein-strasse in the town of Edenko-ben, and completed his Masters in Business Administration at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia.

New directorat Dusit ThaniDUSIT THANI LAGUNA Phuket has appointed Manish Pratap as Director of Revenue Management as of April.

Mr Pratap’s responsibilities include maintaining Dusit’s corporate standards, develop-ing pricing structures, revenue management strategies and achieving revenue goals, as well as overseeing and developing the reservations department.

Indian national Mr Pratap started his career in hospitality in Mumbai, India over a decade ago as Reservations Officer for Grand Hyatt Mumbai.

After a stint as the Revenue Manager at Intercontinental, in 2007 Mr Pratap moved to Doha, Qatar where he worked for a global Swiss hotel chain before stints back in India at Hilton Chennai Guindy and Hyatt Regency Chennai.

Govt urged totighten moneylaunder laws

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS urging the government to enact stricter laws against money laundering before February next year, to get Thailand off the grey list of a leading international anti-money-laundering body.

The chairman of the Fed-eration of Thai Industries (FTI), Payungsak Chartsutthipol, said the government has pledged to push amendments to these laws ahead of the February 2013 meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Thailand is on FATF’s “Grey List” because of its failure to make progress on anti-money-laundering laws and implementation.

The FTI chairman said he hoped tougher laws would get Thailand off the Grey List and thus remove hurdles to financial transactions.

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13BUSINESS/TOURISM

E-Travel Blackboard

TTR Weekly

THAI mulls launchof no-frills airlineAfter a strong f irst

quarter, Thai Airways (THAI) may look at

setting up a new budget carrier to tap into the no-frills sec-tor, Thai Airways president Piyasvasti Amranand says.

His announcement appears to put the final nail in the cof-fin for Thai Tiger, a proposed budget joint venture between THAI and Tiger Airways of Singapore.

That plan ran into serious opposition from Thai lawmak-ers, not least because Tiger is part-owned by THAI’s big-gest regional rival, Singapore Airlines (SIA).

Focusing on profitable destinations in Asia while reducing some loss-making routes in Europe, the f lag carrier faces regional com-petition from rivals like SIA and Cathay Pacific, according to Reuters.

Mr Piyasvasti said in an interview the airline was join-ing with Nok Air to study a

Piyasvasti Amranand: Confident of a B6 billion profit this year.

new ultra-low-cost airline.“Nok Air will focus on

domestic routes and we need another one to tap strong de-mand from this sector.”

As a part of a revamp after losing market share in Asia, the airline still aims to launch its mid-range Thai Smile airline on July 7.

Up a massive 500 per cent from last year, rising passenger numbers and yields helped Thai Airways make a net profit of B3.6 bil-lion for the period January to March.

“We are confident we will achieve our profit target of B6 billion this year after a

strong performance in the first quarter,” Mr Piyasvasti said.

On track to take delivery of three double-decker Airbus A380s late this year, Thai Airways aims to add another three aircraft in 2013, and will expand its total fleet to 109 planes in the coming seven years.

Centara ready to open secondproperty in BaliTHE CENTRAL GROUP’S Centara Hotels & Resorts will open its second resort in Bali, the Centara Grand Nusa Dua Resort & Villas, in the third quarter of this year.

The five-star property will feature a combination of suites and pool villas with a choice of one, two or three bedrooms.

Like the Centara Grand on Karon Beach, the Nusa Dua resort’s design concept is based on the Sino-Colonial style.

“This style has inspired the exterior design of the vil-las, which use wood with a Chinese motif, and also for the interiors, which feature a combination of antique and modern styles of furnishings,” said Martin Heiniger, Cluster General Manager of Centara Hotels & Resorts Bali.

Centara’s first resort hotel to open in Bali was the Centra Taum Seminyak Bali, located in the centre of Krobokan, at Seminyak, one of the island’s prime tourism destinations.

“The opening of the Cen-tara Grand Nusa Dua Resort & Villas provides Centara guests with the option of the new five-star Grand brand resort, or the Centra value

brand, at two very popular destinations on the island,” said Mr Heiniger.

Centara Grand Nusa Dua Resort & Villas will have 68 suites with the option of a private pool, a lagoon access or a private Jacuzzi, and 14 private pool villas with one, two or three bedrooms and butler service.

There will be a Spa Cen-varee with nine treatment rooms offering a full range of signature treatments, two large pools, and a fitness centre. There will be two restaurants and two bars, a Club Lounge, a Kids and Teens Club and a library.

“Our main market for Cen-tara Grand Nusa Dua Resort & Villas will be the leisure and honeymoon sectors, but due to the excellent location of the resort next to the Bali Convention Centre, a large part of our business will be from the meetings and events sector,” said Mr Heiniger. “The market mix for MICE is forecast at 60 per cent domestic and 40 per cent international.”

The resort will have five meeting rooms ranging in size from 37.5 to 200 sqm.

Golf tour firmsmore optimisticACCOR DI NG TO THE latest Golf Travel Insights report from property consult-ing firm KPMG, over 60 per cent of golf tour operators experienced an increase in the number of golf holidays booked in 2011, compared with 38 per cent in the pre-vious year, highlighting a welcome boost to the golf tourism sector.

Working from feedback from 90 golf tour operators in 35 countries, the survey, pub-lished by KPMG’s Golf Advi-sory Practice, concluded that

Spain and Portugal continue to be the most popular golf holiday destinations, followed closely by the UK, Ireland and Turkey, with Thailand not far behind, in sixth place.

The KPMG survey discov-ered that the United States, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Britain remain the biggest sources of international golf travellers.

The data also revealed that golfers spend considerably more on a vacation than stan-dard leisure tourists, between €600 and €900 (B24,000 and B36,000) for a four- to seven-night golf vacation.

TAT looks to relaunchmothballed Elite CardTOURISM AUTHORITY of Thailand (TAT) says it will present a revamped version of the defunct Thailand Elite Card project to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports by the end of this month for Cabinet review after that.

No timetable was given, but the Thailand Elite Card has been mothballed for two years, while government agen-cies pondered over its future.

TAT deputy governor, Wilaiwan Tawitsri, said the TAT’s work on the operational restructuring of Thailand Privi-lege Card Company Limited (TPC), which was given the debt ridden project, is nearing completion.

Findings and a recommen-dations to revamp the project will be presented to Deputy Prime Minister and Tourism & Sports Minister Chumpol Silpa-archa on May 29.

“Mr Chumpol will be able to present all information for the Cabinet in the hope the project may gain a B80 million emergency budget to enable the TPC to continue operations un-til the end of December 2012.”

Earlier, the TPC’s board president and TAT governor, Suraphon Svetasreni, had said the card company would be closed. He has since revised his response saying it is now possible to keep the card alive.

He is apparently under po-litical pressure; all the financial pointers would suggest the card has little or no value to the country’s tourism industry in the long term.

However, the TAT gov-ernor, defending his change of heart, cited a survey that showed that ending the project would create a negative image for the country.

“If it was closed down, TPC would need B2.4 billion to compensate its members, excluding any legal action it might face, which would damage the country’s image.

“Keeping the Thailand Elite Card alive will cost a lot of money and it won’t generate revenue or a high return on investment. However, it could pave the way to attracting investment to the country in the long run.”

The TPC revival plan is upbeat about the prospect of attracting 4,000 new mem-

bers under a four-year plan that could generate B3.5 bil-lion. The target is based on acquiring 1,000 members a year from 2013 to 2016. The original business plan targeted 1 million members to make it financially viable.

Privileges include a five-year visa and a limousine service 48 times a year.

Initially, new cardholders will get a 15-year membership instead of a lifetime, as in the past. The membership fee will be set at B100,000 a year.

“If the Cabinet allows the the TAT to revive TPC, it will need B500 million to replen-ish the paid-up capital to B1

billion. That will be used on re-branding, organisational restructuring and new busi-ness plans,” Mr Suraphon said.

The project was launched in 2003 by the government of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It was a dismal failure from the word go and the only really attractive ben-efits were a fast-track to a five-year visa and the dangled possibility that it might confer the right to buy land. That never happened.

There are currently 2,563 members, mainly Koreans, Japanese, and Taiwanese who were attracted by the possibility of the land purchase facility.

propertyguru.com.my


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BUSINESS/PROPERTY14

AFP/NNT

Myanmar to reopen Death RailwayMyanmar aims to

restore a stretch of the infamous

“Death Railway” to Thailand which was initially built by Japanese-held prisoners of war and forced labour, the minister in charge of the scheme has told AFP.

The railway was immor-talised in the Oscar-winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai, made in 1957, which showed the dreadful working conditions endured by tens of the thousands of POWs who built the track during World War II.

A feasibility study on the 105-kilometre (65-mile) stretch running north from the Three Pagodas Pass, a gap in the mountains between Thailand and Myanmar, is scheduled to begin in October, Railway Minister Aung Min said.

“We will reopen this [rail]road. The other countries said they would also help us and we will continue working for

it,” Aung Min said after peace talks with ethnic Shan rebels.

“We will do a survey and try to start working after the rainy season with the help of the international community.”

Long isolated under de-cades of army-rule, Myanmar has embarked on a rapid series of political and economic re-forms under President Thein Sein, including moves to improve relations with its neighbours.

The railway would provide a much-needed economic shot in the arm for the impoverished area, which is home to Myan-mar’s rebellious Karen ethnic group, by boosting trade with Thailand and attracting tourists.

Karen rebels signed a ceasefire with the government in January, a major break-through towards ending the long-running insurgency.

Built by the Japanese be-tween 1942 and 1943 to shuttle supplies from Thailand into Myanmar, then called Burma, along a route that engineers had long considered impossi-

ble, the rail link was destroyed by Allied bombers in 1945.

Some 13,000 POWs suc-cumbed to abuse, malnutri-tion and disease during the 14 months it took to carve the 424-kilometre (263-mile) railway through dense jungles

The Thai-Myanmar border at the Three Pagodas Pass. Photo: Joaquin Uy

Checking out hotel licencesTOURISM IN THAILAND has been growing almost without interruption over the past four decades. Naturally, because of this, the number of hotels and resorts is also rising steadily.

In Phuket, according to the most recent statistics, there were 43,759 rooms in registered hotels and resorts in December last year. By 2015 that number is predicted to reach 50,031 rooms.

However, the majority of hotels in Phuket operate without a hotel licence. Enforcement of the licensing laws seems to be very lenient.

In order to get a licence, hotel operators must comply with the requirements set forth in the Thai Hotel Act of 2004, as amended, and file an appli-cation with the District Office, if their business falls within the definition of “hotel” in the Hotel Act.

Under the Act, “hotel”

means specifically all lodging premises, established for com-mercial purposes to provide temporary accommodation to a traveler or any person.

Under the Act, so-called “serviced apartments” are also considered hotels if they provide accommodation on a daily or weekly basis, though places that provide accommo-dation for more than a month are exempted from the licence requirement.

Residential premises with no more than four rooms on all f loors in total (whether in a single building or in several buildings) and a total service capacity of not more than 20 guests are also exempted.

The intentions of the legis-lation are to control hotel stan-dards, promote hotel business operations, and promote and preserve the environmental quality, sturdiness, hygiene and safety of hotels.What are the key require-

ments to obtain a licence?The Hotel Act sets the require-ments a hotel manager and a hotel operator must meet. The hotel operator is the person obtaining licences for the hotel operation, while the hotel man-ager is the person appointed by the hotel operator to be in charge of hotel management.

The manager must be able to present proof of professional education and/or experience in hotel management.

The Act also stipulates that the hotel operator – who may be the owner or the operator of the hotel and is the applicant for the Hotel License – may be either an individual or a juristic person. Certain circumstances may preclude the applicant as hotel operator.

In addition, the building of the hotel must comply with the Building Control Act of 1979, as amended, and the building permit must stipulate that the building may be used as a hotel (if located within the

jurisdiction of the Building Control Act).

The application process includes the involvement of a variety of government agencies (local and provincial). The procedure is lengthy. It takes about two months in Phuket; it may be shorter or longer in other provinces.

Once a hotel licence has been obtained it is valid for a period of five years and may be transferred to a third party if the third party also meets the statutory requirements.

There are various reasons for lack of compliance, but more stringent enforcement of the laws would certainly help achieve the Hotel Act’s goals of transparency, quality control and, eventually, the continuing competitiveness of the Thai tourism sector.The authors are legal advisers based in the Phuket Office of DFDL Legal & Tax. For more information visit www.dfdl.com or email [email protected]

Capital bounces back from floodsBANGKOK’S PROPERTY market has rebounded sig-nificantly following last year’s floods, according to a report published by CBRE Thailand.

Though developers are con-centrating most new launches in areas that were not flooded, CBRE reports seeing new sales resuming in areas that

were flooded, particularly for the low to middle-end market.

“We believe the desire of buyers to own a house or townhouse close to future mass transit stations in the suburbs has continued as fears of a re-peat flood are now alleviated,” said Aliwassa Pathnadabutr, MD of CBRE Thailand.

and mountains in Thailand and Burma, under orders from their Japanese captors.

It is also estimated that 80,000 to 100,000 Asian ci-vilians, used as forced labour, perished in the railway’s con-struction but most of their re-

mains have no known markers or graves.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s Regional Joint Public/Private Sector Consultative Committee has reported to the Cabinet that it supports the planned B190 billion deep-sea port

and industrial estate project in Tavoy, or Dawei, in Myanmar.

At the fourth mobile cabi-net meeting in Kanchanaburi province, chaired by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the joint committee reported its agreement to support Ital-ian-Thai Development PCL which holds the concession to develop the 170,000-rai Dawei deep sea port and industrial estate project worth B190 billion, and expected to be completed in 2015.

The joint committee has also given the green light to the planned construction of the 90-km Bangyai-Kanchanaburi motorway worth B45 billion, as well as its 70-km extension route from Kanchanaburi to the border of Myanmar.

In addition, the Three Pagodas Pass, Baan Phu Nam Ron Pass and Singkhon Pass have been approved to be established as permanent checkpoints with the aim of accelerating goods transport across the Thai-Myanmar border and to boost tourism.

THE RISE OF THE LOW -end condos built in Phuket by major Bangkok companies continues with the launch of Supalai Park in Phuket Town.

The 15-floor complex on just over six rai of land on Na-korn Rd will have 504 starter-size condos ranging in area from 32 to 71 sqm, and priced from B1 million each.

Aimed firmly at entry-level buyers, the condos are selling for monthly payments as low as B3,900.

Total development cost is estimated at around B900 million. Communal facilities are expected to include a pool and a fitness centre.

The developer, Supalai plc, which has paid-up capital of more than B1.7 billion, is currently on a major expan-sion outside Bangkok, with successful projects in Khon

Bangkok developersto launch new condo projects in Phuket

Kaen, Chiang Mai, Songkhla, and plans for more in Nakhon Ratchasima, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, Phitsanu-lok, Nakhon Sawan, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Rayong.

It is also looking over-seas, studying possibilities in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, once the Asean Economic Community be-comes reality in 2015.

Following the Supalai launch, the next low-end project due to take off in Phuket is the latest offering from Sansiri, also of Bangkok, which held a press conference yester-day (May 24) to introduce its 806-unit dCondo Creek condominium project.

In the same area as Sansiri’s two previous developments, on the road from Tesco-Lotus to Kathu, the condos will be priced from B1.1 million up.

Fabian Doppler & Christian Dieck


thephuketnews.com

BIG LIST: Pointless feats and arms > 20CULTURE

15ART

Edited by Jody Houton [email protected]

Designed by Woulfe StudioBaan Wana Park, 177/22 Moo.4, Srisoonthorn Road, Thalang, 076 620 071, designedbywoulfe.com.

Drawing Room56 Phang Nga Road, Talad Yai, Muang, Phuket Town, 086 899 4888

I Mon Art Gallery29/2 Phang Nga Rd, Phuket Town, 086 961 8968, [email protected]. Open daily 8am-7.30pm.

Nakonnai Art Museum84/34 Moo7, Soi Saiyuan 2, Rawai. 085 974 7218, [email protected].

P. Fire StudioPhuket Art Village, Soi Naya 2, Rawai, 085 591 1587,[email protected]. Open daily.

Red GalleryPhuket Art Village, Soi Naya 2, Rawai, 087 323 321,[email protected]; phuketredgallery.com. Open daily.

Sarasil Art Galllery121 Phang Nga Rd, Phuket Town, 076 224 532,[email protected]; oilpaintingsphuket.com.Open daily 8pm-9pm.

Tawan Ook Art GalleryPhuket Art Village, Soi Naya 2, Rawai, 081 956 5872. Open daily.

The Love Art StudioPhuket Art Village, Soi Naya 2, Rawai, 089 471 5653,[email protected]; theloveartstudio.com. Open daily.

Veerachan Usahanun110/34 Cherng Talay, Bang Tao Beach Rd, 081 490 4359,[email protected]; veerachanusahanun.com.Open daily.

Vichen Gallery BzenterBehind Da Vinci Restaurant, Saiyuan Rd, Rawai, 087 890 3722.Open daily 3-9 pm. (Telephone to view before 3pm.)

VR Gallery & Coffee ShopNext to Mom Tri’s Villa Royale, 12 Kata Noi Rd, Kata Noi,076 333 568; [email protected], momtriphuket.com.

Watcharin Art Studio27 Yaowaraj Rd, Phuket Town, 088 386 1449,[email protected], rindamagicalart.com.

Wua Gallery and Studio1 Phang Nga Rd, Phuket Town, 076 258 208,[email protected]; wua-artgallery.blogspot.com.

PHUKET GALLERIES

[email protected]

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THIS WEEK’S HINT:“This Buddhist shrine is not easily accessible as it is located on a small island about 500 metres offshore from a very well-known landmark, which is known for its spectacular views over the Andaman Sea, and for the sunsets that paint the island’s shores most days.

“The shrine can be reached by boat, and is particularly impressive at sunset when the sun’s rays accentuate the Buddha statue and golden colours around the top of the shrine.”

–Gerry Cummings

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Congratulations go to Sineenart ‘Apple’ Srisutam, who correctly guessed that last week’s photo was of the Phuket Philatelic Museum on Montri Road, beside the main post office.

Emotional photoa hit with judgesA stunning shot of an

elderly lady bonding with a young child

whilst preparing food has taken top prize in a Phuket photo competition.

Anucha “Nu” Deeviset won the Peranakan Food Photo Competition, run by the Thai Peranakan Association, and was awarded a trophy of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn for his efforts.

