ScandAsia Finland - February 2010

February 2010 • ScandAsia.Fi 1

FEB

2010

First Finnish Settler in Hanoi

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M atti Nurmi is a Finnish electrician-engi-neer-turned-restaurant-and-kindergar-ten-owner who has lived in Vietnam for over 20 years. He is one of Viet-nam’s first Finnish settlers.

Maybe you know him as his name became pretty well-known in Hanoi back in the 90s when “water-fall” bangs, Hip-Hop, Nintendo Boys and horn-rimmed spectacles were hot. Back then Matti opened one of Hanoi’s first Western bars “the Sunset Pub”. If this still doesn’t ring any bells maybe you remember him as the man in the fancy Porsche which he used to cruise around in to promote his restaurant business. There is

Hanoi’s First “When you first get a taste of life in Vietnam then there is not much happening in Finland”, says Matti Nurmi who brought Hanoi one of its first western bars “The Sunset Pub”.


no doubt that to Matti the 90s was the decade of fun but also lots of hard work. Today he dedi-cates most of his time to his Kindergarten and se-curity glass business, a quite different line of work from when he was entertaining guests out on the balcony of Sunset Pub.

Finland – A little boringThe 54-year old father of two originally moved to Vietnam in 1989 because he felt as if he needed some new scenery. Finland had gradually become a little too dull and cold to his taste. It was the Whitbread Ocean Race (today Volvo Ocean Race) however that really ignited his urge to travel overseas. But even with an ex-perienced background in local sailing there was no open spot for him. Unable to participate in the race due to cutthroat competition he turned to the newspaper to look for overseas jobs. He came across an ad for a job in Vietnam with a Finnish government water supply project, applied for the job and got it. But for a young Finn with no previous knowledge of Vietnam the place was a little odd. “It was quite strange to come here. Today the buildings look totally different, every-thing back then was without paint; there were no lights and no roads. Hanoi has developed a lot since then”, he says. Matti ended up working with the water sup-ply project for five years and during this time met his Vietnamese wife Trieu Nguyen who was working on the same project as him. The couple married in 1990. After leaving the water project he had no what so ever desire to return to Finland. “I didn’t want to go back. Finland is a cold country and there is nobody there, he laughs, adding that: “When you first get a taste of the life in Vietnam then there is not much happening over there.” Like Matti his wife wasn’t too keen on re-placing Vietnam’s warm climate with Finland’s icy winds so in 1993 the couple decided to open the western bar Sunset Pub in Hanoi. – One of the first of its kind located on the fifth floor over the

Finnish SettlerDong Do Hotel.

A real foreigner placeIt sounds as though Matti has mostly fun and warm memories of Sunset Pub’s glory days de-spite the fact that the place demanded a lot of his blood, sweat, toil and tears. The place was a real foreigner place and when former US-president Bill Clinton lifted the Amer-ican-economic sanctions against Vietnam in 1994 the business really shot up. Americans flocked to the country to make business and every night the place was packed with business people, mostly Americans. Sunset Pub was the place to go, the only place to go actually, Matti says. During that time Matti used to drive around in his Porsche which he’d had delivered all the way from Europe. On the way over the cargo boat lost its propeller so it took about half a year before the car was on Vietnamese ground. But it was worth the wait. Back then nobody had a car like that. “You are number one”, people used to shout with their thumbs in the air, when Matti came driving past them on the dusty roads. The car was mostly used with the purpose of promoting the restaurant/bar business and it was a brilliant idea for he really managed to draw at-tention to himself. Even to this day people come up to him and say: “Hi, aren’t you Matti from Sun-set Pub?” - Many asking why the place isn’t open anymore. “People have good memories from that time”, Matti says. But with a small boy at home the pub was just too much work, so Matti and his wife de-cided to say enough is enough and turn the key in 1998. When Sunset Pub closed down a lot of West-ern places had shot up. “The Vietnamese copy ideas very fast. In the beginning we were kings of the market but now there are lots of restaurants that look like ours did”, Matti says. When he is asked about whether he misses running the res-taurant he answers no, unhesitatingly. “Everybody who has tried to run a restaurant knows that it’s

tuff business, wherever you run it. It’s not easy work. Our dream is one day to open a bar just for fun and then not run it ourselves”, he laughs. “But it’s just a dream”. Opened up his own kindergarten As if a time-consuming restaurant business wasn’t enough Matti and his wife chose to open the school Morningstar International Kindergarten in 1995 while running the pub. Matti’s wife came up with the idea after real-izing how difficult it was to find a kindergarten for their older son Peter. People looked at her as if she was crazy when she said she would open up her own school but back then there was only one international school so the international kin-dergarten was very welcomed by the local expat community. Matti was focusing a lot on the restaurant during this time so it was his wife who ran the kindergarten (while also working as an English teacher. Since 1995 Morningstar International Kinder-garten has grown and today the school provides care and education programs for children from 18 months to 7 years at its two campuses in Ba Dinh District and the Tay Ho District of West Lake in Hanoi. Matti and his wife are now looking to expand the school business since there is a big demand for international schools in Vietnam. Ac-cording to Matti education in Vietnam is a bit of a problem. The education is not at the right level yet and right now a lot of Vietnamese families send their kids out of the country to study or send them to international schools in Vietnam, he says. Alongside the kindergarten business Matti runs the company Morningstar Safety Glass. The company provides safety glass improvements for factories and companies but doesn’t sell the glass only the machinery and know-how. The compa-ny started less then 10 years ago and “is more a hobby than a business”, Matti adds with a smile.

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Fråga efter SVT World på ditt hotell – du får en naturbok!Notera hotellets namn och e-postadress samt om SVT World finns i alla rum, bara i lobbyn eller inte alls. Skicka uppgifterna till oss eller fyll i blanketten på vår hemsida: svt.se/svtworld

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Nu även i

Nordamerika!

4 ScandAsia.Fi • February 2010

We Want to Be Your First OptionWith a brand new airbus and a new Sales Director, Finnair is ready to give the Scandinavians to and from Bangkok the best service in the new year.

By Rikke Bjerge Johansen

Finnish Jani Peuhkurinen, 35, is the new Finnair Sales Director to Thailand. He is currently living in Korea with his family.

Some of the Finnair crew in Finnair’s Bangkok office on Surawong. Jani and the senior Client Manager Nantiya.

The Finnair office in Bang-kok just got a new Sales Director. It is the Finn-ish Jani Peuhkurinen, 35, who is responsible

for the route to and from Europe-Bangkok via Helsinki. However, Jani Peuhkurinen might be new to Thailand but cer-tainly not to Asia. The last two years has been spent in Seoul in South Korea with his Finnish wife and two daughters who are 5 and 7. Here, he has been busy preparing the new Seoul-Helsinki route which was launched last summer. Now, he has to work hard in order to reach Finnair’s goal in Thailand: “We want to be your first op-tion. When you travel with us we want to make sure you to choose us again,” Jani Peuhkurinen says to all the readers of ScandAsia. The flight from Helsinki to Bang-kok takes 9 ½ hours and Finnair has minimized the transit time for Scan-dinavians who continue from Hel-sinki to Denmark, Stockholm and Norway to about one hour. With the first Finnair flight to Thailand in 1976, the Finnish airline is quite established on the Thai mar-ket. “Still, we can’t just let things go its own way. Constant development is needed in order to stay competi-tive. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to make sure the product is in top, and that the travelers get good value for money,” Jani Peuhku-rinen says.

