Get Social with Jamie's Phuket

Jamie's Phuket on Facebook

Now I admit to not being totally up to date with all the latest web crazes, there just seem to be so many social networking websites it's hard to keep up. I joined Facebook a while back and spent some time wondering "now what?". So I dug around, found some old friends and some current friends, played a few of the quizzes and games and then thought "and now?". Well, I reckon Facebook takes some time to grow on you, as new people join, you find friends of friends, join "groups", add photos, look at friends photos, add your thoughts to discussion boards. It's huge and I guess you could happily while away the hours and wonder where the day has gone.

So you can find me on Facebook here: Jamie on Facebook

Now I have made a "Jamie's Phuket Group" on Facebook for friends and people who read my blogs and like them. Anyone with a Facebook account can join the group, add photos, start discussions, leave posts on the "wall", chat about Phuket... you can ask questions and I will try to answer, or maybe another member will know the answer. It's just getting started... Hope to see you there:

• Jamie's Phuket Facebook Group


Twitter - Microblogging

Twitter is an odd kind of place. You can post your thoughts, what you are doing now, you can update every minute of every day... I tend to update every day or two, especially trying to mention the weather so it compliments my Phuket Weather blog, which gets updated every few days.

If you join Twitter you can choose to follow people, which means you can login and see what they have posted. You can see my latest Twitters on the left side of the page (somewhere). Again, I am at a stage where I am thinking "and?", but it's easier than updating a blog if you have just a few words to write. Like I just wrote "It's a bit of a wet morning in Phuket" - and that does not qualify as a blog post, but Twitter is just perfect for a one liner.

• Follow me on Twitter


Social Bookmarking

Yes, you can still use your Internet Explorer (or indeed Firefox) Favourites, but these days there are way more interesting ways to bookmark your favourite webpages, and even share them with other people. I registered for del.icio.us a couple of years ago, and now you can do things like Digg an article or StumbleUpon all kinds of things. It's commonplace for websites to have social bookmark buttons at the bottom of each page, and you can see the same on my blogs too.

So please by all means, share some of Jamie's Phuket or the Phuket Weather Blog - you can add to Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon or hey you can even just press Ctrl+D to add to your computers favourites. At least I hope you will think of this blog as a favourite! :)

Nikitas Bar, Rawai Beach

If you're looking for a place in Phuket where you can relax with a cold beer and sit right by the sea away from hawkers and bar girls, well you better get out of Patong! Somehow, Rawai beach has remained pretty quiet, although it is certainly busier than when I first went 8 years ago. A few more restaurants along the beach road, quite a lot more real estate developments along the road from Chalong, all promising a sea view. It's a popular area for living, less so for hotels, mainly because Rawai is not really a swimming beach - it's too rocky and very shallow at low tide. Very beautiful area, but not a prime holiday resort location. Good! Let it stay that way!



It must have been about 8 years ago that I first had a drink at Nikitas Bar. This place is a Phuket legend... been on the beach in Rawai for over 15 years, and is still small, friendly and most importantly does not rip you off for a beer just because you are sitting by the sea! My wife and I used to head for Rawai often, a couple of times per month, for drinks or lunch. We don't go so much these days as we live a bit far away - I can't really justify a 30 minute drive each way just for a cold Beer Lao. But we do like Nikitas. You'll find it near the east end of the beach just after the road turns to the right when coming from Chalong. It's a rare find in Phuket these days to have a small, quiet bar on the beach.



We last went a couple of months ago, got a friend to look after the kids for a few hours, so my wife and I could have a rare moment of peace and romance :) Candles light the tables, the waves gently caress the shore, I kid you not. We plan to go again next week - my in laws are visiting and we do like to dump the kids on them at least once every time they come! Oh, and they do food too, not just drinks. I totally recommend a visit to Rawai beach and while you're there, do have at least a drink at Nikitas.

• More about Rawai Beach
• Nikitas Bar website
• Real Estate - Buying a House in Phuket

Phuket News - Where to find it...

I try to keep up and post some of the latest Phuket news stories on my Phuket News page, along with some not-to-be-forgotten old news stories. There's not normally any "big" news in Phuket, but if you want to get a feel for what goes on, it's worth checking the news before you travel, and not just the weather forecast!

There are a number of local newspapers and magazines in Phuket, mostly they are just dressed up advertising, especially with regards to restaurant "reviews" and property news. If you want real news, there's really only one choice.

The Phuket Gazette has been around since 1993, when Phuket tourism was still (relatively) in it's infancy. I've been reading it (mostly online) since I came here in 1999. Sometimes the news is thin on the ground, sometimes there are 3 articles per day. The Gazette has more than just news - there's an extensive classified section, a job section, "issues and answers" and the "queer news" too. The news is mostly local, often reporting on crime, local politics, environmental news and tourism issues. The print version of the paper has some extra articles. It's not a bad read and only costs 20 Baht.. or is it 25..? Not sure, I am on the computer every day, so I use the online version.

The other print paper is the Phuket Post, but it's more of a magazine masquerading as a paper. Not really much headline news there. Plenty of column inches for property and eating out, certainly plenty of information about Phuket, and they even reprinted a blog article of mine about Songkran. Not too cutting edge, but they do have some interesting stuff, worth a read for sure.