Nu was born in Chai-yaphum province but moved to Phuket four years ago to work as a commercial photographer. In his spare time, however, he loves shooting documentary and landscape photos.

“My father opened a pho-tography shop in my home town, and I often had the chance to help my father take photos, so I have been immersed in photography since I was young. Then I decided to study pho-tography at university.”

Photography has made him think about how images look through the lens, he says.

“With my winning photo, I spent quite a long time to prepare everything before I took it. I wanted my photo to show the passing-on of cooking traditions from old to young people. I had the image in my mind, sketched it, and finally I went and took the shot. It is great if people can understand what I want the photo to communicate.”

The Peranakan Food Photo Competition result was an-nounced on Saturday (May 19) and Nu said this prize was his highest achievement.

“I didn’t expect to win this competition, I just wanted to be involved. It is the best prize I have ever been awarded. It makes me want to take more good photos to share with people.”

Preparing Ba-jang: Passing on the fruits of a generation.


thephuketnews.com

PEOPLE16

Owner of Gitano Restaurant & LoveWhat were you doing before you moved here?I was living in Beijing, com-pleting my degree in Mandarin language.

How long have you lived on the island and why did you move here?I have lived in Phuket for 16 years. I moved here to be a Mandarin language teacher at Dulwich International College [now the British International School].

Tell us about your job.Running Gitano Restaurant & Love (Mexican and Thai cuisine) is my everyday job. Gitano at Pa Khlok has been open for two years and the other one in Cherng Talay opened seven months ago.

It is opposite Tesco Lo-tus in Cherng Talay. Every day I go to both restaurants, complete the accounting and chat with the staff about any comments or problems from guests the previous night.

What is the best thing about living here?First of all, there is no traffic unlike where I come from.

Exposed

To Phuket with loveThe combination between

nature and civilisation is per-fect here. I love to go to the beach to get some sun and breath fresh air.

At the same time, I like that there are decent shopping centres where I can really enjoy a day of shopping.

What do you do to relax?I get a great foot message in the afternoon. It always makes me so relaxed.

What hobbies or sports are you interested in?I love watching movies. Wednesday is my day off as well as the first show day of the newest movie at SF Cinema, so I always go to watch a late night movie on Wednesday.

What is your favourite child-hood memory?Joining the annual Buddhist ceremony at Phraprathom Chedi Temple (Thailand’s biggest pagoda) in Nakhon Pathom province where I lived until I was 10.

I got to ring every little bell around the pagoda. I had so much fun doing it.

Favourite food or dish?My favourite foods are Thai and Japanese.

I have no problem eating spicy stir-fried basil everyday. When I need a change, then I eat sashimi at a Japanese restaurant.

What kind of music are you into?I like Putumayo World Music very much. All songs are always filled with beauti-ful instrumental sounds and vocals. It is great to listen to while I am driving.

What is the funniest thing that has happened to you while living on the island?When I was living in Kamala, I had my first visit to Phuket Fantasea. On the way out of the theatre, I met an old girlfriend who I had not seen for at least 10 years, since I moved away from Bangkok.

The person you admire the most and why?I admire my dad for how he has taken care of his seven children.

It was not easy for him to give all of us a good education

Lin Prachakrichand living conditions until we all have our own lives.

He is now 76 years old and living in Bangkok with one of my brothers.

Where in Phuket would you take someone on a first date?I would take him to a res-taurant on the cliff between Patong and Kalim.

I find it so romantic lis-tening to the sound of waves while enjoying a drink and chatting with someone I like.

If you could come back as any other person who would it be and why?I would like to come back as Jessica Alba. She is the most beautiful and sexiest woman.

Besides, she is also in-volved in the business of toxin-free household goods, diapers, and body care products.

It is great that she wants to encourage people to use environmentally-friendly products.

Favourite place on the island, and why?At the end of Surin Beach is my favourite place to go on the weekend with kids.

There’s a small area where my little kids can swim alone.

For myself, I like to go to Phuket Town and chill out in a local pub. It is always lovely to see different people from the ones I usually see during my working days.

What’s your favourite night out?The Twinpalms anniversary party (also known as the White Party) is always a great night out on the island. I believe many people think the same as me.

Lin Prachakrich, owner of Gitano Restaurant & Love.


thephuketnews.com

HEALTH18


ENVIRONMENT

It’s a dance revolutionCURRENTLY SWEEPING the world, Latin dance-in-spired fitness craze Zumba has arrived in Phuket, and Englishwoman Kaye Smith is at the helm.

Kaye, who has been in Phuket for around three years working as a dive instructor and model, is one of several qualified Zumba instructors who teach around the island, including at Thanyapura, Elite Fitness, Patong Gym, Atman-jai at Friendship Beach, the Green Man Pub in Chalong, Phuket International Kinder-

garten, Bliss Beach Club in Bang Tao, and Boat Lagoon.

The music played at the sessions is a mixture of Latin-based and modern pop songs. Kaye says par-ticipants don’t have to have any particular coordination or high levels of fitness to enjoy the classes.

“It’s about having fun and joining in, and getting sweaty and smiley. You don’t need to know how to do the technical things. It’s not drill driven, it’s about adapting things to suit your style and ability.

As long as you are moving, that’s the main thing. There’s no right or wrong, you’re not judged at all.”

And if you think a dance class is just for the ladies, you’re wrong. Kaye says there are a number of men who join in the fun and enjoy it thoroughly.

There are around 25 class-es a week, priced between B250 and B300, lasting for approximately an hour.For more information email [email protected] or visit facebook/zumbaphuket

Zumba instructors Adriana Jonsson, in green, and Kaye Smith perform at The Phuket News’ anniversary party. Photo: Dan Miles

Nearly half of trans-gender people in the Asia-Pacific region

could have HIV as poor healthcare and high-risk life-styles push infection rates to “critical levels”, a UN report said last week.

The region’s estimated 9.5 million transgender popula-tion is “bearing the brunt of the HIV epidemic”, the UN Development Programme study said, adding that figures suggest 49 per cent of the community could be infected.

The figure is drawn from anecdotal evidence of infec-tion rates among trans-women – men who become women – taken from the “scattered and often small-scale research” available across the region, the UNDP said.

Report author Sam Win-ter, of Hong Kong University, urged governments to take

note of the “burning need to address a very human crisis”, pointing out many transgender people end up working as prostitutes and having unsafe sex.

“Social exclusion, poverty and HIV infection contribute to what we call a ‘stigma sickness slope’ – a downward spiral that is difficult to re-verse,” he said in the study.

Transgender people also routinely suffer violence and prejudice while being offered narrow economic opportuni-ties and scant psychological support, the report found.

Billed as the region’s most comprehensive study, the report collates informa-tion from the last 12 years, painting a picture of hardship for many transgender people, who lack basic healthcare and emotional help. It re-corded cases of “backyard” sex change surgery including castration and the widespread

use of unsafe industrial sili-cone for breast implants among those who cannot afford quality healthcare.

Often transgender people leave home at a young age in response to family disap-proval, drop out of school be-cause of bullying and struggle to find work, which pushes them into prostitution, it said.

But the study also high-lighted positive developments, noting an increasingly con-fident transgender identity has taken root. It also de-tected greater will from the community to engage with mainstream services and policy discussions.

“The creation of advo-cacy networks, community-based organisations and non-government organisations devoted to empowering our communities is a source of joy,” according to Thai trans-gender activist Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya.

Half of Asian transgenders may have HIV

Supporting Sustainable SmilesAn d a m a n - b a s e d

environmental organ-isation, Sustainable

Smiles is seeking donations to fund in the setting up of its internship programme from June to August.

Positions will be available for Masters and Doctoral-degree qualified students to support fellow environmental organisation SEEK’s (Society Environment Economy Knowl-edge) initiative in developing practical methodology and data collection to measure the indicators for adopting appropriate strategies and action plans.

Kelly Franklin, the presi-dent of Sustainable Smiles says, “We are launching this programme to bring relevant researchers in the field of sus-tainable development to help us collect the qualitative and quantitative data we need in relation to our indicators in order to develop effective and practical management plans and actions for the Phuket community.”

Selected interns are likely to benefit greatly from such an experience, she says. Mrs Frankin explained that the in-terns’ role would be a mixture

of both practical and theory. “The interns will be work-

ing with us in the field to assist in developing a sustainability plan for the island through re-searching, collecting data and designing or using simple mod-els that can show the Phuket community where we are at in terms of environmental, social, economic, and wellbeing issues and trends.”

All donations will go to cover the costs of travel and local transportation for the research interns and provide

a small grant of B10,000 to cover costs of research expenses.For more information of how you can help and the

different opportunities of sponsorship, visit: sustain-ablesmiles .org or email Mrs Franklin at: kfrankin @sustainablesmiles.org

Above: Kelly addresses the volunteers and environ-mental activists during a recycling awareness day.

Janice continues to keep an eagle eye on conservationism.

Just say no to rhinoALTHOUGH THE SOUTH African environmentalist Janice Maltby now considers Phuket home, she is still very much involved in conservation-ism back home.

She has been a member of Honorary Rangers, a volunteer organisation committed to ensuring the survival and well-being of indigenous animals in South Africa’s National Parks, for more than 10 years.

Janice had to leave many of her possessions in South Af-rica, but one thing she brought with her was a resolute desire to change the South African trading of rhinoceros horn.

“There have been 130 rhi-nos poached in the Kruger National Park this year alone. A large number have been poached on private game re-serves, even helicopters have

been used as poachers continue the slaughter.”

This, Janice believes, is due to demand from the East, from Vietnam, China and to a lesser extent Thailand, where in many Chinese traditional medicine shops in Bangkok, for example, various rhino products can be found.

In other countries it is also quite common for rhino horns to be used as dagger handles, she says.

This is not only heartbreak-ing to Janice, but also rather perplexing.

“Why, as an intelligent spe-cies, would we want to buy a horn that has been scientifically proven to have no medicinal value at all? Our fingernails are similar, so why not nibble on those when they’re long?”


thephuketnews.com

19EDUCATION

Coconut Club classes back in sessionCl a s s e s a r e o n c e

aga i n i n session fo r a f t e r- s ch o ol

programme for orphaned and impoverished children from the Rachaprachnukroh School in Kamala and the Baan Kalim School.

From Monday – Thursday and on Saturday afternoons, the ‘Coconut Club’, run by the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation, offers plenty of fun games and activities, all conducted in English for the 120 or more children.

Angela McNoe who has been a Foundation Fellow for many years but recently moved to live in Phuket from New Zealand, said that one of the benefits of such a scheme was the relaxed setting.

“The aim of Coconut Club is to enhance the employ-ment opportunities of our students, through knowledge of and confidence in English language. It enables the chil-dren to practice their conver-sational English, in a more relaxed social environment.”

“Activities include children learning to cook and to swim and various arts and craft activities, such as beading, drawing and puppet making.”

The Coconut Club is a

charity organisation and there-fore staffed almost exclu-sively by volunteers and so are always looking for extra help.

“Two hours once or twice a week can really enhance the lives of these children. We are also looking for help from people who could help provide transportation to and from activities,” said Angela.

Angela said that they would also appreciate dona-tions of childrens books and arts and craft resources; paints, glitter, good paper and also smooth stones to paint on.

Coconut Club has plenty of things in the pipeline for this term, including a type of

“Phuket’s Got Talent” com-petition, but Angela said that she would also like to lead activities to help promote more environmental awareness in the children.

“We’d like to get the chil-dren off school grounds more in order to do more varied activities, like beach clean ups, paddle-boarding and trips to turtle sanctuaries.”

She added that she would also like to arrange more activities for older students.If you would like to help, please contact the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation at: 076 278 146 or visit: www.phukethasbeengoodtous.org

HeadStart for US NavyT H E ST U D E N T S AT HeadStart took a break from their studies on May 17 to welcome sailors and marines.

The US Navy were treated to a 20 minute performance of a Thai traditional dance in the library and were then invited to have a go at their own Thai bamboo stick dance.

It was then the children’s turn for a cultural exchange, with many year 9 and 10 students boarding the USS New Orleans, which was docked in Phuket.

“Thailand is one of my favourite ports to visit, I’ve been here five times,” said Interior Communications

Electrician 1st Class Jomel Jones, a New Orleans sailor.

“I always have a great time. It’s a beautiful country with great beaches, friendly people and outstanding food.”

The end of the hot and humid day was concluded with some real American ice-cream.

STUDENTS FROM THE Kajonkiet Internat ional School visited the Evason Resort on May 9 to learn more about the resort’s award-win-ning recycling programme.

The Evason Resort was Thailand’s first ever Green Globe benchmarked resort and also the first Green Globe certified resort in Southeast Asia.

Green Globes is a green building assessment and cer-tification system for com-mercial buildings.

During the field trip, the children learned how the Evason Resort focuses on energy management, water management, waste manage-ment and their successful attempts to increase biodiver-sity on the resort’s premises.

Lennard Kolthof, a teacher at Kajonkiet who accompa-nied the children, said “We

Kajonkiet kids get green

Kajonkiet Year 3 student Patreeya Jiraputansopon discov-ers composting at the Evason Resort Phuket.

Schools to close for GamesMANY SCHOOLS ON the island, including Baan Maireab in Kathu, will be exchanging their desks and chairs for bedding mats and pillows in order to house the competing kids of the Phuket Youth Games.

Students at the schools up and down the island will be enjoying a 13-day break from their studies from May 23 – June 6 to watch the games and enjoy some time off.

Jennifer LeVasseur, who has been teaching at Baan

Maireab for a year said that she too would be enjoying the unexpected holidays, but was slightly worried about return-ing, “Our school is going to be home to all of the boxers, so there might be holes in my classroom walls.”

It’s not all patrolling international waters and keeping the peace for the US Navy.

Students at the Coconut Club show their artwork.

also made a rather smelly exploration at the resort’s composting area.”

Back on campus, the chil-

dren took part in a competi-tion to see who could come up with the best recycling poster.


thephuketnews.com

WEIRD NEWS20

DANE'S WORLD [email protected] Dane Halpin

Lord of the Rings: In 2006, Kam Ma decided he was nowhere near famous or metallic enough for his liking. So he located tattoo artist Charlie Wilson, and the pair went about attempting to break the world record for most piercings in 24 hours. They succeeded, at a staggering 1,055 piercings in just under eight hours. Ma, apparently not wanting to waste time on ridiculous things like preventing pain, took every one of the piercings without anesthetic, making himself as figuratively metal as he is now literally metal. It comes as no real surprise then that no one has yet successfully challenged the record, probably because all the viable candidates are locked up in padded cells somewhere.

Pac it in: If you’ve ever sunk way too much time into completing a video game, you can at least feel better for not being Billy Mitchell. Ol’ Billy is the first person to ever get the highest possible score in Pac-Man, at 3,333,360 points. He set the record in 1999 after coming out of a 14-year retirement so he could focus on things like real life. In order to get this perfect score, he had to eat every pellet, fruit and blue ghost on the screen for every level. All 256 of them. Mitchell described the task as “tremendously monotonous”, which sounds like the biggest understatement ever stated, since after you complete level 20, you have to play the exact same level over 200 times in a row.

(Star)bucking the trend: Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr. pre-fers to go by the name Winter. We like to call him ‘Mentally Deficient’, because for the past 15 years, he has undertaken a quest of epic and ridiculous proportions: to consume a cof-fee from every single Starbucks on Earth. Winter has visited 8,651 stores in North America with only 46 to go, while he’s also had drinks at 2,134 stores in other countries – he’s even visited the seven Starbucks here in Phuket. Oh, and he refers to it as ‘Starbucking’, which is one of those cases where it seems wholly unnecessary to invent a verb to describe an activity no one else is doing but you.

Numbers game: Marva Drew was a good mother, and anyone who said anything to the contrary could go screw themselves. So when her young son came home from school one day and said his teacher told the class that it was impos-sible to count to a million, she just wasn’t going to take that crap. But Guinness World Records usually likes some sort of proof, and “I promise I thought them all in my head” wasn’t going to fly. So, like anyone else in the 1960s on a mission, Marva sat down at her typewriter and began typing. For the next six years. The result was almost 2,500 pages full of numbers. Drew completed her book and would have been a world record holder – except she missed out that tiny little detail of having a witness to her six years of riveting typing.

Mole man: A quick hypothetical: Your parents die when you’re 37, leaving you a house worth over B30 million. Do you: a) Sell the house and spend all the money on booze, drugs and hookers? b) Be responsible and do some DIY home improvements to help secure your future? Or c) Dig a vast network of underground tunnels like some sort of one-man Vietnamese resistance group for no apparent reason? Lon-don man William Lyttle chose ‘b’. But then he got bored and ventured right on into ‘c’, digging tunnels up to 10m deep and more than 20m long under his property for 40 friggin’ years, all on his own, using only a shovel and a pulley.

Running in a hot air balloon might be pretty amazing, but it’s also an exercise in futility, considering the whole point of a hot air balloon is to enable effortless long distance travel. But it’s nowhere near as pointless as the following feats of human endurance.

THE BIG LISTEnduring Insanity

Running on emptyMan runs half-marathon inside a hot air balloon

Rob Ginnivan is per-fectly happy to have his head – and feet

– in the clouds.The day before his 47th

birthday, the Australian ran 20.8km while inside a hot air balloon.

Ginnivan accomplished the stunt using a treadmill powered by a small genera-tor as the balloon drifted above Canberra, Australia’s capital city.

The act was the final com-ponent in Ginnivan’s endeavor to raise A$100,000 (B300,000) for the Heart Foundation by running in the air, on land and at sea, the Canberra Times reported.

Last year, Ginnivan ran a land marathon in Morocco, and an ultra-marathon (meaning a distance longer than the standard marathon length of 26.2188 miles) while aboard a ship. The Australian lost

both his grandfathers to heart disease.

Though the hot air balloon portion was the shortest dis-tance of the three, it was by no means the easiest.

The veteran marathon runner said that the tilt of the balloon’s basket simulated the experience of running uphill. He also noted that “the basket would sway from left to right” creating an experience that “was quite bizarre”.

Though the odd conditions contributed to leg cramps dur-ing the final portion of the run, Ginnivan ultimately completed the half-marathon in 2 hours and 18 minutes, twice as long as it would take him on land.

Dog, nappy and football found in Aussie crocRANGERS WHO SHOT A saltwater crocodile that was ter-rorising pets in northern Australia found a dog, a pair of shorts, a football and a nappy in its stomach.

Police notified authorities recently that a crocodile had eaten at least one dog and was lunging at others along a beach near the community of Galiwinku.