Brand new with better leg space One of the biggest investments from Finnair is the brand new aircraft air-bus which was launched in Decem-ber 2009. It can fit 269 people and is an improvement on every aspect compared to normal flights. “It is a brand new, modern air-craft with good seats, better space for the legs and feet, on-demand entertainment and less noise from the engines. Of course all meals and drinks are free,” Jani Peuhkurinen says, adding: “Business class has sleeper seats and I must say, excel-lent wine.” The new airbus also uses less fuel and less emission.

“We focus on environmental issues on the technical site, save en-ergy, recycle and make sure every-thing is within the green standards,” he says.

New Finnish airport launch The new airbus launch goes hand in hand with the launch of a new and improved Helsinki Airport which also in December opened its doors to a brand new, modern building with spa. It makes the Sales Direc-tor very satisfied. “We have had a very strong de-mand this Christmas for Europeans who travel to Thailand, so with the new airport and aircraft our custom-ers will get the best service ever,” he says, adding: “We expect a healthy grow next year as well as increasing the market share”.

Enjoy it a lot Jani Peuhkurinen joined Finnair in Helsinki in 2004 in global sales and travelled almost every week. Two years ago it was only natural for him to take over the Korean market as well as the offline destinations Ma-laysia and Singapore. With the re-sponsibility for the Thai market, Jani travels from Seoul to Thailand one to two weeks a month. “I enjoy it a lot. My job is plan-ning and budgeting a year in advance in order to reach the targets. In the Bangkok office we are five people and here I take care of the daily administrative and financial issues. I also make sure our team target plans are clear. When I’m in Thai-land, I also meet up with our corpo-rate customers, travel agencies and go to networking, which I find very important,” he says. The competition is strong to and from Bangkok; however Finnair and Jani Peuhkurinen are not too concerned. “We know that the competi-tion has highly increased but it keeps us going and forces us to make sure that we maintain ourselves as a good competitor on the market,” he says, adding: “We are happy to welcome all the Scandinavians onboard on our new airbus”.

2 ScandAsia.Th • February 2010

Andreas du Plessis de Richelieu:

The Admiral Who In books and articles, Richelieu has largely been portrayed as either white or black, as an untouchable icon or as an unscrupulous capitalist. We tend to judge the past with the lenses of today, based on our current world view. That is of course not right; we have to describe the man and the circumstances from the perspective of his period on earth, and what was regarded as reasonable and honorable in his days. I have tried to add some human touches to the conventional image of the Admiral.

By Flemming Winther NielsenPhotos Siranath Boonpattanaporn

Cannon from 1789, used until 1893.

Old grenade

cal officers of Maha Chakri had not yet been instructed in how to fire them.

Paknam incidentWhen France instigated ‘gunboat diplomacy’ against Siam in 1893, and it came to bloody skirmishes, the result was almost given before-hand. In what has been named the ‘Paknam incident’ two state of the art French gunboats, ‘Inconstante’ and ‘Comete,’ on the 13th of July simply forced their way from the Bay of Siam up Chao Phraya River to Bangkok. The battle lasted less than an hour. The batteries of the Chula Chom Klao fort, then and now, guarding the mouth of the river tried in vain to offer resistance, but the al-most medieval muzzle cannons and guns did the French no harm and the ancient fortifications were laid in ruins, many marines were killed. The Danish commander survived. A few kilometers upstream be-tween Phra Samut Chedi and Pak-nam (Samut Prakan) Richelieu had established a blocking of the river using derelict ships and dynamite. Behind this waited the Siamese battleships but they were no match

Reflecting on the proud and stormy word ‘Ad-miral,’ I come to think of Lord Horatio Nelson of Trafalgar, British First

Sea Lord Jellicoe of World War 1, Karl Doenitz, The German Grand Admiral, Master of the submarines and also the Dane Andreas du Ples-sis de Richelieu (1852-1932), Ad-miral, Minister of the Marine and Commander-in-Chief of the Sia-mese Navy. Three of these old salts com-manded real fleets; hundreds of can-non with which they sank the en-emy’s ships, and Lord Nelson fought on although he lost an arm and an eye. On the other hand, in 1893 when Richelieu was superintendent of the Marine, and Commodore, he had a few, in fact only four very old warships bought seemingly second hand in France in 1865 and no lon-ger capable of sending any enemy to the bottom of any sea. There was also a newer one, also bought sec-ond hand, since the Spanish Navy did not want to receive it. Never-theless, there was one very modern vessel, the new Royal Yacht Maha Chakri equipped with many state of the art guns. Unfortunately the lo-

February 2010 • ScandAsia.Th 3

Went Ashore

Inside the fortress as it looks today.

Vicker Armstrong gun on lavet, range 4000 meters, calibre 57 millimeters.

for the modern French vessels, they sailed through the blockade and caused severe damage to the Sia-mese ships, many men were lost. Walter Christmas, a Danish Captain in the Siamese Navy in 1893, and in charge on the occasion, described the situation as follows: “but just a hodgepodge of hopeless ships, useless guns, and incompetent crews, commanded by men who, however stout and resourceful in other fields, for the most part were without knowledge in military skills”. (Christmas (1894) From ‘Thai-Dan-

Admiral Richelieu in a Siamese nobleman’s dress at the Bangpain Palace in 1890. Richelieu had at this point advanced to Vice Admiral and second in command of the Royal Thai Navy. In the book “Admiralen, Kongen og Kaptajnen” by Aldo Eggers-Lura, the captions says that his willingness to adapt the local culture was appreciated by most Thais but made the British look down on him.

forbad Richelieu to engage the Maha Chakri, especially manned by foreign officers, knowing well that in case of the sinking of one of the French gunboats, France would have an ex-cellent excuse to occupy the whole country. The reason for the ‘gun-boat di-plomacy’ was that France demand-ed huge areas to the East of the Mekong River currently occupied by Siamese; they got them. With the King, Richelieu there-after, still in a minor scale, worked on modernizing the fleet. In 1897 he was appointed Rear-Admiral, then Deputy C-in-C 1899 and C-in-C 1901. Finally, Admiral En Suite in 1902. This last title was given him as a sort of farewell present by the King.

In that year Richelieu had a serious bout of malaria and, his Danish wife and children leaving a bit earlier, left Siam where he had served since 1875. He left with a huge fortune achieved via his private enterprises (which will be covered in article 2), and was furthermore bestowed with Court Nobility Titles, countless Siamese, Danish, French, Russian, Greek and other orders, medals and precious gifts plus a high pension. King Chulalongkorn and members of the Royal family saw him off to Singapore onboard the Royal Yacht ‘Maha Chakri’.