The Northern Territory News said rangers who went to the area saw the 3.5 metre croc grab a dog by the leg, and they shot it.

As well as finding the remains of a dog in its stomach, they dis-covered a variety of other items. “While it might make a comical headline, it is disturbing to see the volume of rubbish in a wild animal,” said the newspaper, which routinely runs crocodile stories on its front page.

Saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres long and weigh more than a tonne, are a common feature of Australia’s tropical north and kill an average of two people a year.‘A croc ate my baby’s diaper.’

Black magic Brit busted in BangkokSIX HUMAN FOETUSES which had been roasted and covered in gold leaf as part of a black magic ritual have been seized from a British citizen in Bangkok, Thai police said on Friday (May 18).

Chow Hok Kuen, 28, who

is of Taiwanese origin, was arrested with the grisly haul in the city’s Chinatown on Thurs-day, police said. The corpses had been packed into luggage and were set to be smuggled to Taiwan.

The suspect bought the foetuses several days ago from a Taiwanese man in Thailand

for B200,000 and planned to sell them in Taiwan for up to six times that amount, police said.

The origin of the foetuses was unclear.

“He said he planned to sell the foetuses to clients who believe they will make them lucky and rich,” said Colonel Wiwat Kamchamnan of Bang-

kok police. The man faces one year in prison and a B2,000 fine for possession of the foetuses.

In Thai black magic rituals, also observed among some Chinese communities, preserved foetuses are believed to bring good fortune to the owner and are often kept in shrines within homes or businesses.

Agence France Presse

Arab media chokes on Prime MinisterTHE ARAB-SPEAKING media found themselves in a bit of a pickle after the appoint-ment of Jean-Marc Ayrault as France’s new prime minster last week – about how to men-tion the head of the French government without causing offense.

Transcribed into Arabic from the French pronounciation of his name, “Ayrault” refers to the male sexual organ in several Arabic dialects.

The problem lasted for hours after French President Francois Hollande named the head of the Socialist bloc in parliament as his prime minister, with Arab journal-ists trying different possible pronunciations of his name.

Some newspapers referred to him as “Aro”, others prefixed his name with an “H,” while

some chose to spell out the last two silent letters.

The conundrum was finally resolved by the French foreign ministry, which issued an offi-cial edict on subject permitting his name to be transcribed as written, and saving the blushes of many an Arabic editor.

Time will tell whether Mr Ayrault lives up to the name.

Draft Beer Great Food Cool RoomsGood Music Live Sport

Irish Pubs • Restaurant • Guest Houses

KARON BEACH PHUKET


thephuketnews.com

21TIME OUT

As some movies and movie times change every Thursday morning, after The Phuket News has gone to press, the accuracy of the following information cannot be guaranteed. For up-to-date information, visit sfcinemacity.com, or phone the cinemas directly: SFX Coliseum Phuket 076-209-000 and SFC Jungceylon Phuket 076-600-555.

In One Personby John Irving HAVING CRUSHES ON THE wrong people is an experience that will resonate with most readers of John Irving’s new novel, even if the object of their crushes do not happen to be transgender individuals.

As the novel opens, Billy Abbott is an almost-70-year-old bisexual man looking back at his life in the small town of First Sister, Vermont. His defining relationships have been with men transitioning to women.

Irving’s gift, as always, is to make us care about those characters that mainstream so-ciety relegates to the fringes. In One Person does that by introducing us to Billy and the crushes – and relationships – that have populated his life.

BloomBeach HouseVICTORIA LEGRAND AND bandmate Alex Scally have said Bloom was built as “a complete album in a world of singles”, and it certainly feels like they were telling the truth; the whole thing unfolds like a continual story, each glorious song playing off the next.

At times, a bit too much so – the tracks can almost bleed into each other indistinctly at time to almost hypnotic effect – but then maybe that’s the point.

Stellar tracks like Lazuli, Other People and Myth will have you both hypnotised and dizzy, while singing along to Legrand’s truly unique echo-ing vocals.

This is undoubtedly Beach House’s best work yet, and will be a contender for best album of the year on most critics’ lists.

SFX COLISEUM PHUKET (CENTRAL FESTIVAL)American Pie: Reunion (E) [18+]: 12:00, 14:20, 16:40, 19:00, 21:20

The Avengers (E) [G]: 12:30, 15:30, 18:30, 21:30

The Cabin in the Wood (E) [18+]: 13:45, 15:50, 17:55, 20:00, 22:05

Dark Shadows (E) [13+]: 11:30, 13:50, 16:15, 18:40, 21:00

Khon-Loke-Jit (T/E.SUB) [18+]: 11:15, 12:15, 14:45, 17:15, 19:45, 22:15

American Pie: Reunion (E) [18+]: 11:30, 15:30, 17:50, 20:10, 22:30The Avengers (E/3D) [G]: 12:30, 15:30, 18:30, 21:30The Avengers (E/F) [G]: 16:00, 19:00, 22:00The Avengers (T) [G]: 11:30, 14:30, 17:30, 20:30The Cabin in the Wood (E) [18+]: 13:25, 16:10, 18:15, 20:20, 22:25Chob Kod Like Chai Kod Love (T/E.SUB) [15+]: 11:15, 13:50Dark Shadows (E) [13+]: 12:20, 14:40, 17:00, 19:20, 21:40Khon-Loke-Jit (T/E.SUB) [18+]: 14:45, 17:15, 19:45, 22:15

SFC JUNGCEYLON PHUKET (PATONG)

BOOK MUSIC FILM

For the past decade or so, since the sentimental Big Fish, Tim Burton

has been honing his previously odd, gothic-kitsch aesthetic, into a rich, pristine gloss.

And yet, while 2010’s Alice In Wonderland was both Burton’s most expensive and most successful film to date, it also found the director, who was once hailed as the most distinctive of modern Hol-lywood visionaries, slipping

towards tedious mundanity.Given that, a lot of people

were none-too excited when Dark Shadows was announced – and while it finds some suc-cess in its gothic campness, it’s yet another in the growing line of disappointing collabo-rations between Burton and Johnny Depp.

Depp leads his fifth Bur-ton film in a row (and eighth overall) as Barnabas Collins, a 200-year-old vampire who, previously cursed and buried alive by a spurned witch (An-

gelique, played by Eva Green), is exhumed in the 1970s.

As he adjusts to his groovy new surroundings, Barnabas resolves to restore his family’s honour, as well as take down Angelique.

Fairly light in the plot de-partment, the film once again relies almost entirely on an enjoyable (if not particularly fresh) performance from Depp, with entire scenes hinging on his immaculate deadpan or aghast expressions.

The supporting cast are much less interesting though, as none really offer anything more than sounding boards for Depp’s antics. Each is given a bit of Burton’s trademark odd-ball style and flare but there’s a lot of wasted potential.

Burton also makes excel-lent use of the 1970s time-frame, especially when it

collides with the overarching gothic visuals. Again, most of this relies heavily on Depp’s portrayal of Barnabas, but there is a distinct charm and sense of humour to the film that comes about as a result.

As with other recent Bur-ton films though, the script is the principle weakness. The screenplay is a subplot-heavy mess, veering wildly from romance to horror to dopey comedy, before eventually falling apart at the seams as it pursues an unnecessarily action-packed climax.

Ultimately, Dark Shad-ows is yet another Depp/Burton collaboration that is entertaining enough, but fails to present a memorable storyline or intriguing non-Depp character.

BRAIN TEASERS

Dane [email protected]

Dark Shadows113 minutesRating: 13+Director: Tim BurtonStarring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green

1. WhichSpaniardwontheTourDeFrancefivetimes in the 1990s?

2. Namethefiveeventsthatmakeupthe Modern Pentathlon.

3. Who wrote The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul?

4. Whodiedwhileonbail,suspectedofkillingNancySpungen?

5. Onamilkcarton,whatdoesUHTstandfor?

Solutions to last week’s puzzles:

Answers to this week’s Pop Quiz:

1. Miguel Indurain; 2. Shooting, Fencing, Swimming, Horse Riding & Running; 3. Douglas Adams; 4. Sid Vicious; 5. Ultra Heat Treated.

SUDOKU

Across1. Between Milan team. (5)4. Unpleasant average. (4)6. Scotch sword. (4)10. Vital pal takes four on overtime. (7)11. Put on a burst spike with Ted. (7)12. Get tighter with northern missile. (6)13. Like buccaneer, take direction to inhale. (8)16. Poison ant crime? (11)18. Ate bad beverage. (3)20. Fuel chatter. (3)22. Oops! I burp or, confused, scornful. (11)24. Soccer players get the point: underwear! (8)25. Canvasonfish.(6)28. Canned in hotel; got narrower. (7)30. Liken to damaged trilogy writer. (7)31. Major constellation. (4)32. Piece of art? Edgar Allan’s got a thousand! (4)33. Was Lawrence murder? (5)

Down1. Little devil completing; it’s about to happen. (9)2. Innsmakeafive–inseabirds. (7)3. Proportion of vermin I love. (5)4. Thawmewithofficer.(4)5. Commercials, as in note. (3)7. Exile not in play line-up. (7)8. Lad, the French make a big spoon. (5)9. Navy rebel may meet ruin. (8)14. Sigh! Departed Asian city, they say. (6)15. Code for each fastener. (6)17. Dying for frog noise. (8)19. As offspring, with an extra couple of notes sounding similar. (9)21. Ghosts’ drinks. (7)23. Bully work at printing plant. (7)24. Town heard feline? Ooh! (5)26. Let Al be depressed. (5)27. A male cat’s particle. (4)29. Five hundred bend no pair. (3)

Questions provided by Peppers Bar in Cherng Talay.


thephuketnews.com


thephuketnews.com

KIDS PAGE22

COLOURING CONTEST

mail@

sophieillustration.co.uk

Every week, colour in Sophie's drawing, have a photo taken with

your work, and email it to [email protected] The winner will be announced on this page next week.

This week, congratulations go to Pangporn, age 8, from Kamala School, for his excellent work above. We look forward to seeing how you all colour in the cheeky Koh Sirae monkeys!

Runners-upThanks to all the children at Darasamuth Phuket School, Kajonkietsuksa School, HeadStart, British International School Phuket, Phuket International Academy, and Coconut Club for their entries.

Please keep them coming in, remembering to write your name, age and school on your work.

W a r i n t o r n (Tont), age 7, BIS Phuket

B u, a g e 7, Kamala School.

Kaw, age 9, Kamala School.


thephuketnews.com

Driver to the stars A Phuket man’s brushes with Hollywood > 30LIFE&STYLE

23SHOPPING

Edited by Claire Connell [email protected]

fashion file

Silver shawl was a gift bought in Sydney.

Guess black dress (B5,000) bought in Bangkok.

Handmade bag (B200) found in Chiang Rai.

9West shoes (B3,000) purchased in Sydney.

Beach hat (B199) from Koh Chang in Trad province.

White shirt (B150) bought on a trip to Bangkok’s Jatujak Market.

Linen, cream coloured shawl was a gift from her mother.

Light brown shorts (B250) bought at a pier in Thailand while on holiday.

Pink sandals (B199) pur-chased from Tesco Lotus.

HOT COOKINGUraiwan KuhlBaker

DRESSED UPRaine Grady

TV host

Have an outfit to show off? Send a photo to: [email protected]

ACCESSORIES

Jittree online store, 083-188-7844,[email protected]; facebook.com/jittreejewelry

1. Red heart earrings B150 2. Vintage earrings B2203. Heart ring B250-2854. Sparkly earrings B220Jittree

1 2

3

4


thephuketnews.com


thephuketnews.com

DINING24


STREET EATS

An evening of Italian spiritCentara Grand Beach

Resor t Phuket in Karon hosted a wine

dinner last Wednesday eve-ning (May 16), combining the skills of Tenuta Dell’ Ornellaia Export Area Man-ager Giovanni Mazzoni and Centara chefs Sandro Aguilera and Matteo Verini.

Mr Mazzoni, who lives in Florence, Italy, was on his third visit to Phuket.

“The high end resorts in Phuket have a very good selection of wines, includ-ing many Italian varieties,” he said.

Italian red wine produc-er Tenuta Dell’ Ornellaia’s vineyards are situated in the Bolgheri region of western Italy, where Mr Mazzoni says the soil richness and climate are ideal for growing grapes.

Guests at the dinner were treated to six different types of wine from the 2007 to 2010 vintages, with special empha-sis placed on the Ornellaia, the company’s flagship variety.

The first course was the unique-tasting cherry smoked duck breast on radicchio,

strawberry and served with an orange honey sauce, which was paired with the 2009 Le Volte. This wine was nomi-nated by Mr Mazzoni as the the company’s “most drink-able” wine, and indeed it was.

The second course was ‘Le Volte 2010 risotto’ with pecorino Toscano dop cheese fondue and crispy ham, and paired with the 2010 elegant and complex Le Volte, dubbed as the 2009 version’s “younger

brother”. This was a stand-out wine and food pairing, with a very complimentary after-taste.

Next came the flagship Or-nellaia, paired with dishes of snowfish and beef tenderloin, and, finally, a delicious red wine ice-cream for dessert, served with a poached pear and soft ginger cookie.

A great end to a very en-joyable evening at Centara.

Centara chefs Matteo Verini, left, and Sandro Aguilera prepare one of the courses.

Tenuta Dell’ Ornellaia Export Area Manager Giovanni Mazzoni was in Phuket last week to attend the wine dinner.

Gai yang with yellow rice, and the shop owner’s son, Mr Suwat, inset.

Finger lickin’ good

THIS WEEK’S STREET EAT is a popular snack for Thais and foreigners alike – delicious grilled chicken.

One of the best places to buy this is from the Gai Yang Suthep (Mr Suthep’s grilled chicken) restaurant belonging to Suthep Kotchanart, who is originally from Surat Thani.

Mr Suthep started cooking his now famous gai yang for students at Phuket Wittayalai School in 1974, and has now become something of a grilled chicken icon in Phuket.

However, while he can sometimes be seen in the res-taurant, most of the day-to-day running of the shop is now

done by his son, Suwat.Mr Suwat said his father

first started selling the gai yang outside the school for two months, then was asked to move into the school’s canteen because the chicken was so popular.

“The school’s director asked him to sell his chicken inside because the students were always going out of school to buy his gai yang, instead of having lunch in the canteen. “My father spent more than 10 years selling chicken at the school canteen, so many of our customers are alumni of the school.”

“The most popular type of chicken for students at that time was the spicy battered fried chicken, called gai rong rien (school chicken). We used to sell more than 1,000 pieces of this chicken per day, and it is still on the menu now,” he said.

Mr Suthep eventually moved the restaurant to Phuket Rd, near the Phuket Marine Police Station, before mov-ing again to Rassadanusorn Road, at the intersection with Ruamphathana Road.

“The most popular food item today is the spicy grilled chicken. The chicken’s skin is crispy, and the meat is very soft and spicy,” says Mr Suwat.

These days he grills and fries about 30 chickens per day.

There are lots of differ-ent options for Mr Suwat’s chicken, including plain, spicy grilled chicken, and battered fried chicken. All are delicious served with spicy homemade sauce, tom yum soup, or yellow steamed rice.

The restaurant is open daily (closed Sundays) from midday until 10pm. Chicken is priced at B20-B200, and yellow steamed rice is B10 per serving.

Wine dinner atthe BoathouseTHE BOATHOUSE IN KATA is hosting its Francis Coppola Director’s Cut wine dinner tonight (May 25) at 7pm.

Included on the menu is salmon and tuna sushi, maki, sashimi and yakitori, plus king crab cannelloni wrapped in parma ham, aged parmesan and balsamic vinegar.See: boathousephuket.com

The beef tenderloin was just one of the standout dishes.


thephuketnews.com

25DINING

Rumble in the JungleRum Jungle is a family-

owned restaurant in Rawai, run by couple

Jo and Tony Bruno.The restaurant, which

serves Italian and Mediter-ranean cuisine, is decorated in a natural theme, with veg-etation inside and out, small statuettes positioned around the space, and gently lit by lanterns.

It is known to get very busy during high season, and even on a rainy night in May there were still several tables occupied by mostly local residents, keen to get their fix of Tony’s food.

The couple met around 2004 while Jo was living in Phuket and Tony was on holiday here. Jo joined Tony at his home in Singapore, before they moved back to Phuket in 2005 and opened Rum Jungle.

The name ‘Rum Jungle’ originates from a restaurant of the same name that belongs to a friend of Tony’s – and also due to the fact Tony is a fan of the beverage itself.

Head chef Tony is Italian but was born in Australia. Rum Jungle is his third food-related venture, after previ-ously owning a restaurant

in Sydney and a catering company in Hong Kong.

“Rum Jungle is Italian and Mediterranean, but leaning on the Italian side. We also have French, Spanish and North African food, and the specials change very regularly.”

Signature dishes on the menu include the avocado shrimp salad with spicy mango (B280), tuna carpaccio (B260); lamb mousakka with parme-san cream (B480); grilled fish fillet with lemon sauce, asparagus, tomatoes, sau-téed potatoes and vegetables (B380); and the New Zealand beef tenderloin for B640.

Pastas range from B240-B320, and salads start at B100.

Trying Tony’s home made ravioli is a must for diners. The evening The Phuket News visited, the ravioli was stuffed with chicken and mushroom – probably some of the best ravioli we’ve had on the island and definitely a hit with the other guests on the night too.

One diner said he returned to Phuket every year and always had Tony’s famous ravioli, and we can’t blame him, it’s delicious.Rum Jungle, 69/8 Baan Sai Yuan, (opposite the Bank of Ayudhya) Rawai, 076 388 153.

Left, Rum Jungle on Soi Sai Yuan in Rawai. Above, the grilled fish fillet with lemon sauce. Below right, Jo and Tony Bruno, the restaurant owners.

French mixologist Julien Defrance demonstrates how to make the perfect cocktail.

It’s all in the mixFRENCH MIXOLOGIST Julien Defrance was in Phuket last week to run several cock-tail workshops at the Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket, at which he gave more than a fair dash of praise for Thai bartenders.

Mr Defrance runs his own cocktail consultancy company, Likidostyle, in Paris but comes to Asia every two months to promote the French liquor Grand Marnier.

He has been working in the cocktail industry for the last eight years, after graduating with degrees in philosophy and Italian language.

Asian bartenders have the finest ingredients in the world to include in their cocktails, he says, including an abundance of fresh fruit and unique herbs.

“Thailand and Taiwan have some of the best bartenders in the world, they have a lot of skills.

“Thai people, when it comes to cooking and bar-tending, make everything with so much passion and love, more than any other country in the world.”

A major criticism of the cocktail industry he had how-ever was that he believed bartenders in Asia were often

guilty of using lower qual-ity and cheaper alcohol and ingredients.

“Even in luxury hotels in Shanghai and Hong Kong, bar-tenders are using low quality liqueurs, spirits and juices.”

Mr Defrance says he doesn’t have a favourite cocktail to make, but does like using coffee flavoured ingredients.

“There is just so much va-riety – you can use ice cream, milk, cream, whipped cream and liquors such as Baileys and Kahlua. However most of them are winter or autumn

drinks, and aren’t tailor made for the Thai climate.”

He says the mojito is his most requested cocktail, but he has created a new design of his own to jazz it up. Mr Defrance uses fresh grapefruit instead of lime, coriander instead of mint, and lemon vodka and ginger ale. His signature cocktail is called a French Kiss, and is made from fresh raspberries, fresh lemongrass, vodka and honey.

“But one of the most im-portant parts of the cocktail is the smile of the bartender,” he says with a laugh.


thephuketnews.com

EXPLORE26

PHUKET MUSEUMSFESTIVALS & FAIRS

Chinpracha HouseThis elegant colonial-style man-sion was completed in 1907 by wealthy Chinese immigrant Tan Ma Siang. Chinpracha House is one of the most integral ancient remains on the island.

Old photographs, Italian floor tiles, imported furniture from China and old utensils are well-maintained in the house’s interior. 98 Krabi Rd, Phuket Town, 076 211 281. Open daily 8am-4pm. B100.

Kathu Mining Museum

Built according to colonial ar-chitecture, imitating a mansion of a tin miner, the museum shows the origins of Phuket’s culture and history especially from the mining era.

Several indoor exhibition rooms display Phuket architec-ture, mining, Thai-Chinese way of life, Chinese immigrants’ life, the Baba’s marriage and the solar system.

Muang Tor Sung Rd (behind Loch Palm Golf Club), Kathu, 088 766 0962. Open daily 9am-4pm.

B50 for Thais, B100 for for-eigners, children half-price.

Philatelic MuseumThe museum is in the old pre-served Post Office, housing old equipment such as telegraph tickers, telephones, parcel-weigh-ing machines and collections of Thai stamps issued since 1951.

Phuket Post Office, Montri Rd, Phuket Town, 076 224 883.

O p en M on - Fr i 8 . 30 am -4.30pm. Sat 9am-12pm. Free entrance.

Seashell MuseumOver 2,000 species of sea shells that were collected by the Pa-tamakanthin family are now displayed in the museum.

2/2 Moo 2, Viset Rd, Rawai, 076 613 666; www.phuketsea

shell.com.Open daily 8.30am-5.30pm.

B100 for Thais, B200 for foreign-ers, children half-price.

Thai Hua SchoolMuseum

The museum is in what used to be the main Chinese-language school, built in 1934.

Classrooms inside were renovated as exhibition rooms, displaying Phuket Thai-Chinese culture and tradition.

28 Krabi Rd, Phuket Town, 076 211 224; www.thaihuamu-seum.com.

Open daily 9am-5pm. B50 for Thai, B200 for foreigners, add extra fee for photograph.

Thalang NationalMuseum

The museum focuses on the his-tory and archaeology of Phuket and nearby provinces.

Has archaeological finds such as ancient statues, pre-historic beads and tools.On 4027 Road (east of the Heroines monument), Thalang, 076 379 895.

Open daily except public holiday 9am-4pm. B20 for Thai, B100 for foreigners.

Thavorn Hotel Lobby Museum

Located in the walkway from the lobby to the dining room of the Thavorn Hotel, this small museum corner shows old photographs, posters, ornaments, utensils and mining tools from the Phuket’s mining era and World War II, col-lected by the owner of the hotel.

74 Rassada Road, Phuket Town, 076 211 333. Open daily 8am-5pm. B30.

Prisoner Product FairSells products made by prisoners across southern Thailand.Date: Mid-June.Location: Centre Stage, Sapan Hin Public Park.

Phuket Halal Food FestivalIntroduces Muslim culture in Phuket, with fashion show, live music and singing.Date: Late July.Location: Various.

Seafood FiestaCelebrates the sea, with a wide range of freshly cooked local seafood, including lobsters, crabs, octopus, squid, clams and all kinds of fish, together with vegetables, fruit and a variety of interetsing juice drinks.Date: AugustLocation: Rawai Beach.

Por Tor Festival FairAlso known as the Hungry Ghost Festival in Hong Kong, Malay-sia, and Singapore, ethnic Chi-nese worldwide believe that during the 7th lunar month, the ghosts of their ancestors visit their home. To make sure their visit is a happy one, offerings of food are made, such as the common local offering of a red cake in the shape of a turtle.Date: Seven days in late August.Location: Phuket Road.

Patong CarnivalMarks the start of high season. The highlight is the colourful parade held on the first day.Date: December 15-20.Location: Patong Beach Road.

Phuket Red Cross FairCharitable occasion to mark the arrival of the New Year, with vendors and a popular raffle.Date: Late December.Location: Centre Stage, Sapan Hin Public Park.

SIGHTINGSAlasdair [email protected]

The kids will be petrified

Petrified wood may not seem the most fascinat-ing of topics, but the

Petrified Wood Museum outside Nakhon Ratchassima has a great deal more to offer than that.

And in fact, the petrified wood is kinda interesting, when you begin to understand

that you can have “wood” made from precious and semi-precious stone such as opal, carnelian, agate, and jasper.

But where the museum scores with families is with its exhibits on ancient elephants and dinosaurs.

The elephant history tracks the evolution of the Asian elephant from pig-sized mam-mals through versions with back-curving tusks and four forward-pointing tusks, to the

more familiar modern elephant.Isarn is well known for its

dinosaurs, too, and the museum has fine exhibits of dinosaur fossils found in the region, including the scary Allosaurus pictured here. Lots of teeth. Kids’ll love it.

The museum is open Tues-day to Sunday, from 9am to 4pm. It is about 20km south of Nakhon Ratchassima. For a great family day out, combine it with a visit to the Korat Zoo.

With exhibits on ancient elephants and dinosaurs, the museum is a hit with families.


thephuketnews.com

27TRAVEL

T h e S u k h o t h a i Bangkok, launches ‘Romance Package’Set within six acres of tran-quil, exquisitely landscaped gardens, the multi-award winning Sukhothai Bangkok is one of Thailand’s most luxurious and stylish hotel experiences and is the perfect destination for honeymooners seeking an exclusive romantic hideaway in the heart of the Thai capital. The Sukhothai Bangkok now offers a unique ‘Romance Package’ which gives couples a variety of indulgent added value ex-tras during their stay, from stimulating cuisine to sensual spa treatments.

Included in the Romance Package is accommodation in either a Deluxe Studio or Executive Suite, a round trip limousine transfer from the airport and fast track service upon arrival into Bangkok Airport.

Package Price: Deluxe Studio B12,000++ per room per night, Executive Suite B15,000++ per room per night. A minimum length of stay of 4 consecutive nights is required. Valid now until December 28, 2012.For more information, see: sukhothai.com

Pachyderms, Pamper-ing and Polo Package at Anantara Hua HinFrom September 12-16, An-antara Hua Hin invites you to enter the amazing world of elephant polo.

The resort’s Pachyderms and Polo package gets guests into the swing of the games marvelling at the grace and skill of the two tonne genteel giants at the 11th anniversary ‘Kings Cup Elephant Polo’ charity tournament. Savour lunch and a spa treatment at the pitch, have your photo taken with the players and enjoy VIP premium access to all areas. Then after each enthralling day, guests will be whisked back to Anantara Hua Hin to relax in five star luxury with all transfers be-tween the hotel and pitch and a daily breakfast included.

P r i c e s s t a r t f r o m B9,000++ and include: Ac-commodation in a Premium room, Lagoon room or An-antara Suite, daily buffet breakfast for two people, VIP Access to all areas, special elephant polo shirt, photos with the players and the elephants, and one mini-spa treatment at the pitch.For more information, see: huahin.anantara.com

TRAVEL NEWS

The Tohsang City Hotel

The Tohsang City Hotel is located right in the middle of a calm resi-

dential area in the provincial capital of Ubon Ratchathani, making it superbly suitable for travellers looking for a peaceful and dignified place to stay after a hectic and long day spent sightseeing.

It is within easy reach of all local attractions, including

natural and historical sites, various retail areas such as the famous Indochina shopping arcade, which located only a few minutes walk away, as well as the main night life and entertainment districts of the city.

Ubon Ratchathani is Thai-land’s easternmost province, and is one of the most beautiful parts of Thailand. Relatively unknown to most foreign tourists, the province boasts a scenic environment, cultural attractions, national parks, and

a handicraft industry.The province is renowned

for its strong Buddhist tradi-tion, particularly the practice of forest-dwelling monks and the ancient Buddhist tem-ples, which can still be seen throughout the area today. The province is also known for its folk culture, which is expressed in the indigenous cuisine, handicrafts such as silk, cot-ton products, basketry, and bronze-ware, and traditional events including the Candle Festival held every July.

In addition, Ubon Rat-chathani is the gateway to Laos, bordered to the east by the Mekong River, to the south by Cambodia, to the west by Yasothon and Sisaket Provinces and to the north by Amnat Charoen Province. The provincial capital is ap-proximately 630 kilometres northeast of Bangkok, but in so many ways is worlds apart from the capital.251 Palochai Road, Ubon Ratchathani 3400, Thailand, 045-245-531; tohsang.com

CHECK-IN

The hotel is within easy reach of all local attractions, including natural and historical sites, various retail areas such as the famous Indochina shopping arcade, as well as the main night life and entertainment districts of the city.

WIN A FREE STAY HERE! SEE PAGE 16


thephuketnews.com


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ISLAND SCENE28

HAPPY IN LOVE: Well-known Phuket DJ Nittaya Yangyuen was a beautiful bride when she married her partner of three years, Phuket Motel owner Katijin Kusalakitti, on Friday (May 18) at Phuket Royal City Hotel. Photos: Narawut Sawatdiwet

FLYING WITH ZORRO: Ever Fly Ms Q, the brand belonging to Phuketian Quetta Locchi (top, far right), launched a TGIF (Thank Goodness It’s Friday) weekly cocktail event at the newly opened Zorro Club in Rawai on Friday (May 18).

The event will be held every Friday from 6pm to 9pm. Zorro Club is on the Rawai Beach road, directly opposite the Thai seafood restaurant Baan Haad Rawai, and approximately 100 me-tres from the Rawai OrBorTor office. For more information visit everflymsq.com


thephuketnews.com

29ISLAND SCENE

ON SHOW

SRI PANWA AND BRYGON RESERVE Wines teamed up for a wine tasting event on May 20, held at one of Sri Panwa’s private residence villas. Four wines were handpicked by the owner of the label Robert-Fraser Scott and winemaker Allan Waters. The vine-yards are located in the Margaret River region in Western Australia and are distributed in Thailand by Black Forest Distribution.

WINES

THE [email protected] Claire Connell


thephuketnews.com

ENTERTAINMENT30

WEEKDAYSBreakfast Sam Clarke 7am-11am

Non Stop Classics Live 89.5 11am-12pm

Lifestyle Steve Johnston 12pm-3pm

Drive Jason Wilder 3pm-7pm

Non Stop Music Live 89.5 7pm-7am

SATURDAY

Box Of Neutrals

Rob James, Peter McGinley & Michael Lamonato

9am-10am

Saturday Morning Glory

Sam Clarke 10am-12pm

Phuket News RadioSteve Johnston & Simon Ostheimer

12pm-1pm

Dazed and ConfusedBongo Bob & Baba Fats

1pm-4pm

Phuket News RadioSteve Johnston & Alasdair Forbes

4pm-5pm

Going Green Nick Anthony 5pm-7pm

Saturday Night Fever DJ Burt 7pm-11pm

SUNDAYDazed and Confused

Bongo Bob & Baba Fats

1pm til 4pm

Lazy Sunday Afternoons

Jason Wilder 4pm til 7pm

www.phuketliveradio.comTel: 076-612-895, 090-490-7895


T H E T H A N YA P U R A Carnival will be held on Satur-day, June 2, at the Thanyapura Sports and Leisure Centre, en-couraging people on the island to live healthy, play sports and engage in family activities.

Activities include athletics, Zumba, Muay Thai, tennis, beach volleyball, basketball contests, soccer and rugby penalty shootouts, swimming time trials, free massages, kids games and face painting.

There will also be prizes to be won, including six month family memberships to the centre, free night stays at Th-anyamundra and Thanyapura Sports Hotel, and vouchers from DiVine Restaurant, Thanyapura Spa, Integrated Health Clinic, Pura Organics and others.

The carnival runs from 10am to 5pm, and there will also be a fair that will run from midday to 5pm featuring live entertainment, arts and crafts vendors and a barbecue buffet lunch at DiVine (adults B750, children B350).

ThanyapuraCarnival on Saturday

Driving with the starsPhuket-based, Shane

Matthews has spent several years working

in the Australian film industry, including on blockbuster hits such as Chronicles of Narnia, Australia and Wolverine.

He now spends his time between Australia, and his home in Rawai.

Shane’s first introduction to the industry was around 2006, when he was working for a four wheel drive company in northern Queensland, driving “big American army hum-mers” through the rainforest.

At the time, the Australian television show Sea Patrol was being filmed in the area, and a friend asked Shane if he’d be interested in working as a deck hand in the naval-themed production.

Shane, who is a qualified truck driver, soon found out his hands-on skills were valuable to production companies, and began picking up other con-tracts with high profile films.

Though his work on Sea Patrol meant taking to the water, he mainly works in

transport logistics, meaning he drives large equipment trucks to film locations, as well as chauffeuring around Hollywood stars like Kate Hudson (while filming Fool’s Gold).

He spent 10 months on the road filming Australia, which was shot in many different locations around the country,

and worked on X-Men spin-off Wolverine, shot on location in Australia and New Zealand.

“For that film I was hand delivering film footage from New Zealand to Sydney.”

Next up was the Burning Man, then the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. For the latter, Shane took on a more mana-

gerial role, helping to run the camp on the Gold Coast. He was also the personal driver for Ben Barnes, who played King Caspian. More recently, he helped out on British real-ity show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, filmed in the jungles of northern New South Wales.

“I have never worked in such an amazing industry. Everyone is so professional, and everything is run so tight. It’s all down to the last minute, the second. These are big big budget films, US$150 million movies. It is huge money if you aren’t filming for an hour because of a technical glitch.”

Despite working with some big stars, Shane says life on set is pretty normal and not really all that glamorous.

“The actors are just here to work, we don’t fuss over them.

“Every single film has produced great memories for me – the laughter, the banter, and the stuff you hear over the crew radio. But when the pressures on, it’s on.”

Shane, left, with Matthew McConaughey from Fool’s Gold.

Bobby Charlton with Norman Willis (left), Grapevine’s David Brook (second from left) and invited guests.

Bee Gees star Robin Gibb dies aged 62

ROBIN GIBB, SINGER with the legendary British band the Bee Gees, died on Sunday aged 62 after a lengthy battle against cancer, his family said.

Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb scaled the heights of the pop world in the 1970s with disco hits including How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin’ Alive, and Night Fever.

The band notched up record sales of more than 200 million since their first hits in the 1960s.

Gibb underwent bowel surgery 18 months ago for an unrelated condition but a tumour was found and he was diagnosed with cancer of the colon and the liver.

Back in February, Gibb said he had made a “spec-tacular” recovery from his treatment, sparking hopes that his cancer was in remission, but recently experienced a sharp dete-rioration.

The singer fell into a coma last month after contracting pneumonia, but had raised hopes of survival after making an-other recovery.

Gibb was born on December 22, 1949 on the Isle of Man, the Brit-ish crown dependency, about half an hour before Maurice.

Soon after the twins were born, the Gibb fam-ily moved to Manchester, northwest England, and then to Brisbane in Aus-tralia in 1958.

Andy Gibb, their younger brother who was not in the Bee Gees, died in 1988 from cocaine addiction and Maurice died of a heart attack in 2003 following intestinal surgery.

Gibb was married twice, to Molly Hullis from 1968 to 1980, and to author/artist Dwina Mur-phy-Gibb and is survived by three children; Spencer, Melissa and Robin-John.

He was made a CBE in the 2002 New Year’s Honours List, along with his brothers.

Legends of the game

“THEY THINK IT’S ALL over, it is now!” Those immor-tal words by BBC commenta-tor Kenneth Wostenholme rang in my ears on that famous day in July 1966.

The day England won the World Cup at Wembley. The day Geoff Hurst hit a hat trick, the day Jack Charlton and his younger brother Bobby cavorted like teenagers.

Little did I know as cel-ebrations continued on that famous day that the Charl-ton brothers, surely the most famous brothers in football, would be back in my life in such different ways in years to come.

Jack was about to join the police but was offered a trial by Leeds United. He chose the trial over the force, and was offered an apprenticeship, signing professional terms in 1952. He became a stalwart for the mighty Leeds United, the only team apart from England he ever played for.

I first met Jack in Leeds

in the 1960s but our paths crossed regularly in the ‘80s and ‘90s in northeast England, at sporting events and on his visits to Federation Brewery, where I was Chief Executive.

Bobby was a couple of years younger. He signed with Manchester United in January 1953 as a 15 year old. There after began a remarkable ca-reer. His first team debut was against Charlton Athletic in October 1956, and he became one of the famous Busby Babes under Matt Busby.

But in 1958 disaster struck with the horrific air crash in Munich. Many of the leg-ends died, but Bobby was pulled free by teammate Harry Gregg. Bobby recovered, his

career progressed, World Cup and Club success followed as he set appearance and goal scoring records. He was knighted in 1994.

Manchester, July 1996 was to prove sensational for me. The occasion was the official opening of my Brewery’s new distribution centre attended by a number of distinguished guests, including Freddie Pye, at that time associated with Manchester City.

He brought a friend along, and imagine my shock and indeed delight as the friend turned out to be Bobby Charl-ton. My mind instantly re-called the famous words from 1966, but for me it was not all over, it was just beginning!


thephuketnews.com

31EVENTS

UNTIL JUNE 9

Somrak Maneemai at VR GallerySomrak Maneemai’s “Lost in the Clouds” collection is his newest work. Somrak has a MFA from Silpakorn University. His Red Gallery was specially mentioned in the New York Times and has recently relocated to the Phuket Art Village in Rawai.