RichelieuÊs backgroundAndreas was born on February 24th 1852 in Loejt Kirkeby, South-ern Jylland where his father was

ish Relations’ (1980), p. 128, pub-lished by the Royal Danish Ministry of Education). Christmas himself fired his can-non four times, when he tried to fire the fifth time it collapsed. At that time at least 25 Danish Navy-Officers served in the Siamese Navy, plus some from other nations. From Copenhagen they were for-bidden to participate in any fighting with the French, but they neverthe-less did so. King Chulalongkorn, the patron and friend behind Richelieu wisely


Vicar (pastor). The family originated from France, immigrated to Norway around 1670, and sometime later settled in Denmark. There seems to be no evidence that the family was related to the original and famous bearer of the name, Cardinal de Richelieu (1585-1642). We next meet Andreas as a pupil of Roskilde Cathedral School in 1864. In the schools register his father is there mentioned as “the deceased Vicar Louis du Plessis de Richelieu, the Parish of St. Thomas.” Andreas’ father died on St. Thom-as, a Danish colony on an island in The West Indies, in 1859, seem-ingly alone, after staying there less than one and a half years and only 38 years old. It is known that the Danish islands were often used as last retreat for troubled careers. It would be interesting to know what happened to the rest of Andreas family and how this influenced his extraordinary life. Later, Andreas Richelieu went sailing in the Merchant Marine. He became Lieutenant of the Reserve in the Danish Marine, where he earned his Ship Master Certificate. In 1875, aged 23 years old, after talks with his superiors, he was grant-ed an audience by King Christian IX

Left: Remains of fortifications on mangrove island off Phra Samut Chedi.Right: Samut Prakan (Paknam) across the river.

Admiral Andreas du Plessis de Richelieu...continued from the previous page.

This portrait in full uniform of Admiral Richelieu was published in the booklet “Thai Danish Relations Through Four Centuries” printed on the occasion of the State Visit to Thailand of HM Queen Margrethe II in February 2001. The caption in the book mentions Admiral Richelieu’s Thai name Phraya Cholayuthyothin which he was given when elevated to nobility by HM King Rama V.

in Copenhagen. The young man’s wish was a Letter of Introduction to the Siamese King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, who had ascended the throne in 1868 when only 15 years old. Andreas had visited Siam and Bangkok in the course of his work in the Merchant Marine, was attracted to Siam, and saw the possibilities for

himself there. By this act, he really took his life and destiny in his own hands, and equipped with his certifi-cates and the personal introduction to King Chulalongkorn, he sailed off to Siam via Singapore. There, with the assistance of the Danish Consul Koebke, he was granted an audi-ence on April 3rd 1875.

This was a meeting of two young men of approximately the same age; both of them ‘stand alone’ charac-ters and able to look one another in the eye, being of almost the same height. That Richelieu did not tower over his counterpart, was and is not without significant importance in Siam/Thailand. Although cast in a relationship of Patron and client, there are strong indications that a friendship developed between the two, and a bond of absolute loyalty on Richelieu’s part as well. A few weeks after the audience, he was hired as Captain-Lieutenant and offered a position as Second in Command of one of the Navy’s ships. This offer he turned down and asked for a command of his own. He succeeded and was given the command over HSMS ‘Regent’, bound for an inspection tour of the Western coast of Siam bordering the Andaman Sea, with the main town being Phuket. However, he only spent some of his energy on Navy matters.

Ready for businessIt is possible, also given the size of the Thai navy, that his duties were not onerous, so during his years in Siam, Richelieu also established a railway line, a tramline in Bangkok, an electricity plant and more. But first and foremost he established a very lucrative business relationship with H.N. Andersen of Andersen & Co., later to be known as EAC. These activities will be dealt with in Article 2.


Koh Lanta has many beautiful sandy beaches, breathtaking surrounding small islands, stunning scenery and rich culture, making Koh Lanta a dream destination.

‘Chaw-ka-cher Tropicana Lanta’ is a beautiful resort named after the twelfth letter of the Thai alphabet which means ‘Big tree’ that provides shade from the sun, and during your stay you will be able to find true relaxation. The resort is within walking distance from the refreshing sea breeze, warm sun and gentle waves of ‘Pra Ae beach’. The resort was designed by award winning Southern Thai Architect ‘Pan Yah’, incorporating traditional Thai high tip roof houses. The stylish interiors feature naked cement textured walls,

Chaw-ka-cher Tropicana Lantafine local fabrics and is decorated with hard-wood furniture. Each villa is set in the midst of a lush landscaped, shady tropical garden, capturing the essence of a rainforest and each evening, we light lanterns in the gardens to make dinning with us magical and romantic. The night sky is full of twinkling stars and can be observed from your terrace or open roofless bathroom as you shower under the moonlight. Visitors can explore Koh Lanta’s natural beauty and experience the laid back and tranquil atmosphere of this charming island.You will be truly comfortable at ‘Char-ka-cher Tropicana Lanta Resort’ where everything will be taken care of to ensure that your stay is filled with happiness and sweet dreams.

We offer with great value either during For High Season (1 Nov 2009-19 Dec 2009, 11 Jan 2010-30 Apr 2010) - 4 day 3 night package- 5 day 4 night package

For more information, please contact: Sales and Reservation Office: 247/1 M. 2, Aonang, Muang Krabi 81000Tel. +66 (0) 7563 7970, +66 (0) 8 1895 9718 E-mail: [email protected]

Resort : 352 M.2, Saladan, Koh lanta, Krabi 81150 Tel. +66 (0) 75 667 122 – 4 www.ChawKaCherResort.Com

Sunrise Tropical Resort, an exclusive resort on Railay East Beach, Krabi, offers 3 Days, 2 Nights at only 19,999 Baht per couple. Package valid until 19 April 2010. The accomodation will be in Tropical Villa Plus and the room will be incl. complimentary fruit platter, small bouquet of roses, round trip transfer from / to Krabi Airport by private a/c coach. A long tail boat one day excursion tour to Phi Phi Island. Furthermore, meals are included (set menu: a. Breakfast (2), b. Lunch (1), c. Dinner (1)) and one facial treatment at Arunburkfa Spa for couple. When you don’t want to leave there is an Extend Night Discount of 10%.

The Moroccan Dream Getaway

Come celebrate your love by strolling along the shores of Pranburi beach. Let the breathtaking views and enchanting décor of Villa Maroc Resort bring you to your fantasy world where memories are created for a lifetime. Villa Maroc is the perfect setting for an intimate wedding party, honeymoon or

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to a breathtaking Pool Villa for THB 32,500*. The “Moroccan Dream Getaway” package comes with a sumptuous in-room breakfast so that you never have to leave the privacy of your room, a romantic candle-lit dinner with a complimentary bottle of wine, a 45 minutes Cleansing Hammam couples’ treatment and an additional 30% discount good towards other rejuvenating spa treatments.

This package is available from now until April 30th, 2010. Reservation is subject to availability. Please call 032 630 771 or email at [email protected]

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Dream Island for Slow

Washed over by the Tsunami on 26 December 2004, Koh Prathong has

today fully recovered with plenty of interesting forest types like dark green mangrove forest on the east cost, dusty green coastal forest on the west coast and in the middle a beautiful Savannah with rare, wild orchids clinging to the special trees and red, insect-eating plants scat-tered on the ground under the short, silky grass. To maintain the natural forests on Koh Prathong as well as to pro-tect against commercial exploitation, the Royal Thai Forestry Department has joined hands with the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the local people on Koh Prathong to pro-tect and preserve all their valuable natural resources while developing eco-tourism in order to increase

the sustainable income to the local population. Rich in rare birds Birdwatchers will find several rare species of kingfishers, egrets, her-ons and even horn bills, which on Koh Prathong are far less timid than their cousins in the jungles on the mainland. A research conducted by the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand recently found that Koh Prathong has at least 137 different bird species. However, Oriental Pied Hornbill seems to be the most interesting for bird watchers since Oriental Pied Hornbill is otherwise only found in Khao Yai or Kang Kra-jarn. Sea eagles circling over the is-land is also a majestic and common sight. Along the forest line, there is also an abundance of natural resources

fascinating for tourists to explore. A visit to the Tung Dap Village where one of the farmers is breeding the “Dendrobium cruentum” species of orchids is also popular among the mostly nature loving visitors.