The NYT commended the art village for its originality. The VR Gallery is located adja-cent to Mom Tri’s Villa Royale at the entrance of the Baan Kata Estate. Contact 076 333 568. See momtriphuket.com.

UNTIL MAY 27

Durian FestivalA tribute to Asia’s “King of Fruits”. Experience Durian like you have never tried anywhere before in this culinary feast at our DiVine Restaurant. For more information and reserva-tions please contact 076 336 000 or [email protected].

UNTIL MAY 28

Seafood FestivalCome and taste what good seafood is all about. Maine Lobster, Clams, Lagous-tines, Scottish Salmon, Monkfish as well as an oyster bar every night of the week featuring the freshest oysters direct from France, Australia and US!

Special seafood delicacies a la carte by chef Bryan Burger for lunch and dinner every day. Contact RE KÁ TA Club on the beach, 076 330 015.

MAY 26

Sea Breeze Re-Launch PartySea Breeze Restaurant on Surin Beach is having a re-launch party on 26 May 2012 with Pjae Stanley and Illy perfoming live, an all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet between 4pm and 9pm, Thai and Flame grilled American food plus alcoholic and soft drinks.

Prices start at B999 payable in advance online via www.thebestbeachclub.com or at Sea Breeze Restaurant direct located 50 metre from main car park. Contact 076 270 399, [email protected].

JUNE 2

Thanyapura CarnivalThanyapura invites everyone to visit our sports facilities with fun games and activi-ties. Get a chance to win special prizes for all of the activities. Contact Thanyapura Sports & Leisure Club, 076 336 000.

JUNE 2

The Bangkok TravellersLive band The Bangkok Travellers on Saturday night at 8pm. Also Sunday roast

served from 2pm. Every Sunday. Adults B299, children B150. Sugar Reef, opposite Tesco at Cherngtalay.

JUNE 4

Visakha Bucha Day Falls on the full moon of the sixth Thai lunar month (May). It usually falls in May. In the case of a year with an extra eighth lunar month, the Visakha Bucha Day falls on the full moon day of the seventh lunar month. A Buddhist observance commemorating the birth, enlightenment and passing of the Buddha.

Also observed as National Tree Day. On this, the holiest Buddhist holiday of the year, you will find the temples full with devotees receiving blessings and giving offerings. All government and public sector businesses will be closed, including most bars and pubs.

JUNE 7

Organic Spanish Wine & Tapas Night at Paresa

Join us for an exciting evening featuring certified organic Spanish wines from the Parés Baltà winery. Sample some of the finest cava and wines from this spec-tacular winery, presented by Parés Baltà’s winemaker Mr Maxime Bazart, distributed in Thailand by Black Forest Distribution. This is accompanied by a fine selection of tapas created by our executive Chef Ryan Arboleda. B1,100 net per person.

Time: 5pm onwards. Talung Thai Res-taurant. 49 Moo 6 Layi Nakalay Road, Kamala. Contact 076 302 000, email: [email protected], www.pare-saresorts.com.

AUGUST 2

Asalaha Bucha DayIt celebrates the first sermon given by the Lord Buddha on the full moon day of the Asalaha (the eighth lunar month). On that day, all Three of the Triple Gem, The Bud-dha, The Dhamma and The Sangha, had es-tablished. It became the day that honoured the Sangha, or the community of the monks.

AUGUST 12

HM the Queen’s BirthdayCommemorates the birthday of Queen Sirikit, also observed as National Mother’s Day (Wan Mae Haeng Chart). It is a public holiday.

List your event for FREE at thephuketnews.com/events.php UPCOMING EVENTS

www.phuketticketmaster.com

FEBRUARY 19 - 21, 2013

JUNE 23 - AUGUST 31 Learn to Fly - Flying Trapeze

“Learn To Fly” Flying Trapeze Lessons at Laguna at Canal Village. Open to the public everyday for all ages 4 years and up! Starts 5pm till late. We have “Try and Fly” classes, 1/2 hour and one hour sessions And don’t miss “The Laguna Fantasy Fly Shows” presented by “Ordinary People doing Ex-traordinary things”. Contact K.Pee 084 837 5726 or K.Gee 086 003 0241, [email protected] www.KidzSole.com.


thephuketnews.com

EVENTS32

List your event for FREE at thephuketnews.com/events.phpREGULAR EVENTSFRIDAY

................................................................................

Pool Competition @ Expat HotelPool Competition at 9pm. Expat Sports Bar, Expat Hotel, Soi Taipan, Patong. www.expatsportsbar.com.

SATURDAY

Two Chefs Saturday Brunch At Two Chefs Kata Centre. Every Saturday 12pm-3pm, you can enjoy a big delicious buffet with a touch of Scandinavia, and listen to our live music. For example: Our home-smoked salmon, smoked prawns, Swedish meatballs, roasted porkloin, home-made bread, delicious desserts and much more. B395 or B695 include free flow of Chang draught, wine, Sangria. See www.twochefs.com, 076 330 065, [email protected].................................................................................

BBQ at Expat HotelTime 8pm, Expat Sports Bar, Expat Hotel, Soi Taipan, Patong. www.expatsportsbar.com.

SUNDAY

Palazzo Sunday Circus ShowKids and adults of all ages are invited to our Sunday live circus shows in amazing mirror “Big Top” near Kathu waterfalls. Palazzo Sunday Circus is a colourful modern show where an “outrageous” team of interna-tional performers (acrobats, jugglers, aerial gymnasts and clowns) dissolve the borders between stage and audience so that you can be a part of the show. Price: Children B300, Adults B500. 076 202 277, www.phuket-palazzo.com.................................................................................

Sunday Roast PorkSunday Roast Pork or Beef Dinner Every Sunday 2pm onwards Expat Hotel, Soi Taipan, Patong B290. Stilton with Port or Wine Every Sunday 2pm onwards B290. www.expathotel.com.................................................................................

Lazy Sunday Jazz Morning at ParesaKick back and enjoy a lazy Sunday break-fast at Paresa with live jazz music, free flow sparkling wine and stunning selection of breakfast dishes. Spend the rest of the day at Paresa’s Infinity Pool or Beach Club. B600++ per person. Every Sunday 9am to noon. Call 076 302 000.

MONDAYTwo Chefs Surf Night

At Two Chefs Kata Beach. Every Monday from 6pm-12am. You can enjoy our big BBQ Buffet with Blackened red snapper, beef burgers, Chicken Fajitas, Tacos, Chimi-Churri marinated chicken, desserts from our

bakery and much more. One member from our house band will sing pleasant music during the night.

Only B495. See www.twochefs.com, 076 284 155, [email protected].

TUESDAY

Pool Competition at Expat Guesthouse

Pool Competition Every Tuesday 9pm Ex-pat Guesthouse Sports Bar, Patong. See map at www.expatguesthouse.com.

WEDNESDAY

Two Chefs Tex Mex NightAt Two Chefs Karon 6pm-1am. Every Wednesday you can enjoy Phuket’s best Mexican food. Chili con carne, Mexican rice, Mexican springrolls, nachos, pork fillet skewers, salmon quesadillas, grilled corn cob, desserts from our bakery and much more. Our house band will be here to play live music. B495 or B795 include free flow Chang draught and Sangria. See www.twochefs.com, call 076 286 479, [email protected].

THURSDAYAA Phuket Meetings @ TGM

All meetings are one hour long and held in English at The Green Man Pub, one km from Chalong circle. Contact 081 895 4763.

DAILY

Very Happy Hours at Friendship Beachfront Resort

4-6pm. Everyday. B60 - All beers. B90 - House wine and Single shot drinks. B150 Tall cocktail. Great food, great drink, great fun all the time. Charlie 089 728 5304, [email protected], 27/1 Soi Mit-trapap, Rawai, Phuket.


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33JOBS

Bargain land in RawaiQuiet location for sale, 724 sqm > 36CLASSIFIEDS

Edited by Jarunee Phetchmanee [email protected]

List your ad for FREE at thephuketnews.com/classifieds.php JOBS IN PHUKETSwimming Teacher: Looking for a qualified Thai swimming teacher to teach and assist teaching swim-ming for HeadStart Inter-national school and after school classes at FunStart. Salary B15,000 plus good commission. Contact: 076 203 185, 087 882 5544.

Tr a i n e e M a n a g -er: Thai national with a degree,excellent English skills, outgoing personal-ity and an enthusiasm to learn and succeed are all essential to start a career in the swimming pool in-dustry. Salary negotiated. Email [email protected].

Office Staff Wanted: Fluent in English, Thai na-tionality, age 25 - 40, with experience in travel agency and/or real estate business. Working hours: Mon - Sat 9am - 6pm. Send CV hel [email protected].

Receptionist: Recep-t ionist needed for Fun-Start Family Sports Club in Kathu. Should have a working knowledge of cashier duties, a good com-mand of English and good customer relation skills. Sal-ary B15,000. Contact 076 203 185, 087 882 5544.

Looking for Staff: Da-Vinci Restaurant in Rawai Naiharn is looking for staff.Waitress and bartender with experience. Working hours 4pm-11.30pm, one day off, good salary. Contact: 086 947 5197.

Real - Estate Staf f Wanted: Looking for full time young Thai staff, fluent in spoken and written Eng-lish with real estate busi-ness experience. Please send an e-mail with a photo to [email protected].

Housekeeping Staff Required: 5 day work

week, service charge, duty meals and transportation. Experience required but not necessary. Good attitude. 076 372 300.

Sa l e sp er son Re -quired:- Thai female – good command of English, confident, and highly-moti-vated for a Design Agency based in Phuket. Basic sal-ary plus commission. Con-tact: [email protected] or call 083 502 5552.

Operations Manager / Sales: Club Asia Fit-ness - Phuket’s leading fitness centre requires an Operations Manager and a Sales Consultant. Re-quirements Thai National, degree and must be able to communicate in English. [email protected].

Sales Executive: We have an opening for a field

Immediate Start: Thai Divemaster with good Eng-lish and professional at-titude wanted for Phi Phi dive centre. Salary + com-mission + board/lodging. Contact 076 381 765, email [email protected].

Accountant: Two posi-tions for accountant are urgently required at Ho-telTravel.com. Vocational or bachelor degree in Ac-counting. Please send CV or call for more details. Fresh graduates are also welcome. Call 076 282 808, email [email protected].

Job Vacancy - Hotel-Travel.com: Geo Coding Officer, Admin Researcher, Data Research Admin and Business Coordinator Hotel Partners. Bachelor’s degree in any field. Good English skills. Please send CV or call for details. Call 076 282 808, email jobs@ho tel-travel.com.

Thai Nat ional Ar t Teacher: Phuket Inter-national School has an opening for a position of an Art teacher. Require-ments: Thai National, good English, education in Art or in the related field. Email [email protected].

Accountant: We are looking for a full-time ac-countant to work in an In-ternational School. 5 days a week. 8 am to 5 pm. Thai national. Must speak Eng-lish. [email protected].

P r i v a t e D r a m a Teacher WANTED: Female students aged 6 and 9 years old are looking for someone fun and creative to do some private drama and movement lessons after school (4.30-6pm) twice a week, in the Laguna area. This person must be English speaking and non-smoking. Please email: [email protected] with previ-ous training credentials, photo of yourself and contact details.

sales executive to promote our range of luxury website and print design products. See our jobs page on lfr-asia.com for more info and details on how to apply. Email: [email protected].

Kindergarten Teach-er Wanted: We are look-ing for a native English kindergarten teacher to join our team to teach 10-12 children aged 3-6 years of age. Must have a mini-

mum Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent. Contact Daniel 084 520 4978, email: [email protected].

Thai Nat ional PE Teacher: Phuket Inter-national School has an opening for a position of PE teacher. Requirements: Thai National, good Eng-lish, education in the re-lated field. Email [email protected].

S u m m e r C a m p T e a c h e r s R e -quired: The British International School, Phuket are seeking ESL teachers for their annual July English Summer Camp programme. Full programme details are available on our school website. Applicants are ideally required to have a recognised educa-tion degree and a TEFL quali f icat ion. Please submit your applications to [email protected].

The Sanctuary Thailand, located in Koh Phang Ngan is currently looking for

HEAD COOKTo manage a small family type kitchen with 10 happy

staff - Famous vegetarian and seafood menu.

- Cooking Thai and Farang food - Quality supervision- Supervising a Kitchen team- Managing stock and supply- Some English required

THB 25’000.- + accomodation and meals

Contact us now at :[email protected] by phone at 081 271 3614


thephuketnews.com

CLASSIFIEDS34

List your advert for FREE at thephuketnews.com/classifieds.phpBUY & SELL IN PHUKET

Speedboat Dive/Snor-kelling: Customised speed-boat diving, snorkelling, GPS radio, 2x Yamaha engines 200cc. Also available Bauer compressor 40 tanks regs BC DS boat. B900,000. Call Joe 087 891 8912, [email protected].

Dive Speedboat for Sale: Custom bui l t dive speedboat.A must-see; one of a kind in Phuket. Places for 24 divers. 49 feet Glassfiber 675hp Honda Engines. Only 1 year old ready with all licences for business. Contact: 084 188 4544.

BOATS & YACHTS

35 Feet Speedboat for Sale: 35 Feet Speedboat with Yamaha 2 x 200 HP-. Recently spent B380,000 to rebuild like new. Selling it for B1 million. Call 085 064 4806 for more details or [email protected].

Custom Build Dive Speedboat: 49ft Fiber-glass Boat, 24 Diver Seat, one year old, 3 Honda engines 675hp, survey for international Insurance,all safety equip-ment, VHF radio,side entry and exit doors, 35 places plus 5 staff. Contact: 084 188 4544.

BUSINESSES FOR SALE

Guesthouse and Shop For Sale: Three-storey 10-metre-wide double shop premises plus 10 newly-fully-

furbished rental rooms above for sale in Phuket Country Club area. Chanote title. B22 million or nearest offer. Call 081 606 5772.

Four Level Guesthose Bangla Road: Four level guesthouse/hotel in the centre of Bangla Road. Located in a busy soi with many restaurants and small pubs and a big hotel. Big lounge on the bottom floor. Very cheap selling asap. 087 272 4862.

BUSINESS SERVICES

Tile It: Thalang. Wana Park on Srisoonthorn Rd. Phuket’s quality tile boutique. Tiles for interior, exterior, residential, commercial. Contact 076 620 168 or 081 424 2828. Email [email protected].

Indo Construction: 40 years’ experience and more than 20 years at your service in Thailand. Main contractor: study project, architecture design and construction and management. Contact: 076 381 895.

Farang Food Paradise: Your specialist of imported food and drinks in Phuket. Visit our shop at the Billion Plaza, opposite Tesco Lotus. Contact: 076 612 733, 076 248 900. www.phuketfood.com.

Techworx: Custom design & installation. Professional service and support. Premium service: home cinema, home automation, marine AV and IT, lighting control and multi-room audio-video. Call: 084 443 9863.

CARS FOR RENT

The car for rent: Car in good condition, short and long-term rental with first-class insurance and delivery service. Call 086 690 6007, email: [email protected].

A1 Car Rentals: Fully-insured. Starts at B12,000 to B18,000 per month. Please call 089 831 4703. Email for more info: [email protected].

CARS FOR SALE

Nissan Navara Calibre: As new only 7,000kms. Pearl White unmarked condition. Leather, DVD, Tint, Towbar, Rollbar, Rust and Paint Pro-tect. An eyecatcher with 20” Rims and 265 profile tyres. Bargain. Email [email protected].

CHILDCARE

Buds Nursery: Phuket’s oldest bilingual internation-al child care facility. High-quality, time-proven schedule and curriculum. Now in brand new purpose-built school. Experienced native English teachers to teach ages 1 1/2-8. Mon-Fri 8am.-5pm. Bus service available from Patong, Karon, Kata, Phuket, Rawai and Chalong. Website: www.buds-phuket.com.

CLUBS & MEMBERSHIPS

Club Asia Fitness: Royal Phuket City Hotel. Offers Zum-ba/LesMills classes/weight training/sauna/steam/swim-ming pool, all inclusive. For a free trial workout, come along and join the action. Tel 076 354 027, 087 275 3614. www.clubasiaphuket.com.

Funstart: Family sports and leisure club. Swimming/golf/playcentre/gaming arcade. Call 076 203 185, 087 882 5544. See funstar tphuket.com.

SK AL Internat ional Phuket: Skål is a profes-sional organisation of leaders from all branches of the travel and tourism industry. www.skalphuket.org.

Singapore Club Phuket: Calling all Singaporeans in Phuket to join “Singapore Club Phuket”. Contact Robin on 081 803 7189, 076 303 500.

EDUCATION

Russian Language for Your Kids: Are your chil-dren starting to forget Rus-sian? Sign up to our Russian Language For Kids program. Visit ht tp://PhuketRussian School.com, email us at [email protected] or call 082 804 9131.

Want to Practice your Thai?: Thai courses and lessons for daily life (culture and language) with friendly and energised Thai female teacher. Graduated from uni-versity. Negotiable prices can be offered. Plus have outdoor activities for your experience. Call 080 386 5026.

Cooking School: Fire up your creative flair with Food Services Cooking School. Ital-ian, Western and Thai cuisine. Try our famous pizza school. 082 816 0126, email: [email protected].

MOVING & STORAGE

MOTORBIKES FOR SALE

Boutique Hotel For

Sale: - 4 floors- 6 rooms (television, re-frigerator, air-conditioning, safety box and furniture in-cluded)- 7 bathroom (1 downstairs bathroom)- Kitchen (cooker, hood cooker)- Reception area (Currently used as coffee shop)- WiFi- CCTV- Key card and key tag sys-tem- Good security- Growing area- Good location- Successful businessPrice B10 million. Call 088 761 2617, 085 261 3405.

We Sell Boxes & Moving Supplies: At MY STORAGE Self Storage you can buy quality moving and packing supplies like in-dividual boxes, bubble wrap, packing tapes & knives plus secure padlocks. We also help you to move and store. Call 076 292 909.

Safeway Storage-Self storage from B800/M.-Container rental B3,000/M-Sales /Si te of f ice A /C

B6,000/M -Mobile toilets B2,800/M

Chalong - opposite Wat Chalong. Thalang -main Highway. Contact 076 313 235, 081 125 1873.