Sand and Rock The beaches of Koh Prathong may look similar to the beaches else-where in Thailand. Only if you look carefully you’ll see different foot-steps of rare sea animals that let you imagine what kind of animal left those footstep behind. In November and December the sea turtles will crawl up on the beach to lay there eggs. A walk on the beach in the sunrise at 5.30 will reveal the char-acteristic broad and shuffled tracks leading from the sea up to the pitch where they have laid their eggs and back out into the sea again. Previously, the villagers earned

The Surin islands north of Phuket is well-known heaven for its beautiful marine life in the Andaman sea. Lesser known is a rare beauty emerging closer to the mainland; Koh Prathong - the island of the golden Buddha. A wild and frightened survivor of the devastating tsunami five years ago, Koh Prathong is slowly growing up like a young teenager, not yet aware of her rare, natural beauty. Text and photos: Disraporn Yatprom


Speed Lovers

How to go thereBy road from Bangkok, take Route 4, passing Prachuab Khiri-kan, Chumporn, and Ranong, to take the boat from the Kuraburi harbour. The boat is about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

For more information: Tourism Authority Thailand, District 4 South Tel. 0-7621-1036,0-7621-2216, 0-7621-7138

Golden Budha Resort / Ms Tanya: Tel. 081 892 2208, 081 919 5228

Pak-Jok Home Stay / Ms Lamyong: Tel. 087-281-1360

Tung-Dap Home Stay / Mr. Thep: Tel. 087-993-4331

beach and play hide and seek with the waves washing over them.

The local people There are only four small villages on Koh Prathong; Baan Pak-Jok, Baan Paeyoy, Baan Tung-Dap, and Baan Kah-Ra. Ethnically, 70% of popula-tion are ethnically a tribe called Mor-gan, with the rest being immigrated Chinese from Hainan. Fishery is the main occupation for local people on Koh Prathong. In ancient times, zink and other metals were extracted and traded. Before the Tsunami, about 1000 people lived in Baan Pakjok village. Even though Lion Club helped build 150 houses to replace the ones de-stroyed by the disaster, only 50 local people live there today. The rest are too scared to return and have set-tled elsewhere. To make good use of the houses built by Lions Club, the few local people now offer the uninhabited homes as home-stays for visiting tourists to generate a small income for their family. Kanitha, an elderly woman who survived from Tsunami, describes vividly how she heard a loud, thun-dering noise on the day the Tsunami hit. She thought it was a bomb ex-ploding at a pier nearby. Then she saw her two horses screaming and the big wave coming gushing at her. She and her horses floated together until the water receded. She feels lucky that she and her husband are still alive but she lost one of her horses by that big wave.

Golden Buddha Resort Golden Budha resort is the best re-sort on Koh Prathong. A resort that was previously located here before the Tsunami has disappeared with-out a trace. The Golden Buddha Beach Resort that has replaced it extends along the Andaman Sea facing the setting sun. Each beach house is uniquely designed and comfortably sleeps between 2 and 6 people. The resort has a total of 25 private houses. Some are located tugged in among the tall pine trees, some are beach front houses with sea view, peace, and total privacy. Each beach house is fully equipped except for TV and elec-tricity. The houses are supplied with electricity from a generator be-tween 17:00 and 23:00. After that the electricity is turned off except

at the resort’s restaurant where the dinner buffet is being served. Apart from Golden Buddha Re-sort one small resort with few guests are found. But in Baan Pakjok there are several home-stays that are built in the style of a traditional Morgan house which are offered at a low rate for eco-tourist. Koh Prathong is good place for people who want to get away from tension at work, newlywed couples on their honeymoon, naturists en-joying the 10 km long deserted beach, eco-tourists exploring the rare fauna and wildlife - or even heart broken people who need time to recover from their loss. Although there are small shops in the local villages, it is a good idea to bring a torchlight as the light is turned off at 23.00, sun lotion, bugs prevention lotion for the little black beach flies that emerges when the sun has set and the rare mosquito, good book(s), snacks to keep you from being hungry between restau-rant opening hours, common pills and whatever medication you may need.

ActivitiesKoh Prathong is for outdoor loving, low speed people. You can go for long walks, go snorkeling, go on a boat trip to dive on a reef, or just relax. The internet is slow or some-times off which is good for having a relaxed time without any technol-ogy. Even the mobile phone is slow speed. At Koh Prathong you can stay on your porch and read a book and suddenly look up to find rare birds

flying over your head - no need to go on deep jungle trekking trips, just sit still and don't blink.

their income from concessions on collecting turtle eggs. But as turtle eggs became a rare commodity, the government and Conservation Au-thority today have extensive turtle conservation projects and build tur-tle breeding farm instead of hunting them at sea. Other tracks on the beach are from monitor lizards hunting the crabs that live in abundance on the


The team consisted of President Henrik Friis, Bent Laasholdt, Morten Luxhoi, Mads Tranum Nielsen, Claus Bergen-

felt, Jan Peter Jensen, Finn Soerens-en, Matthew Pearson, Kenn Lau-ritsen and Hans Henrik Melchior. Flying in from Denmark to join this event were Jesper Madsen, a friend of Morten and Mads, who joined this annual event for the third time, and Poul-Erik and Kirsten Ring, good friends of Henrik Friis.

The Viking WheelersGreat Ride from Prachuabkirikhan On 4 December a team of 13 Viking Wheelers started out on their annual marathon cycling tour, this year a distance of about 425 km from Prachuab Khiri Khan to Surat Thani.

By Henrik Friis and Hans Henrik Melchior

After an about 4 hours drive from Bangkok the team arrived in Prachuab Khiri Khan where it en-joyed a lunch at a restaurant at the beach just south of the city. Dur-ing the lunch a lone British cyclist passed the restaurant and stopped to find out who the guys in red and white were. When he asked, the Vikings proudly told him that they were just about to start a tour go-ing all the way down to Surat Thani. He then announced that he had left Chiang Mai a week earlier and was on his way to Kuala Lumpur. Al-though clearly not impressed by the plans of the Vikings, he did cheer the team from the balcony of his hotel when they passed about half an hour later!

33 km warm-up rideThe Friday ride was a “warm up” ride of about 33 km to the cosy Jack’s Beach Resort north of Thap Sakae. At the beginning of the ride the team’s flying President, Henrik Friis, assumed the temporary role of air traffic controller, stopping all incoming and outgoing flights in the local international airport, so the Vi-kings could safely cross the runway. Apart from a short stint on HW 4 the rest of the ride was on small country roads, along the beach and

through plantations, soybean fields, cattle farms and small villages down to the resort, which is located right at the beach. Before the start of the Satur-day ride, the local Village Headman arrived at the resort and, duly im-pressed by the handsome Vikings in their red and white jerseys, he invited the team to participate in a ceremony at the pier, just about to commence, releasing into the ocean about a million scrimps, on the oc-casion of H.M. the King’s birthday, and the Vikings happily complied. One of the Vikings was, however, so unlucky to drop his plastic bag with about 1,000 scrimps, which obvi-ously did not make it back to the ocean. Nobody, except maybe for the scrimps, seemed to care about this mishap.