Rent: Honda Jazz with Insurance Delivery to your Residence. Call 084 304 6723

Palm House Interna-tional School: Palm House International School, Rawai. Ages 5 -11years. Qualified and experienced teachers, extensive grounds Extra curricular activities include: Swimming, Bas-ketball, Mandarin, Russian. Please look at our facebook page Palm House School or www.palmhouseprima-ryschool.com for further in-formation. Contact details: 076 288630, [email protected].

Repossessed Motorbikes:

-2011 Finos from 26,000B.

-2011 Scoopys from 29,000B.

-2011 Clicks from 29,000B.

Safeway Asia main Highway Thalang (next to Shell Gas Station). Contact 076 313 235, 081 125 1873.


thephuketnews.com

35CLASSIFIEDS

List your advert for FREE at thephuketnews.com/classifieds.php BUY & SELL/HOMES IN PHUKETfull western kitchen. Gated entry in quiet development across from Boat Lagoon, near BIS. ADSL, Satellite, Only B30k per month. Martin 087 850 4684.

Furnished 3bed 2bath + Office Near Central for Rent: Furnished house for rent opposite HeadStart International School by Central and Makro. 2 air-con. ADSL, washer, 2 hideaway sofa, 2 TVs, 3 desks, office with view over shared swimming pool. B17,000. Contact May 089 973 3276.

PROPERTY FOR SALE

Thai Style House for Sale: Teak wood f loors, stairs, walls, 2 bedrooms. Land 330 sq metre, peace-ful location, five minutes to Patong, Chanote title. B5.5 million. 086 268 8701, email: [email protected].

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS FOR SALE

5 Star River Cruise: A fabulous 4 day/3 night riv-erboat cruise up the River Kwai. B55,000. Price includes 2 persons in one luxury cabin, daily excursions, transfers from Bangkok, meals. www.destinationthailand.tv. +66 (0) 81 938 1728, email: les@capi taltv.co.th.

Air Tickets to Samui: Need to sell air ticket barter quickly. Substantial savings. Please email or call me for details. +66 (0) 81 938 1728. Email : [email protected].

Health Food : Online health food in Thailand. Good Kar-ma, all natural healthy, natural and organic products. Contact 082 276 1675. www.goodkar mathailand.com.

PERSONAL SERVICES

Bon Café Phuket: A producer of premium coffee

blends and powdered mixes as well as selling, maintain-ing, servicing and repairing all major brands. 076 355 600-1.

Buon Appetito: Deli market and bistro. Number one supplier of Italian Deli in Phuket. Call 076 384 273, [email protected], www.buonappetitogroup.com.

Haris & Hawryluck - At-torneys at Law: Unit 6D CCM Complex, call 076 510 111, email info@hhlegaladvi sors.com, www.hhlegaladvi sors.com.

American Health Clinic: Chiropractic spinal adjustment with an experienced chiroprac-tor can take away the pain almost as quickly as it began. Call 076 612 707.

PET ADOPTION

Why buy a pet?: Soi Dog Foundation have over 300 beautiful dogs and puppies available for adoption. Ful-ly-vaccinated and sterilised. Contact 085 574 4258. Email: [email protected].

PET HOSPITALChaofah Pet Hospital: 8/28–29 Moo 9, Chaofah East Road. Contact 076 283 365.

POOL TABLES

Phuket Pool Tables: www.phuketpooltables.com. Your number one billiard and snooker supplier in Phuket. Sales, rent and profit-sharing. All accessories and services. Call 081 823 4627.

PROPERTY CONCIERGE

PROPERTY FOR RENT

Space for Rent in Patong: Off ice, Busi-ness space for rent on f if th f loor of Patong Tow-e r. C a l l 076 3 41 370 .

Private Pool Villa: Private pool villa for rent, Rawai area, 5 minutes to Chalong centre, fully furnished. Please con-tact : 089 472 9870, e-mail: [email protected]

4 Bed/5 Bath Home-B30k month: Immaculate 4 bed/5 bath custom home with

6.1 Rai Land for Sale: 10,000sq metre. B2,500,000 p e r r a i . To t a l p r i c e : B15,600,000. 5 minutes to Naithon Beach, 10 minutes to Naiyang Beach, 10 minutes to airport, 7 minutes to new Tes-co Lotus. Roadside land and chanote title. 085 793 2718.

Selling or Renting Your Property?: We have buyers for foreign free-hold, sea view properties and land. Call 080 143 2929 or visit realestate.phuket.net.

THE SUNRISE OCEAN VILLAS

After a great success of the first phase, the Sunrise Ocean Villas is now starting to build the 8 other villas of "Phase2". The price of 17.9 million baht makes the proj-ect one of the most compet-titive on the island for being only 60m from the beach.

Each v i l la has a l iv ing area of over 300 sqm, has 3 spacious bedrooms, all sea views, 5 bathrooms, a 10x4m infinity pool, maid's quarter and a covered 2-car parking. The houses are specially designed to guar-antee a complete privacy, with an open panoramic view of the sea.

Come visit the villas and you will be wonderfully sur-prised by the quality of the project as well as the quality of life you can find here.

For appointment or more details, contact the project director Khun Montha at 081 343 0777 (Thai, English & German) Email: thesunri [email protected].

www.thesunrisevillas.com

65% Off in Low Sea-son!: This Peninsula Villa Phuket is located in Cape Panwa. Phuket. This villa has swimming pool, aircon. and WiFi . Below rates are daily. Weekly and monthly rates available upon on request.

• Standard room, share toilet and shower B1,000 • Deluxe room B1,500 • Su-perior room B2,500 • Pent-house B10,000. Please call James 085 064 4806 or email to [email protected].

Mission Heights Residence

Designed specially for fami-lies, the Mission Heights Residence offer very spa-cious 540 Sqm houses, all with 12 meter long swim-ming pool, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, guest bunga-low, maid quarter and a nice garden in a very secure, children friendly environ-ment only couple of minutes from Phuket International Academy.

Located only 10 minutes from Airport, Grand Ao Por Marina, new Tesco Shop-ping center, 2 golf courses, Naiyang beach, Thanya-pura sport / leisure center and international school, the Mission Heights Residence is a perfect place to live for families without traffic in a very peaceful, secure and natural surrounding.

The Villas currently under construction being built to highest western standard and are launched at only 13.9 million Baht for the first 3 houses.

For appointment or more details contact project direc-tor, Khun Montha at 088 75 11 750 or email [email protected].

Renovated Condo for Sale: Patong near Simon Cabaret, 50sq me-tre hugh pool and garden area. Everything new fully furnished plus kitchen, free hold. Sale B3 million, no stupid offers. Thai 087 621 3405/ English. Contact 085 471 9246.

Land for Sale Mis-sion Hills:

800 sq metre1300 sq metre1600 sq metre.

Very quiet and private loca-tions, very close to airport, Tesco, Golf courses and Phuket International Acad-emy. All Chanote title from B1.7 million. Contact 087 276 0529.

Are You Looking for Cat or Dog: All these animals are homeless and looking for a loving place to call home, fully vaccinated, Neutered and healthy. If in-terested to meet one of these animals, please call 084 877 3566.

Luxury Condo Kata Beach: Stunning seaview 5 star, 1 bed room lounge kitchen, micro wave, satel-lite TV, DVD WiFi. Weekly/Monthly rates. Call James 090 864 4519.

H o m e a n d W o r k Chaofa: 800sq.metre 7 years renewable contract, B40,000 a month, building with three rooms, bathroom, living area, office, I live all you see, second building up to three offices, two bath-rooms, showroom,bike in the price. Contact 084 552 9792.


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CLASSIFIEDS36

List your advert for FREE at thephuketnews.com/classifieds.phpHOMES IN PHUKETPROPERTY

FOR SALE CONT.

Land for Sale: Land Mis-sion Hills half rai plot, quiet select location, chanote, water, electricity. Price B1.6m. Six rai hilltop, sea/mountain views, chanote, water, electricity and office. B4.2m per rai. Call 087 978 5804.

Allamanda (Laguna) Residences/Phuket: 1 condo unit, half of a deluxe twin house, fully-furnished and equipped, set direct on the picturesque lagoon with balcony right over it. 3 bed-rooms each with shower/bath-room, roof terrace with sala, etc. For sale or long-term rent. Phone (66) 081 737 0365

(English, Thai, German) email: [email protected]. Discount Rentals

Daily / Weekly / Monthly / LeaseLUXURY VILLAS NEAR LAGUNA

Info: 089 594 4067

Land For Sale: 6 rai Hill-top, sea/mountain views, cha-note, water, electricity and office. B4.2 million per rai, Contact : 087 978 5804.

Rawai Pool Villa: 4 bed-room/4 bathroom European style single-storey house with self-contained guesthouse and pool on 736m2 plot. Large master bedroom with en-suite, walk-in wardrobe. Modern western-style kitchen with granite tops, built-ins through-out and 4 air-cons. Electric gate, TV and phone line. Large verandahs, carport, and es-tablished garden. Chanote title B11m, 087 891 9349.

Sea View Villa: Lux-ury seaview Patong-Karon vi l la, four bedrooms, pr i -vate pool. Sell for B22 mil-l i on, and a lso ava i lab le rental dai ly and monthly basis. www.awphuket.com.

Kata House For Sale: 5 minutes to beach, large modern house, three floors, furnished, three beds, two full bath, air-con, western k i tchen, spac ious l i v ing

Home/Self-Contained Office: Fully-established estate between Patong and Kamala. Ground floor: self-con-tained office with own entrance (approx. 70sq metre) First floor: entrance, kitchen, dining, liv-ing plus games room. Second floor: Two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms. Master with separate living room/third bed-room. Price: B5,500,000. Sold with 20-year lease (B23,000 per month equivalent). 089 586 2959.

Condo in Phuket Town for Sale/Rent: New condo, 1 bed, fully-furnished, WiFi, maid service, sea view. Call 081 893 5188.

room, garage with laundry/overhead storage, large cov-ered patios, security doors/windows, garden, company name available. B5.5 million. Call 081 131 5751, email: [email protected].

Perfect Land for Villa: Approx three rai, with chanote title, 2 km south of Thai Muang town centre. Just 24 km north of Sarasin Bridge. Good road access and electricity. Very quiet, green area. Urgent sale for just B5 million total, non-negotiable. 089 652 1951 or email [email protected].

New Apartment for Sale Patong: Condo: swimming pool, security 24/7. Furnished, 46sqm, freehold: B2.9 million. 089 728 4005, [email protected].

Kamala Two Brand New Villas: Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, Western kitchen, 130 sq metre. Nice garden with large pool in quiet area. Price: B5.5 million or minimum three- month rental. Call 081 496 9070 (Eng/Swedish) or 081 719 1175 (Thai). Email:[email protected].

REAL ESTATE SERVICES

Jindarin Beach Club & Resort: B1.5 million for one plot, B3.2 million for cottage + plot. Call 080 467 7770 (Thai), 083 520 0020 (English). www.jinda rin.com, Email: [email protected].

Modern Pool Villa: Stunning three-bedroom pool villa, five minutes from Laguna 600 sq metre plot in peaceful location. Finished to a very high specif ica-tion. MUST SEE. Selling price B12.9 million. Please contact 084 994 9303 or email [email protected].

SEAVIEW LAND FOR SALE: Near Chalong pier, 150 metres from the sea. Three rai and one ngan plot. Chanote title. Price: B25 mil-lion per rai. No agent. Call 087 278 7206

1.5 Rai (2 X 0.75 Rai) Chanote at Cape Yamu: 1.5 rai f lat land at Cape Yamu. 2 x 0.75 rai adjoining plots OrBorTor road access to super end of soi private location. Private sale direct from the owner. Only 3.5 million baht per rai. Contact 081 087 9237, www.phuketlandforsale.net.

Modern, New Two-Storey Villa for Sale: Living space 200 m2, bal-cony. terraces, three beds, two baths, furnished, ADSL, tropical garden, calmly gated village, clubhouse pool/ten-nis court, near Phuket Town, shopping, Rawai-Naiharn beach. Call 089 593 8690, [email protected].

MY STORAGE– The Home Extension: Store your belongings at MY STORAGE Storage solutions to home space problems arising from situa-tions such as: moving, reno-vating, relocation, travel or simply lack storage space at home. Call 076 292 909.

Incredible investment: Five bed, four bath pool villa. Luxuriously- furnished. Wood pizza oven, 14x4 metre salt water pool. Chanote, Thai company and finance avail-able. B14.9 million. www.villa-demeo-phuket.com, call 087 897 4421 or [email protected].

Exclusive Pool Villa with Class & Style. Land 700 sq metre. Big pool with sala, 400 sq metre living area, 4 sleeping room, dining, guesthouse, garage, 6 bathroom. Full basement. Private street. Bargain price B16 million. www.phuketlivingart.com, [email protected]. Call Rene: 080 890 5137 Yupin: 081 817 4805.

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PHUKET SPORT38

SWIMMINGDane [email protected]

Paralympians dive into Phuket

The eyes of the world will be on London come the Olympics in July, but

for a group of elite athletes currently training in Phuket, their focus lies a few weeks further down the road.

That group is the core squad of the Australian Paralympic Swim Team, who have been in camp at British International School Phuket (BIS) since last Sunday (May 13) to prepare the London 2012 Paralympic Games in August.

Despite the team not being finalised until July 4, the 14 swimmers currently training at BIS have already had their places confirmed – all are in the top three in the world for their respective disciplines.

“The main purpose of this camp is to get us out of our comfort zone,” swimmer Jacqui Freney, 19, said.

The dual world record holder and three-time Para-lympic bronze medalist, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, has been swim-ming competitively since she

was seven, something she believes has continually given her motivation.

“Without swimming I don’t know where I would be... It’s taught me you can never set the bar too high.”

For Annabelle Williams, the school grounds of the training camp are not unfamiliar. The 23-year-old, who was born without her lower left arm, grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, and attended the British Inter-national School there.

Moving to Australia at age 10, Williams was forced to give up athletics after suffering stress fractures, and so turned her attention to the pool.

She obviously took naturally to the transition; Williams won a bronze medal in the 100 metres butterfly at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics, and a bronze in the same event at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.

But if her achievements in the pool weren’t inspiring enough, Williams has also just graduated from a Law and International Relations degree at Bond University in Australia, completing a six month internship at the Australian Embassy in Paris. She is also off to Washington

DC in December to intern in the US State Department alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She’s not the only one pursuing academic interests; Michael Anderson, 24, has also just deferred his Bachelor in Sports Management at Griffith University to focus on the London Paralympics.

Anderson, who suffered nerve damage to his legs and has hearing impairment after being diagnosed with menin-gitis at age three, said the team environment of competitive sport helps keep him motivated.

An intrepid traveller and

self-confessed adventure junkie, Michael won a silver medal in the 100m backstroke at his first Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2008, and believes he can go one better this year.

Yet despite their humility, all three athletes agree that competitive sport has given an outlet to push their boundaries.

But they have been fortu-nate in that respect, as they acknowledge the same op-portunities are not afforded to those with a disability in Thailand.

The team say they have already noticed that accessibil-

ity issues in Phuket can make it challenging to get around, and they have been the subject of curious stares from locals when they ventured outside the grounds of BIS.

“I think it’s different in Australia,” Annabelle said. “It’s a different attitude towards people with a disability.”

Head coach Brenden Keogh believes the attitude in Asia is improving slowly, as is the quality of Asian athletes with a disability. But he said there are still not the same kinds of sporting opportunities here as in the West. “We’d love for there

to be more meets in Asia. It’s something I’ve talked to the Asian head coaches about... if nations like Thailand or Singapore decide to put on regular meets, we’d certainly be interested.”

Of course, for now, the focus remains firmly on the London Paralympic Games, and the team are quietly confident of a big medal haul.

“I think the team’s physical maturity is there, and the mental strength is there to take on the other nations,” Keogh said.

Having now spent more than a decade as head coach, Keogh has confidence in his team’s ability both in and out of the water.

“I actually think the guys here are able bodied and they use what they have to the best of their ability, and that makes them more able bodied than most of the community,” he said.

The team return to Aus-tralia on Tuesday (May 29).BIS are holding a competition tomorrow (May 26), pitting the school’s best swimmers against the Australian Para-lympians. It will run from 9am-midday at the BIS pool. Spectators are welcome.

Paralympic swimmers Annabelle Williams, Jacqui Freney and Michael Anderson.

Tennis stars shineTHE SECOND EDITION OF the three-leg Intana Open 2012 tennis competition was held last weekend (May 19-20).

In the final round of men’s doubles, well-known Phuket tennis players Vanit Sinhakarn and Somchai Rattanapan, beat brothers Boonlert and Kritsana Kosathip 6-3, 6-4.

In the men’s over 40s dou-bles, Worawut Wutthikornpan and Thongchai Jongkawinit beat local favourites Prasan Klinhom and Nash Ladha.

In mixed doubles, Eaka-pong Sukyam and Waleeporn Kongchana lost to Nikorn Intaramunee and Kobkarn Rattakarnkowibul 3-6, 4-6.

Banlue Wongjaroen, Vanit Sinhakarn and Somchai Rattanapan.

FOOTBALLDane [email protected]

Phuket can’t fly over Air Force

TH E LIGHTS W ER E turned on at Surakul Stadium for the first time this season on Saturday (May 19), but it still couldn’t fire up FC Phuket as the boys once again failed to secure an elusive home victory.

With the Kirin knowing they needed to break their recent run of poor form, Brazilian goalkeeper Alonso da Silva was sidelined for the match as coach Miloš Joksić experimented with a more attacking midfield

that featured Marcio Santos and Ibrahim Kanouté, as well as Nenebi Sylvestre up front.

Only three foreign players (plus one foreign Asian) are allowed on the pitch at any one time, and so Alonso was forced to watch in frustration as replacement goalkeeper Peerachart Yimthong made a couple of basic errors that nearly cost the home side the match.

Nenebi Sylvestre had the first chance for Phuket, latching onto a header from a free kick to send the ball agonisingly close, clipping the outside of the left post.

A minute later though, the home crowd were silenced as

Ononiwu Chukwuma chipped past Peerachart to send Air Force ahead 1-0.

It opened the floodgates for what was the most exciting passage of play seen at Surakul Stadium in months, but soon the Southern Sea Kirin found themselves 3-1 down after 22 minutes as Peerachart struggled under the high crosses, allow-ing in two soft goals.

Rather than conceding defeat, however, Phuket em-barked on the type of spirited attacking performance that has been lacking all season.

First Watcharapong Chan-ngam scored with a direct free kick curled straight into the

top right corner, then a few minutes later the forward beat Air Force keeper Devala Gorrick again, squeezing a low shot into the bottom right corner.