75 km to Baan Maprao Resort The day’s rid e was about 75 km to Baan Maprao Resort in Bang Saphan Noi, also along the beach and on small country roads, mostly pan-cake flat, except for a long hill a few kilometres before the end of the ride, which the organizers claimed was not there when they made the survey trip. During the ride Mads attempted to chase some stray

dogs, which, unfortunately, were not scared by Mads in his frightening outfit with horns sticking out of his helmet, and instead started chasing Mads, who did get scared and in his efforts to evade the pack rode over a sharp edge and got a flat tyre. Anyway, the team was in high spirits when it arrived at Baan Maprao Resort, located on a fantas-tic beach. This was the second time the team visited this resort, as the riders also stayed here when they were on the Tour de Thailand in 2004. Before and after the dinner Mads and his guitar entertained the group by singing popular Danish “viser” by i.e. Shubidua, Kim Larsen, Lasse and Mathilde, something he was much better at than chasing dogs.

94 km to ChumpornAt 8 am sharp Sunday morning the brave Vikings commenced what would be the toughest ride so far during this year’s marathon, a ride of about 94 km to Chumporn. Al-though also this ride was on scenic country roads, there were plenty of rolling hills, some of them very chal-lenging, but the Viking Wheelers had by now built up lots of strength, so all passed the test and were very happy and proud when they arrived


to Surat Thaniin Chumporn in the mid-afternoon, looking forward to their evening din-ner in the local KFC. Hans Henrik knew that Khun Vichien, the driver of the support van, is a keen cyclist longing to get in the saddle. So, after lunch HH gracefully offered to drive the van for the last 30 km and Vichien was very happy to get this opportunity to cycle this leg. Bent, feeling sorry that HH should be alone in the van, volunteered to keep him company, an offer which was accepted without hesitation. Monday was a day of rest in Chumporn, and several Wheelers used the opportunity to get their bi-cycles trimmed at the local Trek bi-cycle shop. During the waiting time they were seen roaming around the local water holes. The group also found time to plan for 2010, and as everyone were in good spirit it was decided to have 9 events next year including a week ride in the North Eastern part of Thailand. The completed plan will be posted on the Viking Wheelers website www.vikingwheelers.com The Vikings assembled in the evening for a very nice Vietnamese/Thai dinner followed by a pit stop at the local backpacker hangout to get some Viking neutralisers.Ru-mours have it that the President had

bought shares in this bar as he was seen running around behind the bar and instructing the staff. After neutralisers, the Vikings were ready for some more action, but soon realised that Chumporn is not the most active place in the world, so 2 of the senior Vikings, Bent Låsholdt and Mads Tranum formed a new band called the Vi-king Whistlers, and took over a local Karaoke Place and turned it into a Danish Music place, and songs could be heard in most of Chumporn, so don’t be surprised if you hear some local Thais whistling the tunes of a Kim Larsen melody next time you pass though the city.

88 km ride to Paknam Tuesday all Vikings were fresh and ready for takeoff at 8.00 hrs and, with the Flying President leading the way out of Chumporn, the Vi-kings embarked on the 88 km ride towards PN Seafood resort in Pak-nam. The first 20 km were up and down hills, and apparently a little too much for Mads, the Viking Whistler, as he lost the air at the first pit stop and was taken to the local hospital by his friend Morten. The hospital soon got him up again but appar-ently the nurses had heard that he could play music so they hooked


him up to a heart monitor and sat all night and listened to the beat of his heart before he was released the next morning. The rest of the Vikings contin-ued the trip, with regular up-dates from the hospital so they could con-quer the hills up and down with re-laxed minds. After 65 km lunch was at Ban Pak Tako beach, and Morten and Hans Henrik (who had gone to the hospital to lead Morten and the van with all the luggage back to the group) joined the lunch and rumors started circulating that the 2 gentle-men had slipped something into Mads’ coffee so they could avoid the hilly ride in the morning. After lunch the riders embarked on the remaining 23 km with a pit stop for the sissies 10 KM before final destination, which the front runners Claus, Matthew and Finn skipped. The President regretted he stopped there, as some of the Vi-kings before him had dug a hole and filled it with loose sand and gravel with the result he fell flat over on his bike and scraped his elbow and bent 2 -3 ribs. During the fall he also knocked all the air out of the lungs, and bystanders described the event as similar to a kangaroo jumping a ball that bursts when it lands on the floor. After the President was cleaned

driver Montri as a cook. The team headed off at 8.00 hrs with the first 19 km on flat roads. The first pit stop was before the rolling hills started and apparently it had some effect on the President as he jumped into the bus with the excuse the ribs were hurting. The rest of the riders conquered the hills without problems and arrived at the last stop in record speed where they enjoyed a few refreshments before they proceeded for the last 10 km. The entire team arrived at the small Happy Inn Hotel, after a total 425 km ride, and after showers and a few beers the cars were packed and they headed off for the last joint lunch before going to the airport. Everyone looked happy but tired and was pleased that they could fly back to Bangkok instead of cycling. Sorry You Missed The Trip??If you regret that you did not - or could not - participate in this year’s Viking Wheeler’s Great Annual Tour, then consider going on your own, “in the wheel prints of the Vi-king Wheelers”. Every rider on the trip got de-tailed turn-by-turn description of the 425 km long trip and these doc-uments are made available to inter-ested individuals here if you would like to go on your own trip on all or part of the way. 1. Turn-by-turn excel sheet. 2. Day-by-day route maps The files also show what a huge amount of time and effort the orga-nizers have put into preparing the trip! If interested, look up www.vikingwheelers.com

the driver Vichien. The day’s ride was mostly on flat roads, and some of the Vikings picked up so much speed that they lost the way after 9.5 km and added an additional 6-7 km to the planned 84 km ride. Discussions are still ongoing on how to describe an asphalt road and a main road, but the organizers accepted the penalty of a round of beer in the evening, and to read a few Danish-English dictionaries and maps before next year’s ride. The weather gods had decided to change from cloudy to sunny and, although the roads were flat, the day became very hot, so the only female rider, Kirsten, gave up pulling the “turtles” (Viking Wheeler language for “slow riders”), and decided to join Mads in the van. According to Mads the gentlemen still on the road then reduced the speed so much that the van got over heated due to the slow driving. The group arrived safely at Roong Arun Resort after 84 km, and a delicious seafood lunch was served together with some cool beers. The Vikings had the resort for themselves and Kenn decided to be the manager and sell beer to late night beach visitors.

A total of 425 km Thursday started with breakfast cooked by the owner of the resort and the driver Montri, as the kitchen staff had reported sick. The entire team agreed that it was the best breakfast on the trip and Morten is now considering to extend the Khao Yai Van to include a kitchen so he can get home cooked breakfast in future, but he has not yet agreed the price for borrowing Henrik’s

up and new air pumped into the lungs all riders, including the flying President, continued to PN Seafood resort where cool beer awaited them upon arrival.

84 km to Roong Arun Resort Wednesday, the Vikings took off at 8.15 a.m. as they had to wait for Mads to return from the hospital. At arrival Mads took the wheel of the van and delegated the bicycle job to

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Pearls, feathers, dresses, smoking and red lipstick – and of course a Martini. The theme was 1920’s gala when Scandina-

vian Society Siam celebrated its 90 Year Anniversary. The Grand Ball took place on Saturday 30 January 2010 at the Dusit Thani Hotel. For-mer Chairman Steinar Paulsen was Master of Ceremony for the two hundred members who were all dressed up, and he guided the eve-ning through its various phases. Special speakers of the evening were - apart from Chairwoman Dharmaporn ‘Eid’ Alexandersen - former Chairman Vibeke Lyssand Leirvaag, Anders Lundquist, Poul Weber and Tom Sorensen. Free flow of champagne and deli-cious wine went well with the gala menu: Starter was Gravad Lax with sweet mustard sauce and seafood chowder. Then a refreshing sorbet before the main course: Roasted Australian Beef Tenderloin. Dessert was Three spices milk chocolate mousse and fresh fruit. After that, the bar was open. Well deserved praise for a fan-tastic arrangement rained on Eid Alexandersen and her Party Com-mittee chairwoman Elina Koski for the extravagant party from the reception arrangement with 1920 photo opportunities to the cake cutting ceremony, complete with a sabre - which had earlier in the eve-ning been swung by Jaana Kopra to ceremoniusly swoop open the first bottle of Champagne. The party was a great success - but would not have been pos-sible without impressive sponsoring backing by prominent Scandinavian companies. In return their logos were clearly displayed all over the event and they deserved the grati-tude which both the MC and the Chairwoman expressed from the podium. See one round of images up-loaded in the Image Gallery here: http://scandasia.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=808 Anyone with more images, please register and upload for all to enjoy in subfolders in the gallery or else-where, like picasaweb and similar photo-pages, and paste the link to your images below as a comment. Thank you!

The 90 Years Anniversary Scandinavian Society SiamText & Photos by Gregers Moller


ScandAsia together with Peter Rehn invites you to a memorable Day Trip Sailing from Hua Hin to Dolphin Bay. You can drive with us from Bangkok to Hua Hin or you can meet up in

Hua Hin on the pier. Details will be sent to all participants. The program on board is simple: Relax with a glass of wine, swim in nice crystal clear water and fish off the beautiful coast with National Park “Sam Roi Yod” with 300 moun-tains hilltops as fabulous background. If we are lucky, we will see the Irrawaddy and and Indo-Ocean Humpback dolphins. We will take off at 8.00 hrs. from Hua Hin and be back at 17.00 hrs. A Scandinavian lunch will be served on board (exclusive of alcohol beverage).

Day Trip Sailing with Peter’s yacht to Dolphin Bay, Hau Hin On Saturday, the 20th of March 2010

Price THB 1,850 / person **inclusive lunch**exclusive transportation from/to Bangkok

Transportation: THB 400 / person

Due to limited space if you plan to attend, we ask you to please sign up at [email protected] or call Ms. Pimjai Chaimongkol at 02 943 7166 by Mach 12.

Day Trip Sailing from Hua Hin to Dolphin Bay


X2 Residences - pro-nounced “cross too” - is a low rise, high

design, gated luxury development offering a unique lifestyle opportu-nity. The first projects have been launched in 3 locations within Thai-land, Kui Buri (Hua Hin), Koh Samui and Koh Kood. The residences of-fer luxury accommodation within a 5-star resort environment providing unlimited access to all X2 Resort fa-cilities. A variety of residence types are on offer including 1 bedroom apartments and 1-3 bedroom fully equipped private pool villas. The villa and apartment constructions make use of the highest quality ma-terials and are fully furnished with designer pieces hand picked by the owner himself Anthony McDonald. The lifestyle opportunity being offered by X2 is unlike any other residence projects within Thailand.

To complement the 5-star resort lifestyle, a MINI Copper has been in-corporated into the launch package to add to the lifestyle experience termed the X2 Lifestyle Experience. This unique project offers the only opportunity in the world to own a residence in an accredited “Design Hotel”. The apartments and villas start from 4.5 million THB and range up to 44.4 million THB with up to 80% finance available and a 90 year lease or freehold option. The investment has no additional ownership costs and guarantees 5% return for 5 years through a rental management program provided by the X2 Re-sorts group.

LocationsEach X2 Residence location is unique in all aspects - location, de-sign, furnishings and atmosphere. X2 Residence in Kui Buri is a prestige project offering 25 private villas with a total value of 370 million THB. The total residence area is 6 Rai (9,600 square meters), consisting of pool, garden and beachfront villas with ac-cess to a restaurant, swimming pool, library, spa, fitness centre and meet-ing room. The project, characterized by the rock wall design, adjoins the existing 23 villa beachfront X2 Kui Buri Resort. Accordingly, the entire layout of the project is designed in conformity with the successful X2 design concept developed by renowned Thai architect Duangrit

Bunnag. X2 Residences Koh Samui is the second of the 3 locations, offering 10 private villas with a total value of 250 million THB. As like the Kui Buri Residences, Samui Residences offers pool, garden, restaurant, swimming pool, library, spa, fitness centre and meeting room on 3 Rai (4,800 SQM) of land. The residence adjoins the existing X2 Samui resort with its 27 private villas. The design was devel-oped by international architectural firm Steven J. Leach, Jr+Associates. The X2 Residences at Koh Kood offers a variety in room types with 9 apartments and 16 private pool villas with either pool side, garden or sea view option. The total value of the project amounts to 260 million THB. The total resi-dence area is 6 Rai (9,600 square

Astudo Hotel & ResortGroup Launches X2 ResidencesAstudo Hotel Group, one of Thailand’s leading hotel and resort management companies, officially launched their latest project’X2 Residences’.

meters), and offers the same facili-ties as the other X2 Residence proj-ects with additional beach bar, dive centre, and games area. The design was inspired by natural camouflage and seasonal colours of the island to create an eco-residences devel-opment. X2 Koh Kood resort and residences was designed by inter-national architectural firm Steven J. Leach, Jr.+Associates and will begin construction during 2010. Astudo Hotel & Resort Group plans to launch eleven X2 Residences Projects throughout South East Asia by the end of 2012. For more information about X2 Residence Projects please visit www.X2residences.com

February 2010 • ScandAsia.Sg 1

SCANDINAVIAN SHOPPE

*

Scandinavian Shoppe30 South Buona Vista RoadHow to get there?- MRT to Buona Vista. Bus no. 200 to Lor Sarhad. - MRT to Harbour Front / Vivo City. Bus no. 10, 30, 143 to Redwood West. Walk up South Buona Vista RoadTel:+65 6476 2575 - [email protected]

Special offer:‘Gamle Ole’

Vintage Cheese

S$ 45.65 pr/kg

Georg Jensen Damask in November changed representative in Singa-pore from Danish Liv-

ing to MJ Management Pte Ltd. The Danish luxury brand includes table-cloth, placemats and tablerunners as well as beautiful luxurious bed linen, terry and kitchen towels. The MJ Group celebrated the takeover with a reception on 14 November at its premises in Capital Tower on Robinson Road. Georg Jensen Damask is now the third brand under the MJ Group orga-nization. The other brands are the luxury Danish audio visual brand Bang & Olufsen and the Danish de-signer furniture brand Fritz Hansen. "Georg Jensen Damask is known for generations of weaving tradition in Denmark," says Andrea Tan, MJ Group Marketing Executive. "We will now build its position in Singapore - and soon in other parts of Asia as well." "Very soon, www.gjdasia.com will also be available online, so you will be able to shop and view our wide selection of Georg Jensen Damask products, view local store opening hours and check for news and updates," she adds.