The scores remained deadlocked as the half time whistle sounded, but Phuket were the side in ascendance, finally resembling the pro-fessional football team local fans are desperately seeking.

Unfortunately though, both teams came out for the second half lacking any kind of spark, and in the end, there was nothing separating the two sides, and the final whistle went for a 3-3 draw.

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39PHUKET SPORT

RUGBYDane [email protected]

SPORTM T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T

VENUE21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5

OPENING AND CLOSING CEREMONIES

Surakul Stadium

1 TRACK AND FIELD Surakul Stadium

2 SWIMMING 50 Metres OrBorJor Swimming Pool

3 GOLF Loch Palm Golf Course

4 KABADDI PSU Stadium

5 AIR SPORTS Chao Fa Tin Mine

6 CRICKET The Alan Cooke Cricket Ground

7 KARATE Sapan Hin Stadium 3

8 ROAD BIKE Thepkrasattri Rd (Makprok-Tha Chatchai)

OFF ROAD BIKE Bang Kon Tee Motorcross Racing in Rawai

TRACK BIKE Rajaphat University Field

9 SOFT TENNIS Sapan Hin Tennis Course

10 SOFT BALL Chai Field in Town

11 SEPAK TAKRAW Samkong School Court

HOOP TAKRAW Phuket Technical College Court

12 TAEKWONDO Rajabhat University Hall

13 TENNIS OrBorJor Tennis Court in Phuket Town

14 TABLE TENNIS Mahogany Hall of Stree Phuket School

15 BRIDGE Rajabhat University Minor Hall

16 BASKETBALL Stree Phuket Basketball Court

17 BADMINTON Sapan Hin Stadium 2

18 BOWLING CS Bowl at Big C

19 PENCAK SILAT Piboon Sawatdee School in Phuket Town

20 PETONG Sapan Hin Petong Court

21 FENCING Chalemprakiet School

22 MALE FUTSAL Sapan Hin Football Filed

FEMALE FUTSAL Cherng Talay Wittaya School Football Field

23 WRESTLING Wichit Songkram School Hall

24 AMATEUR BOXING Kathu Wittaya School Hall

25 WEIGHT LIFTING Phuket Vocational College canteen

26 SHOOTING Kathu Shooting Gallery

27 GYMNASTIC Cherng Talay Wittaya School hall

28 JUDO Wichit Songkram School Hall

29 RUGBY Kathu Wittaya School Field

30 SAILING Ao Yon

31 ROWING BOAT Nai harn Public Pond

32 DANCING Rajabhat University Hall

33 BEACH VOLLEYBALL Sapan Hin Beach Volleyball Field

INDOOR V/BALL Sapan Hin Stadium 1

34 WUSHU Phuket Thai Hua School Indoor Field

35 SNOOKER Bang Niew School Hall

36 GO Laddawan Hall of Chalermprakiet School

37 INDOOR HOCKEY Patong Futsal Club Field

O/DOOR HOCKEY Patong Football Club Field

38 HANDBALL Phuket Tai Hua School

39 THAI BOXING Tessaba Kathu School Stadium

40 WOODBALL Sapan Hin Stadium

Competition No competition Opening/Closing ceremonies *For more info, visit phuketgames.com (Thai)

Phuket Youth Games Schedule

Vagabonds ready for 10s kickoff

With the annual Phuket Heineken Interna-tional Rugby 10s

tournament kicking off today (May 25), the local side has every reason to feel confident.

Captain of the Phuket Vagabonds, Dan Ashburn, who represented English RFU Championship side Moseley before moving to Phuket, said his team was in the best shape he’d ever seen.

“I think this is going to be the strongest side we’ve ever had at the 10s competition, at least as long as I’ve been involved in the club.

“Hopefully that means we’ve a chance of getting a bit further than we have in the past.”

The competition is divided into three categories – Spoon, Plate and Cup. Last year, the

Vagabonds made it to the Plate finals, something which Dan is confident of replicating, and possibly improving on.

“I think the Cup final might be a bit out of our reach, as we’re competing against guys who play rugby week-in-week-out. The Plate final is definitely a realistic goal though.”

But perhaps more impor-tant for the Vagabonds is the coveted Weasel Cup, taken home by the winner of the lo-cal derby between Phuket and the Bangkok ‘Bangers’. Dan said that this year he’s feeling “confident” that the trophy will stay on the island.

But rivalries aside, tourna-ment director Pat Cotter said the aim of the weekend was as much about what happens off the pitch as on.

“The whole weekend is about fun and having a good time, and raising money for the Asia Center Foundation (ACF) Scholarship programme.”

Pat, who will be competing for the Phuket Viagrabonds in the Coffin Dodgers (35+) competition, is feeling a little less confident about his side’s potential than his younger counterparts.

“It just depends on the day really – we’re a very transient side so it’s hard to keep a con-sistent squad together.”

For Dan, the shifting na-ture of his team has been helped by a growing contin-gent of Thai players.

This growing skill base amongst Thai players is some-thing which both Dan and Pat agree is one of the principle focuses of rugby on the island

– developing a strong local base to allow the game to grow.

“We would love to have more players involved on a weekly basis, so we could travel and play at tournaments across Thailand and Asia,” Dan said.

All games this weekend are being played on a full-size field at Kata Group Sports Ground in Chalong, and are divided

The Phuket Vagabonds with captain Dan Ashburn (fourth right) and Pat Cotter (fourth left).

Young cricketers prepare to grab Games by balls

P H U K E T ’ S Y O U N G cricketers may have had a dis-appointing season in the Island Furniture League (IFL), but for most of them, the year’s biggest event is only just getting started.

The Phuket Youth Develop-ment squad will be one of 20 cricket teams – 10 boys and 10 girls – arriving in Phuket this weekend for the start of the National Youth Games.

Phuket will only compete in the boys division, but team manager Anongnart ‘Mam’ Ningnoi-Raju is confident that the team will be competitive.

“These boys have a lot of experience through playing in the IFL against older players. I think Phuket will get a medal. Of course, we will try to get gold.”

And that goal might not be as ambitious as it sounds. Last year, Phuket finished fourth at the Youth Games, but defend-ing champions Khon Kaen are without the bulk of their success-

ful squad from last year, many of whom have since turned 19 and are now ineligible to play.

Meanwhile, most of Phuket’s squad are experienced Youth Games campaigners, and with many also approaching the cut-off age of 19, they have the added incentive of knowing this may be their last chance to taste gold.

Standing in their way though, Mam said, are Chanta-buri and Bangkok. While she said the Phuket side is “not scared”, she did acknowledge that those two teams will be the biggest barriers to victory.

But don’t tell that to coach

Jiraporn ‘Took’ Rodkaew, a woman of few words yet fiery determination. “We will try our best, and we will win the gold medal,” she said.

“We have been training every day except Sunday. The team played very well in the [Phuket International] Sixes against much older players, and playing in the IFL has given them a lot of good experience.”Cricket matches in the Phuket Games will be played from May 27 - June 5, from 8.30am-2pm. Boys will play at the ACG, while girls matches will be played at Cherng Talay School. Spectators welcome.

CRICKETDane [email protected]

Above: The Phuket team. Right, coach ‘Took’ (centre) with captains Phootanet Suriya and Nattaphat Somnam.

into seven minute halves, with five forwards and five backs on the field.

For those unfamiliar with the 10s format, Dan said it requires “a lot more running as opposed to 15-a-side, and it’s very difficult in this heat... It’s a lot faster and a lot more attacking, and you have to be very fit to compete.”

The Coffin Dodgers Compe-tition starts today (May 25), from 10am – 6pm. The Main Competition starts tomorrow (May 26) from 8am, and runs through until the finals on Sunday (May 27) afternoon.

For more information and a full schedule, visit phuketrugby10s.com or con-tact Pat on 089-873-1190.


thephuketnews.com

WORLD SPORT40


GOLF

Stoner calls it quits

World motorcycling champion Casey Stoner will quit at the end of the season, citing “family reasons”.

The 26-year-old Austra-lian, who has won 35 MotoGP races, made his announcement at a news conference ahead of last Sunday’s French Grand Prix, which was won by Jorge Lorenzo.

Nadal dominates Djokovic to win Rome Masters

Rafael Nadal won his sixth Rome Masters title in a rain-postponed final against No-vak Djokovic on Monday, defeating the world number one 7-5, 6-3.

It was sweet revenge for a straight sets loss to the Serb in last year’s final and the win means that he will move back ahead of Roger Federer at number two in the world rankings.

Torchbearers turn to eBay

Some of Britain’s Olympic torchbearers have been mak-ing the most of their country’s special moment – by selling their torches on eBay, attract-ing bids of over £150,000 (B7.45 million).

The gold-coloured torches began appearing on the auc-tion website within hours of the torch relay starting in southwest England on Saturday.

Each of the 8,000 runners – chosen for their “inspira-tional” personal achievements or contribution to local com-munities – can buy their torch for £215 (B10,500).

First female executive for FIFA

FIFA has appointed the first woman to its executive com-mittee on Tuesday, as world football’s governing body bids to restore its image after a series of corruption scandals.

Lydia Nsekera, president of the Burundi Football As-sociation, has been co-opted onto the executive committee and will be formally installed at the FIFA Congress in Bu-dapest on Friday, FIFA said in a statement.

Fight for No.1 golfer continues

The battle to be the world’s top-ranked golfer will again be a subplot of this week’s PGA Championship which started yesterday (May 24) at Wentworth.

Luke Donald, who de-posed Lee Westwood at the top of the rankings when winning last year’s title, is the only player who can topple current number one Rory McIlroy but needs to repeat his victory of 12 months ago to do so.

Kolkata beat Delhi to reach IPL final

Jacques Kallis and Sunil Narine shared four wickets to bowl Kolkata Knight Rid-ers into the Indian Premier League final with a comfort-able 18-run victory over Delhi Daredevils on Tuesday.

South African paceman Kallis and West Indies spin-ner Narine each finished with 2-24 as Kolkata restricted Delhi to 144-8 in their 20 overs after posting 162-4 on a slow pitch in Pune.

The final will be played on Sunday (May 27).

Aussie sprint star McEwen retires

Australian cycling star Robbie McEwen retired on Sunday after the final stage of the Tour of California, concluding a 17-year professional career saw him capture 12 Tour de France stage victories.

The 39-year-old from Brisbane was among the world’s greatest sprinters at the peak of his career, which also saw him win 12 stages of both the Giro d’Italia and his homeland’s Tour Down Under.

IN BRIEF

London Paralympics to be ‘biggest in history’

London 2012 will be the biggest Paralympics in history, with 19 more

nations taking part than four years ago, organisers said as they began counting down the last 100 days until the Games.

Some 4,200 competitors will take part – up from 3,951 in Beijing in 2008 – and 16 nations will be making their Paralympic debut including isolated North Korea and conf lict-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.

“London could be the Paralympic Movement’s first sold-out Games in terms of spectators too. A record number of TV viewers are also set to tune in,” Interna-tional Paralympic Committee president Philip Craven said in a statement.

“It’s hard to believe that the forerunner for the Para-lympics took place just 64 years ago at Stoke Mandeville Hospital with 16 injured war veterans, when you consider that 4,200 elite athletes will now compete in London.”

Athletes from 23 nations held the first Paralympics in Rome 12 years after the Stoke

Mandeville event in Britain, which involved veterans who had been injured during World War II.

One million tickets for this year’s Paralympics, from August 29 to September 9, were sold in September 2011 and another million went on general sale on Monday, organisers said.

Broadcast deals totalling £10 million (B500 million) are set to bring the Games to a total of about four billion television viewers, while Grammy-winning British band Coldplay are to headline the closing ceremony.

A challenge remains in

Aussie golfer shoots record-low 55 round

UNKNOWN AUSTRALIAN professional golfer Rhein Gib-son, 26, has provisionally set a new world record for the lowest round in golf, shooting an incredible 16-under-par 55 at the River Oaks Golf Club in Oklahoma, USA.

Only Homero Blancas, a

OLYMPICCOUNTDOWN

educating people who are unaware of the Paralympics or dismiss disability sport, Britain’s nine-time Paralym-pic swimming gold medallist Chris Holmes said.

“It is a real challenge that we have had right from the start of this project... No previous Games has really nailed it but there are lots of reasons to be confident,” said Holmes, who is working on the organising committee to integrate the Olympics, which start on July 27, and the Paralympics.See p38 for an exclusive interview with Australia’s Paralympic athletes.

PGA Tour player from the 1960s, has ever recorded a 55 before, but on a par-70 course of just 5,000 yards.

This score was originally in the Guinness Book of World Records but taken out after harder qualifying rules were set.

Gibson’s round falls into the record parameters and, once cleared, will be a new world mark.

Starting on the back nine of the 6,698-yard par-71 course, Gibson started with a routine par before notching up two eagles and a birdie in his next three holes.

He then continued his birdie blitz with five straight to close out a mind-boggling nine holes in 26 shots, 10 under par.

Gibson then managed pars on the first two holes of the back nine, but then birdied six of the last seven to post an incredible 55.

“I just kind of got hot I guess and every putt I hit went in, that’s the best I can explain it to be honest,” Gibson said.

Ennis record runs into unexpected hurdle

ATHLETICSBRITISH OLYMPIC HOPE Jessica Ennis saw her new personal best in the 100m hurdles wiped out on Sunday by an embarrassing blunder by officials who forgot to lay out enough barriers.

The heptathlete clocked 12.75 sec, 0.04sec faster than her previous best, but it emerged after the race at the City Games in Manchester that only nine hurdles had been set out rather than the

regulation 10.“I am so annoyed. I still

had a good competitive race, but I’ve just not got the result I wanted,” said Ennis. “It’s a great event but that’s a massive, massive mess-up.”

A tournament spokes-man said: “There has been a technical error and there were nine sets of hurdles out on the course instead of 10.

“We’ll conduct a thor-ough investigation and find out what happened and why and by whom.”

Photo: LOCOG


thephuketnews.com

41WORLD SPORT

Clijsters to call it quits


CRICKET


FOOTBALL


TENNIS

Strauss hits timely test ton

England captain An-drew Strauss hopes his long-awaited 20th

Test century will provide the spark for a successful season with the bat.

St rauss had gone 18 months without a Test hun-dred heading into the series opener against the West Indies at his Lord’s home ground.

However, the left-handed opener reached the coveted

three figures with a score of 122 in England’s first in-nings 398 that took him to within two of the England Test record of 22 hundreds shared by Walter Hammond, Colin Cowdrey and Geoffrey Boycott.

The knock helped England on their way to a five wicket win in the first Test.

“You don’t want to have to justify your place in the side as a captain,” said Strauss after leading England to a five-wicket win on Monday that put them 1-0 up in this three-match series heading

into Friday’s second Test at Trent Bridge.

“Thankfully that takes the monkey off my back, but I’m really conscious of the need

to use that as a catalyst to have a really good summer.

“I hope this is a bit of a breakthrough mentally and allows me to score more.”

England endured a torrid winter tour, losing four out of five Tests against Pakistan and Sri Lanka before finish-ing with victory in Colombo.

But there was plenty of home comfort on offer at Lord’s where Tim Bresnan extended his perfect Test record with a 12th win in the 12th Test of his career.

However, it was fellow England seamer Stuart Broad, the man-of-the-match, who took the bowling honours with a return of 11 for 165 that featured a Test best seven for 72 in West Indies’ modest

first innings 243.Meanwhi le Ian Bel l

weighed in with fifties in both innings, including a valu-able 63 not out in England’s pursuit of a victory target of 191 that was in danger of being derailed at 57 for four.

However, opener Alastair Cook (79) and Bell’s stand or 132 got England back on track.

“Whenever you’re chasing there’s a bit of pressure, so it was an outstanding effort from Cook and Bell,” said Strauss.

The second Test begins tomorrow (May 26).

1ST TEST •WestIndies1stInnings

243 all out (89.5 overs)•England1stInnings

398 all out (113.3 overs)•WestIndies2ndInnings

345 all out (130.5 overs)•England2ndInnings

193 for 5 (46.1 overs) Englandwin

Strauss’ ton helped England to victory in the 1st Test.

Tottenham relegatedCHELSEA’S CHAMPIONS League victory over Bayern Munich completed a miserable month for Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, whose team will now be relegated to the Europa League next season.

Tottenham managed to secure a top four finish in the Premier League to gain access to world football’s most prestigious club competition.

However Chelsea’s win in Munich bumped Spurs out of the reckoning under UEFA rules which guarantee qualification for the defending champions.

Chelsea, who could only fin-ish sixth in the Premier League after a disappointing domestic campaign, now take Tottenham’s place in the competition.

UEFA changed its rules after a controversy in 2005, when Liverpool won the title in Istanbul despite not qualifying for the following year’s com-petition after Everton finished ahead of them in the league.

UEFA eventually granted

Liverpool a place in the quali-fying rounds, which allowed five English teams into the tournament.

Since then however UEFA has ruled that if a side winning the Champions League has not already qualified for the following season’s competi-tion, the club in question takes one of berths allocated to its national association.

Chelsea’s qualification at the expense of Spurs has potentially wide-ranging rami-fications for the club, with Tottenham likely to lose mil-lions in revenue while facing a bigger challenge to retain and attract top talent.

Redknapp’s disappoint-ment came just weeks after he was overlooked by the Football Association for the England manager’s job, with Roy Hodgson the surprise choice for the position.

Harry Redknapp.

FORMER WORLD NUMBER one Kim Clijsters announced on Tuesday that she will retire after the US Open in September.

The 28-year-old Belgian told a news conference that she wanted to sign out in New York where she enjoyed the biggest success of her career winning the the women’s singles title at Flushing Meadow three times in 2005, 2009 and 2010.

“As it stands I will end my career at the US Open, That is where I enjoyed my great-est triumphs and it is a very special place for me,” she said.

“The stadium is only about 45 minutes away from our house in the United States and my parents-in-law will be able to be present.”

Clijsters is married to for-

mer US basketball player Brian Lynch and the couple have a daughter Jada.

She retired for a first time in May, 2007 and gave birth to her daughter before stag-ing a remarkable comeback in 2009 which ended in her triumph at the US Open which she successfully defended the following year.

Clijsters also won the Aus-tralian Open in 2011, the same year she topped the world rankings for the first time in five years.

But she has increasingly been dogged by injuries which caused her to curtail her clay-court season and concentrate instead on the London Olym-pics and the US Open.

Kim Clijsters at the 2010 US Open. Photo: Edwin Martinez

REAL MADRID COACH Jose Mourinho has extended his contract until June 2016 after taking the Spanish gi-ants to victory in La Liga.

The 49-year-old, who joined Real in May 2010 on a four-year deal, said early in May he had no ambition to coach in new countries.

But media reports had continued to speculate on his returning to England, with some linking him to a move back to his former side Chelsea.

Mourinho to stay

Other reports tipped him to take the helm at Liverpool after Kenny Dalglish’s departure, though that job is now likely to go to former Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas.

“Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho have reached an agreement to extend the latter’s contract with the club until June 30, 2016,” the club said in a statement published online.

The self-appointed “Spe-cial One” took Real Madrid to their 32nd league title last month.

That made him only the fourth coach to have won four different league titles after taking the English, Ital-ian and Portuguese crowns.

Photo: Arturo Miguel


thephuketnews.com

WORLD SPORT42

RUGBY

AFL

RUGBY

Stormers halt Bulls’ chargeWestern Stormers

have supplanted t he Nor t he r n

Bulls at the top of the Su-per 15 table, with the ACT Brumbies, Canterbury Cru-saders and Coastal Sharks all remaining in the hunt for the playoffs.

The Stormers, who have never won the southern hemi-sphere provincial champion-ship, hung on for a 19-13 win in Cape Town over the New South Wales Waratahs that further dented the Aus-tralian side’s top-six playoff ambitions.

The Stormers lead the standings on points differ-ence from New Zealand’s Waikato Chiefs, who had a bye last weekend, while the Bulls are two points back after going down 16-11 to the Otago Highlanders in Dunedin.

The Brumbies tightened their grip on the Australian Conference with a storming second half to overcome the Hurricanes 37-25 in Wel-lington.

The seven-time Super Rugby champion Crusaders crushed the woeful Auckland

Blues 59-12 to keep in touch with the Chiefs in the New Zealand Conference.

The Sharks are sixth overall after downing the Central Cheetahs 34-20 in an all-South Africa match in Bloemfontein.

Wallaby fly-half Quade Cooper played his first rugby

of the season as defending champions Queensland Reds posted a bonus-point 34-20 victory over strugglers Golden Lions in Brisbane.

The Melbourne Rebels won away from home for only the second time in their two seasons with a 32-31 win over the Western Force in Perth

on Sunday to leapfrog the Waratahs into third spot in the Australian Conference.

For the second consecu-tive week the Stormers were outplayed in the second half, but just did enough to see off the desperate Waratahs at Newlands.

The Stormers led 16-3 at

half-time but were only able to pick up a single three-pointer in the second half, holding on in wet condi-tions for their 10th win in 11 matches. They have yet to earn a four-try bonus point.

The Highlanders dug in deep to pull off an upset win over the Bulls and lie three points adrift of the second-placed Crusaders in the New Zealand Conference.

It is the second straight year the Highlanders have proved to be the Bulls’ bo-gey team, after ending their 19-match winning streak when they beat them in Pre-toria last year.

They also put a dampener on Morne Steyn’s celebrations in his 100th Super game for the Bulls as he was unchar-acteristically off-target with the boot, missing a conversion and two penalties that could have changed the outcome.

Rookie f ly-half Zack Holmes proved the differ-ence as the Brumbies hit back to deny the Hurricanes after both sides scored four tries apiece.

Holmes, making his run-on debut after injuries to playmakers Matt Toomua and

Christian Lealiifano, kicked four conversions and three penalties, as well as scoring a try, to give the Brumbies their first victory in Wellington for nine years.

The Crusaders, stung by criticism after losing to the Melbourne Rebels last week, smashed the Blues nine tries to two in Christchurch.

With their talisman All Blacks Richie McCaw and Dan Carter back to near their best, the Crusaders regained fifth place from the Highland-ers while the Blues continued to languish near the bottom.

Former France fly-half Frederic Michalak scored 19 points as the Sharks kept alive hopes of a play-off place by prevailing over the Cheetahs.

Cooper, making his first appearance since rupturing knee ligaments at the World Cup in New Zealand last October, put in 40 minutes before he was replaced at halftime for the Reds.

Queensland scored four tries and raced to a 34-6 lead after 55 minutes before the Johannesburg-based Lions scored two converted tries by way of consolation.Results and tables on p43.

Morne Steyn was off target in his 100th game for the Bulls. Photo: AFP

Baa-baas call up Aussie veteranVETERAN AUSTRALIAN lock Mark Chisholm and fellow second row forward Cornelius van Zyl of Italy were on Mon-day called up to the Barbarians squad for their upcoming three match tour.

Other additions since the pro-visional squad was announced last week are Casey Laulala, Heinke van der Merwe, Francois Louw and Ernst Joubert. Among those sidelined by injury are Stephen Jones and Schalk Brits.

The tour opener against Eng-land on Sunday (27 May) at Twick-enham is followed by clashes with Ireland in Gloucester on May 29 and Six Nations Grand Slam champions Wales at the Millennium Stadium on June 2.

Jetta’s season takes a nosediveE S S E N D O N S M A L L forward Leroy Jet ta has claimed the dubious honour of being the first AFL player ever to be charged with staging.

Jetta faces a written rep-rimand, but no other penalty for his over-reaction to a bump from Richmond defender Ste-

ven Morris last Saturday night (May 19) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Match review panel chair-man Mark Fraser reportedly described the behaviour as “unsportsmanlike”, and Jetta now faces a A$1600 (B50,000) fine if he re-offends.

He had just kicked a goal in the second term when he

ran up to Morris, who reacted by bumping him.

The Essendon forward theatrically dropped to the ground as he tried to milk a free kick from the minor incident.

“Leroy Jetta falls to the ground and then holds his face and we believe this is unsportsmanlike in nature

Backs - Isa Nacewa (Fiji), Mils Muliaina (New Zealand), Ian Balshaw (England), Cedric Heymans (France), Shane Wil-liams (Wales), Paul Sackey (England), Sailosi Tagicakibau (Samoa), Casey Laulala (New Zealand), Mike Tindall (Eng-land), Damien Traille (France), Felipe Contepomi (Argentine), Stephen Donald (New Zealand), Rory Lawson (Scotland), Jerome Fillol (France)

Forwards - Benoit August (France), John Smit (South Africa), Aled de Malmanche (New Zealand), John Afoa (New Zealand), Duncan Jones (Wales), Neemia Tialata (New Zealand), Heinke van der Merwe (South Africa), Mark Chisholm (Austra-lia), Mick O'Driscoll (Ireland), Anton van Zyl (South Africa), Pelu Taele (Samoa), Cornelius van Zyl (Italy), Raphael Lakafia (France), Akupusi Qera (Fiji), John Beattie (Scotland), Pedrie Wannenburg (South Africa), Ernst Joubert (South Africa), Francois Louw (South Africa)

Live Sports TV ScheduleCHANNEL START END SPORT EVENT TEAMS / INFO

Friday, May 258, 816, 107 14:30 16:30 Rugby Union Super XV Chiefs v. Bulls

TBC 16:30 18:30 Rugby League NRL Storm v. Broncos

104 21:00 23:00 Tennis WTA Brussels Open Semi Finals

815 22:00 00:00 Golf BMW PGA Wentworth

Saturday, May 26813, 109 18:50 20:30 Motor Racing Formula 1 Qualifying, Monaco

8, 816, 107 12:25 14:30 Rugby Union Super XV Hurricanes v. Rebels

8, 816, 107 14:30 16:35 Rugby Union Super XV Blues v. Highlanders

8, 816, 107 16:35 18:35 Rugby Union Super XV Brumbies v. Reds

8, 816, 107 18:35 20:30 Rugby Union Super XV Western Force v. Lions

815 20:00 00:00 Golf BMW PGA Wentworth

8, 107 20:55 22:55 Rugby Union Aviva Premiership Harlequins v. Leicester

101 20:30 22:30 Soccer Friendly Brazil v. Denmark

813, 814, 109 15:00 17:00 Rugby Union HSBC Asian 5 Nations

Hong Kong v. Kazakhstan

104 20:00 22:00 Tennis WTA Brussels Open Final

Sunday, May 27813, 109 18:00 18:45 Motor Racing Formula 1 Raceday, Monaco

813, 109 18:45 21:30 Motor Racing Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix

8, 107 21:55 23:55 Rugby Union Rabo Direct Final Leinster v. Ospreys

8, 816, 107 00:00 02:00 Rugby Union Super XV Sharks v. Stormers

TBC 12:00 14:00 Rugby League NRL Wests v. Cowboys

817 01:40 03:40 Soccer Friendly Norway v. England

814 23:59 02:00 Rugby League EnglishSuper League St Helens v. Wigan

814 18:00 20:00 Rugby League English Super League Catalan v. London

814 22:30 00:30 Rugby League English Super League Bradford v. Leeds

104 15:00 00:00 Tennis French Open Roland Garros, Paris

815 20:00 00:00 Golf BMW PGA Wentworth Day 4

CHANNEL GUIDE 1XX - True Visions;

8XX – Astro; 8 – Setanta *Times may be subject to change

and worthy of a charge of staging,” Fraser told the AFL website.

It came a week after the match review panel assessed St Kilda utility Brendon God-dard for the same offence, but did not charge him.

The league introduced staging as an offence at the start of the 2010 season.

Mark Chrisholm. Photo: Facebook fan page


thephuketnews.com

43WORLD SPORT

Super 15Team P W D L F A BP Pts

1 Stormers 11 10 0 1 245 171 1 49

2 Chiefs 11 9 0 2 302 225 5 49

3 Brumbies 11 7 0 4 302 237 8 44

4 Bulls 11 8 0 3 349 246 7 47

5 Crusaders 12 8 0 4 346 257 6 42

6 Sharks 12 7 0 5 317 265 9 41

7 Highlanders 12 8 0 4 280 268 3 39

8 Reds 12 7 0 5 263 289 4 36

9 Hurricanes 12 6 0 6 339 346 7 35

10 Rebels 11 4 0 7 249 332 5 29

11 Waratahs 12 4 0 8 269 288 8 28

12 Cheetahs 12 4 0 8 311 337 7 27

13 Force 12 2 0 10 239 331 7 19

14 Blues 12 2 0 10 243 337 4 16

15 Lions 11 1 0 10 194 319 2 14

Conference leader Wild card team

AFLTeam P W D L F A % Pts

1 West Coast Eagles 8 7 0 1 903 656 138 28

2 Adelaide Crows 8 7 0 1 854 634 135 28

3 Essendon 8 7 0 1 878 658 133 28

4 Sydney Swans 8 6 0 2 812 574 141 24

5 Collingwood 8 6 0 2 749 694 108 24

6 Hawthorn 8 5 0 3 839 648 129 20

7 Carlton 8 5 0 3 808 661 122 20

8 Fremantle 8 5 0 3 643 627 103 20

9 St Kilda 8 4 0 4 791 676 117 16

10 Geelong Cats 8 4 0 4 736 726 101 16

11 Western Bulldogs 8 4 0 4 633 665 95 16

12 North Melbourne 8 3 0 5 891 794 112 12

13 Richmond 8 3 0 5 731 710 103 12

14 Brisbane Lions 8 3 0 5 621 706 88 12

15 Port Adelaide 8 2 0 6 618 779 79 8

16 GWS Giants 8 1 0 7 449 942 48 4

17 Gold Coast Suns 8 0 0 8 530 879 60 0

18 Melbourne 8 0 0 8 505 962 52 0

ROUND 10 RESULTSBulldogs 26 – 6 Sharks Sea Eagles 18 – 10 Roosters Dragons 18 – 19 Rabbitohs

Cowboys 30 – 28 Panthers Tigers 24 – 22 Warriors Byes: Eels, Knights, Raiders, Storm, Broncos, Titans.

RESULTSForce 31 – 32 Rebels Highlanders 16 – 11 Bulls Crusaders 59 – 12 Blues Reds 34 – 20 Lions

Cheetahs 20 – 34 Sharks Stormers 19 – 13 Waratahs Hurricanes 25 – 37 Brumbies Bye: Chiefs (NZL)

RESULTSWest Coast 18.13 (121) – 13.13 (91) St Kilda Carlton 8.7 (55) – 19.10 (124) Adelaide Brisbane 19.18 (132) – 5.10 (40) GWS GiantsEssendon 19.14 (128) – 15.19 (109) Richmond Bulldogs 9.18 (72) – 4.10 (34) Gold Coast

Sydney 21.12 (138) – 5.7 (37) Melbourne Hawthorn 17.17 (119) – 9.9 (63) Fremantle Port Adel. 14.11 (95) – 14.9 (93) N. Melbourne Collingwood 14.12 (96) – 11.18 (84) Geelong

NRLTeam P W D L B F A Pts

1 Storm 10 9 0 1 1 296 121 20

2 Broncos 10 7 0 3 1 232 156 16

3 Cowboys 11 7 0 4 0 282 196 14

4 Sea Eagles 11 7 0 4 0 204 181 14

5 Sharks 11 7 0 4 0 200 187 14

6 Rabbitohs 10 6 0 4 1 214 224 14

7 Bulldogs 11 6 0 5 0 232 163 12

8 Tigers 10 5 0 5 1 193 205 12

9 Warriors 11 5 0 6 0 260 266 10

10 Knights 10 4 0 6 1 154 173 10

11 Dragons 11 5 0 6 0 168 192 10

12 Raiders 10 4 0 6 1 199 226 10

13 Roosters 11 5 0 6 0 182 242 10

14 Titans 10 3 0 7 1 145 197 8

15 Panthers 11 3 0 8 0 174 263 6

16 Eels 10 1 0 9 1 167 310 4

Kearney wins Euro player of year

Ireland rugby union full-back Rob Kearney, an integral part of Leinster’s European Cup-winning team, has been-named European Player of the Year for the 2011/12 season.

The 26-year-old, capped 38 times by Ireland and three times by the British and Irish Lions, beat off competition from Ulster duo Stephen Ferris and Ruan Pienaar, and English veteran Jonny Wilkinson.

Kearney started every one of Leinster’s nine European games as the Irish province triumphed in the European Cup for an unprecedented third time in four years with their 42-14 victory over Ulster on the weekend.

England announce India tour itinerary

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Tuesday revealed the itinerary for England’s winter tour to India that will include four Tests, five one-day interna-tionals and two Twenty20s.

England will leave on October 25 for a three-day training camp in Dubai be-fore heading to India four days later, with the first Test beginning on November 15 in Ahmedabad.

Inter Milan to open schools in Asia

Inter Milan will open football schools in Indonesia, the club said in the capital Jakarta on Wednesday, following a trend started by Arsenal and Liverpool.

“We are planning to build several football schools here,” club chief executive Ernesto Paolillo told reporters through a local translator.

“Indonesia is very im-portant for us because the country has a lot of Inter Milan fans,” he said, with-out giving further details of the plan.

Uproar over call for closed-door

Spanish Cup final Spaniards erupted in uproar on Wednesday over a call for this week’s King’s Cup final to be suspended and held behind closed doors in another stadium to thwart protests by Basque and Cata-lan separatists.

Madrid regional govern-ment president Esperanza Aguirre made the threat to scupper plans by some fans to whistle during the national anthem before Friday’s match between Basque club Athletic Bilbao and Catalan giants Barcelona.

IN BRIEFQueensland beat NSW in first State of Origin

Greg Inglis broke a try record to spearhead Queensland to an

18-10 win over New South Wales in Australia’s State of Origin rugby league series opener in Melbourne on Wednesday.

The Maroons, bidding for an unprecedented sev-en straight series victory, clinched a hard-fought win before a 56,000 full house when Test centre Inglis scored a controversial try seven minutes from the end.

It was Inglis’s 13th Ori-gin try, breaking former Queensland winger Dale Shearer’s record of 12.

But it needed several replays before the video referee gave Inglis the clinch-ing try after NSW hooker Robbie Farah was ruled to have kicked the ball out of his hands in the motion of scoring the try.

Queensland scored three tries to two to take an early lead in the best-of-three game

series with the Blues now needing to win the second game in Sydney on June 13 to keep the series alive to the final game in Brisbane on July 4.

NSW led after a sixth-minute try to winger Akuila

Uate, who outjumped Darius Boyd to score off Farah’s high kick to the right corner.

But the Maroons hit back to lead 12-4 by halftime with Boyd scoring a try double after smart lead-up work by Test men, Billy Slater in the

first try and then the schem-ing Johnathan Thurston.

Centre Michael Jennings left his NSW team a man short when he was sin-binned for running and throwing a punch in a mass brawl mid-way through the opening half.

While he was off the field Boyd scored the first of his two tries.

NSW got back into the game when Slater fumbled a high Mitchell Pearce kick and scored a converted try three minutes after the re-sumption.

The game was in the bal-ance and end to end before Inglis scored the decisive try for Thurston’s third conver-sion of the match.

Queensland have domi-nated the interstate series since 2006, now winning 14 of their past 19 encounters with NSW.

Queensland’s coach, for-mer Australian Test great Mal Meninga, extended his record winning run in the Origin to 14-5, more than his legendary predecessors Arthur Beetson and Wayne Bennett, both with 11 wins.

RUGBY LEAGUE

Greg Inglis (right) was instrumental in The Maroons’ victory in the series opener. Photo: Bradley Kanaris



thephuketnews.com

Making wavesParalympians train at BIS ahead of London Games > 38SPORT

Edited by Dane Halpin [email protected]

INTERNATIONAL SPORT44

DROGBA BOWS OUTChampions League hero to leave Chelsea next monthDidier Drogba has con-

firmed that he will leave newly-crowned Euro-

pean champions Chelsea when his contract expires at the end of June.

Drogba has been at the Pre-mier League club since 2004, joining from French side Mar-seille, and has scored 157 goals in 341 appearances, helping the Blues win ten trophies.

The 34-year-old leaves the London club on a high after

scoring a late equaliser against Bayern Munich in the Champions League final on Saturday and then converting the decisive penalty in a dramatic shoot-out after extra-time.

“I wanted to put an end to the speculation and confirm that I am leaving Chelsea,” he told Chelsea’s website.

“It has been a very difficult decision for me to make and I am very proud of what we have achieved, but the time is right for

a new challenge for me.”Drogba is the club’s fourth

all-time highest scorer and his 34 goals in European competition is a Chelsea record by 10 goals.

During his eight seasons he won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups, and the Champions League title.

English media have linked the Ivorian target man with Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua, where his former Chelsea team-mate Nicolas Anelka is player-coach.Photo: AFP

Documents

25-05-2012