Old Chinese TechniqueThe art of Damask originated in China during the Han Dynasty and was used for producing colour-

Georg Jensen Damask Changes RepresentativeTablecloth, placemats and tablerunners as well as beautiful luxurious bed linen, terry and kitchen towels from Georg Jensen Damask will now become more widely available in Singapore - and soon also launched in other parts of Asia.

ful, precious silk fabrics. The tech-nique came to the Orient via the “Silk Road” and Damascus in Syria became the centre of the damask weaving technique. Traditionally, damask textiles were exclusive and considered only for the rich. Damask is characterised by dense, fine-threaded textiles where beautiful relief patterns are created by the alternating dominance of warp and weft. The pattern effect is

reinforced by the use of two differ-ent yarn colours. Explore the world of Georg Jensen Damask at www.damask.dk. For more information about Georg Jensen Damask in Asia, please contact: Ms Andrea Tan, [email protected], +65 6513 9522MJ Management Pte Ltd168 Robinson Road#02-01 Capital TowerSingapore 068912

2 ScandAsia.Sg • February 2010

There is a lot going on in ‘Ziegler Shoes’ when I step into the small shop located on the second floor in Tanglin Mall.

Birgit who is wearing a pink loose-fitting top approaches me with a big smile. “You must be from Scan-dAsia. Welcome. Give me just two minutes and I will be there”, she says and I find a good excuse for look-ing through all the beautiful clothes and shoes in the shop. Even though the shop is very small you can find roughly anything here from shining jewellery and stylish handbags to flashing summer sandals and smash-ing clothes and you can tell that Birgit has good taste. The best part however is that nearly all the items are from Denmark. The jewellery is from Denmark, the clothes from Danish brands like Saint Tropez and Vila while the shoes stand out by being from the shoe Mecca of Italy,

which I guess is okay seeing it’s Italy.A young girl named Amanda is serv-ing the costumers. She moved here from Denmark with her parents about eight months ago and has been hired by Birgit to look after the shop. It’s her second day today but she seems to be doing quite well. For a second there it’s almost as if I am back in Denmark. After a little while Birgit is back a little less busy this time, still with a big warm-hearted smile on her face making you instantly feel at ease with her. Birgit has lived in Singapore with her husband for about 16 years and the Zieglers are therefore a well-known name in the local commu-nity. Birgit’s husband Henrik is the managing director of Marel Food Systems - a large provider of food processing machines - while Birgit, who is trained in the shoe industry, runs her three shops ‘Ziegler Shoes’, ‘Boutique Nicole’ and ‘Inside Living’. All three shops with one thing in

common - a preference for Scandi-navian design, most of all Danish.

Why Danish is the best “Denmark is pretty good at being ahead of things especially in terms of clothing. The quality of the clothes is good and the people behind the brands are good at trying new things”, Birgit says with a distinct Jut-landic accent. In Birgit’s boutiques you can find all the sizes you would find in a reg-ular shop in Denmark but when she goes out purchasing items for her store the suppliers almost always assume that she only needs the small sizes since she is doing busi-ness in Asia, where most people are smaller than in Europe. But Birgit has a pretty good and broadly-based clientele, which re-quires her to provide lots of differ-ent sizes. Lots of her costumers are tourists mostly from Bangkok and in addition to that she gets a lot of costumers from Singapore, locals as well as foreigners.

It’s especially her Danish chil-dren’s shoes that are in high de-mand. Birgit is very focused on providing her costumers with great quality shoes avoiding all shoes with PVC – A plastic material feared to be dangerous to children and fre-quently found in cheap shoes. Dependent on touristsIt was bit of a coincidence that let Birgit to open her first store. It started when Birgit went on a shop-ping spree to find shoes for her daughter Nicole who back then was only a baby. Birgit quickly realized that there were no quality shoes in Singapore for children only cheap plastic ones with blinking lights and crazy sounds.

“I thought, well I’ll be damned! That’s

not at all what I call good footwear like

what I grew up with in Denmark. There must be a big market for this

in Singapore”. Birgit had always wanted to open a shop and with her knowledge of the shoe industry it was an obvious choice to open her own shoe shop. So in 1996 she introduced the Sin-gaporean’s to children’s shoes from Denmark and it was an instant suc-cess. As her clientele grew bigger and the need to expand became too big to ignore she decided to open her second store ‘Ziegler Shoes’. Unfortunately she chose to open four days before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 and therefore had a slow start because many tourists, in the wake of what had happened, were too terrified too fly. Seeing that Birgit is largely depen-dent on tourists, sales were also af-fected by the outbreak of SARS in 2002. “In situations like that we are very sensitive. When such things happen people don’t want to shop. They panic”, Birgit says. The recent financial crisis also

Clothes, Shoes, Jewellery and a Birgit Ziegler, a woman with a preference for Danish design

It all started with children’s shoes but as time went on Birgit Ziegler’s business grew. Today the cheerful woman is the owner of three shops all selling interesting ‘must have’s from Denmark.

By Sarah Mia Haagerup

February 2010 • ScandAsia.Sg 3

like that. “There were just too many complaints and I felt I couldn’t’ an-swer for it”, she says. Second was the handling of goods, which turned out to be much more difficult than anticipat-ed. All things considered there were too many problems so Birgit chose to terminate her lease even though she had found the perfect location. Many costumers were disap-pointed to hear the news since ‘Inside Living’ is the first of its kind in Singapore selling romantic style items from Danish designers such as Lene Bjerre, Villa Collection, Ude-sen DK and Nordal. Birgit will close down ‘Inside Liv-ing’ on the 1st of May and as a result she will have a closing-down sale in the weeks before. So if you have a preference for Scandinavian design like Birgit you shouldn’t miss it for the world.

took its toll because many foreign-ers left Singapore during this period. But with the support of Birgit’s local costumers there were no red lights flashing at any time.

Difficult ÂInside LivingÊIn May 2007 Birgit took the plunge and decided to open an applied art and furniture store. She fell in love with a location in the shopping mall Cluny Court because the cosy and romantic settings reminded her of Denmark. Like her other two stores she wanted to sell Scandinavian design but it showed to be easier said than done since “interior stores demands much more work than a clothing store”, Birgit says. For one there was the hangup about the difference between the climate in Singapore and the climate in Scandi-navia. Singapore has a much higher humidity and it resulted in a lot of complaints from the costumers be-cause of cracked surfaces and things

Romantic Interior Store

4 ScandAsia.Sg • February 2010

Scandinavians living in Singapore often have to advise visiting friends about some of the ground rules of shopping for electronics in Singapore. This list on TripAdvisor.com covers the basics.

1. Have a strong understanding of the product - brand, model and price - otherwise you could pay twice what you would pay at home.

2. Before you start bargaining (at Sim Lim or Lucky Plaza you must bargain) - determine whether the deal includes GST. There will be assurances that you can make a claim at the airport but this does not always work. Understand the terms and con-ditions of the GST refund system before you as-sume you will get one.

3. Always determine whether it is a cash price or credit card price. Some vendors may charge up to 2% plus on a credit card transaction. If you are putting it on your credit card, know what your bank will slug you on conversion ie rate of the day plus a 1-3% conversion fee. It may add up to 5% to the cost which will kill the bargain.

4. For a mobile phone, find out if it is unlocked - easiest way to guarantee is to put your foreign SIM in. This will also give you a chance to see if you like the display, touch etc and whether the default language is the one you need. For ex-ample, cheap Chinese look-a-like brands will not have the original makers software and are likely to have Chinese as the default language. That is, if you need menu and instructions in English not everything will be in English and every time you turn on the phone you will need to change the language option to English (ie always defaults to Chinese).

5. Check the electricity plug. You may require an adapter when you get it home. Get one included in the price. Further, make sure the item will re-charge on your home country voltage without converters etc.

6. Ensure you have a world wide warranty. Many products are sold without warranties and can be-come a costly paper weight when you get them home. On any Chinese look-a-like products, ig-nore warranty promises, it will never happen.

7. Finally, have a strong understanding of the prod-uct - brand, model and price - other wise you could pay twice what you would pay at home.....and yes that is a repeat of the first point!

Bargaining tipsTry a few stores to get a feel for the rock bottom price, if you think you have got the best price, see if you can negotiate for in-clusion or deep discounts on some want-ed accessories that usually have higher markups - for example, cameras may not come with memory cards. In one case a friend thought they got a great deal on a high end SLR only to find it did not include the lens!)

Why isn’t it cheaper than back home?


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place every time he returned. He even thought up new names for the place including inventive titles such as Roger’s Garage, Roger’s Banana Bar, Roger’s Chess Café, Roger’s Cosy Corner Bar and finally Papa Roger’s Bar – A suitable name, he thinks, now that he is a retired man.

Ex-actor turned crazy bar-owner Roger is really 66 years old but be-lieves that he is closer to 166 - Nev-ertheless “still going strong”, he says, with a wink in his eye. I later learn that he is a retired comedy stage-actor, which makes incredibly good sense considering his entertaining and cheerful person-ality. He didn’t succeed as an actor however “because I really wasn’t that good”, he says and laughs. So he quit the theatre and looked for something new to spend his time on. He decided to try his luck in Thailand. He wasn’t too satisfied with Fin-land’s cold weather and felt like he needed to get away from the snow. Koh Samet’s cheap rent, beautiful beaches and friendly people attract-ed him a lot and he came up with the idea of opening up a bar there. “When I came to Koh Samet and saw the beach I just knew, that

Koh Samet’s Crazy PapaIt is believed that once upon a time, Ko Samet was the home of pirates and that until this very day there is still lost treasures buried somewhere on the island. If the pirates ever return from the dead to reclaim their priceless treassures and bump into Koh Samet’s Papa Roger on their way they’ll most likely choke on their whisky before finding anything.

By Sarah Mia Haagerup

“Welcome to Papa Rog-er’s BEAUUUUTIFUL

bar. We have good wine, cold beer, nice music and happy hour FREE ICE”, shouts an unusually tanned, white-bearded man with large white sunglasses to the surprised tourists walking outside on the street. The crazy loud man, dressed in a gaudy blue outfit, the colour of Friday, is Roger - a well-known Finn and bar-owner on Koh Samet. What Roger is most famous for is not clear; His loud yelling and vi-brant outfits or the fact that he has been present on Koh Samet since 1989, when he opened up Koh Samet’s first bar. In 1989 the island was a largely unknown tourist destination to many and the main road appeared almost ghostly with dusty sand roads, emp-ty houses and no electricity. There is no doubt that Roger’s Bar, back then called Roger’s Garage, enlivened the place and for the backpackers who first discovered the island’s beauty Roger’s Garage was probably god-send. One year after Roger’s grand opening more bars and restaurants started shooting up all around the island. In the early 80s the island was declared a National Park by the Thai Government. “Maybe they should have called it an amusement park”, Roger says playfully.

Running a one-man-showToday the bar, which is located on Koh Samet’s main road close to the pier, also serves as a small backpack-er hotel or as Roger likes to call it

this was my place”, Roger says. Back then he had a highly ambi-tious dream of opening up restau-rants and bars in every corner of Southeast Asia. Later as he realized that this dream was a bit unrealistic he limited himself to a bar on Koh Samet and a restaurant in Sri Lanka called Roger’s Garage. At this time he had already opened and closed a place in Cambodia, The Philip-pines and Pattaya. His place in the Philippines went bankrupt after he left, while his bar in Sihanoukville in Cambodia suddenly turned in to an internet shop – The people running the place just forgot to tell Roger about it. His place in Pattaya suffered more or less the same fate because the bar had been placed in a wrong location. “It’s not easy to make serious business in this part of the world,” he says but there is no sound of re-gret in his voice. It seems like Roger just treats it as an experience.

Santa Claus comes to Koh SametRoger doesn’t need a stage at the theatre with spotlights and curtains. The bar on Koh Samet is Roger’s stage and here he has the freedom to run his own show and do crazy things such as dress up as Santa Claus every Christmas and hand out presents to the local’s small chil-dren. Even though he doesn’t like to admit it’s him under the Santa costume a picture of him in a crazy Santa outfit on the wall of his bar speaks for itself. Roger is very dedicated to the local community on Koh Samet and enjoys helping the people around him. Once a week he hangs out with a disabled boy and regularly also helps the local families with school money. Koh Samet has really become Roger’s home and he will continue to come back to the place as long as he can fly, he says. Despite the fact that the island has changed a lot since he first fell in love with it back in the late 80s he still thinks very highly of the beautiful pearl in the Gulf of Thailand. And of course you can not ignore, that the increasing number of tourists is good for business. However, there is no doubt that Koh Samet’s crazy papa would like to turn back the clock just a bit, to the days when the beaches were secluded and Koh Samet was still a hidden paradise.

“The Backpacker’s Hilton”. Price for a room is 250 THB which makes the three rooms at Roger’s some of the most inexpensive accommodations on the island not including the mini-malist outdoor tents further up the road. “It is cheap because you share the bathroom”, Roger explains. To give the place a homelike at-mosphere Roger has converted the place into a cosy living room with an old-school leather sofa, armchairs and wooden coffee tables. The walls are nicely and a little crazily smart-ened up with a mixture of Thai and Finnish wall decorations. “In beer we trust” it says with big letters on the wall behind the small bar counter where naturally a Finnish flag is places accompanied by - of course - lots of Finlandia vodka. “You can’t be without alcohol here”, says Roger, while he eagerly runs around serving the group of Finnish guests who is occupying the chairs outside the bar’s illuminated front door. During the years the bar has changed looks many times because Roger for a long time didn’t want to rent the place for a whole year since he always returns to his summer-house in Helsinki at around April. As a result he came up with new ways to decorate and promote the



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ScandAsia Finland - February 2010