Phuket News Online

If anything big happens in Phuket, you'll probably find it on the BBC or CNN well before the Phuket Gazette gets it's gears in motion. If I want to make sure I have not missed something, I tend to use Google News, which searches just about any news source you can mention. A search for "Phuket" right now gives results ranging from "Sail World, Australia" to the "Jerusalem Post, Israel".. mind you, it's not all cutting edge news. I see the Google News search tells me "Kimi Raikkonen invests in Phuket Beachfront Villa"...

Recently, the Phuket Wan website has impressed me, and seems to have more new stories and is faster to report than the Gazette

The national newspapers will also report on news that has a bearing on Phuket. Let's not forget that Phuket is not some Utopian holiday isle.. it's a province of Thailand, so some national news updates might be worth reading now and then... You can try the Bangkok Post or The Nation. There are a couple of Thai language websites such as Manager Online that probably have even more news... but you will have to learn Thai first!

Forums and Chat Rooms - there are some very active forums, of which Thai Visa would be the best for news and discussion. You may also catch something on the Lonely Planet Thailand forum, or the Trip Advisor Phuket forum.

Latest Weather News - Best place to look for weather reports and links to weather forecasts, radar, satellite images, webcams and more - my Phuket Weather blog.

So, there you go. If you're coming to Phuket, or just love Phuket and want to know what's going on, there are plenty of news sources. Mostly the news is pretty local and won't affect visitors, but if anything really big happens you'll find it here on Jamie's Phuket and probably on TV too!

Table of Contents

Festival: O2 Wireless Festival 2008

With our tickets in hand months and months ago, we've spent a long time waiting for this day to arrive and today it was finally here.

We set off for Hyde Park in central London for the 2008 O2 Wireless Festival headlined by Fatboy Slim.

  

Stephen, Mandy and Chris on the train to Hyde Park.

Stephen holding his ticket.

It was quite a cross country dash, but we made it to Hyde Park just after 2.15pm and so just in time to see the last couple of minutes of The Whip.  It seems strange that I hadn't heard of this band until one week ago but it just goes to show how much can change in a week.  The Whip are an exceptionally talented indie electronic band and they have just released their first album, X Marks Destination.  If you like The Faint then you'll like The Whip.  Their show was really live and these guys are really energetic and confident on stage.  They kicked the day off in excellent festival style.  I imagine that I'll have to buy their album now because they are that good.

I've been raving about Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip for several months now and was pleased as punch when Chris got me their new album Angles for my birthday.  These guys are brilliant and I really, really like their lyrics.  I'm not usually into hip hop, which this band are, but I just can't resist the charms of a band that says "Radiohead - just a band".  A show like this is hard to judge because much of their music is sampled and accompanied by live lyrics.   Nevertheless, it was great to see them in the flesh and to see their dynamic up on stage and all in all they were pretty enjoyable and I got to dance around and sing at the top of my lungs.

We had a bit of lunch after that and then I watched one or two songs from Cut Copy.  The guy has got a great voice but I definitely needed a bit of a rest after the first two bands.

I have this silly little habit where I categorise all my music into genres so I can navigate my collection easier on my iPod.  Well, Allmusic.com got this one spectacularly wrong because Sam Sparro is as indie electronic as Marilyn Manson is gospel.  In fact, I've been fighting the whole week against liking this artist because I was unsure whether he was perhaps too mainstream for my liking. 

Silly notions of music snobbery aside, Sam Sparro is the best surprise I have had in years.  It is easy to see how talented he is just by listening to his music but it took the live show to blow my mind.  He was phenomenal and it was one of the biggest mistakes of the festival to put a man with this much talent in a small tent off the main stage.  Well, he almost blew the top off that tent and the tent was packed to capacity.  He seemed honestly surprised at the reception he received and seemed to really appreciate it.  I guess that's the last time any festival is going to put this man in a small tent.  Expect big things from him in the future.

The best part of his set (yes, he deserves three paragraphs) was him covering Black Box “Ride On Time” and Crystal Waters “Gypsy Woman (La da dee da da da)”.  It was just so ad lib and so... entertaining.  Brilliant show.

Unfortunately, the next couple of hours turned a possible 10/10 festival experience to only a 7/10 one.  First, I waited about 45 minutes to go to the portaloos.  I'll give them credit in that the facilities remained spotless right through the event but the organisation was horrid and you just can't ignore the calls of nature.  I emerged after 45 minutes and managed to catch the last remaining refrains of “Weird Science” by Does It Offend You, Yeah?  I'm really disappointed by not seeing this band. 

We decided to get some drinks and to check out the main stage.  Then we went back to the ridiculously small tent to catch some MSTRKRFT and to grab a spot for Underworld.  Well, we weren't the only one with that idea and over an hour before Underworld was to begin, the tent was full to capacity and the organiser had closed the gate thereby disallowing any further access to the tent.  Actually, we missed seeing Underworld.  I think I'm going to have to give the festival a 6/10.  How on earth do you make not one but two mistakes of putting massive acts like Sam Sparro and Underworld in tiny little tents when it is obvious that they should be main stage acts?

Moving on swiftly, we did catch Deadmau5 who puts on a very cute techno DJ set.  Chris wasn't too impressed but then he never has liked Deadmau5.  I reckon I would seek out this guy if he was ever doing a DJ set at another festival or something - he wasn't too bad at all (if you like banging techno) - but I wouldn't buy his stuff.

 

Eventually the man himself came on.  For Deadmau5, we had a spot right at the front near the stage (on account of not being able to get into the Underworld tent).  However, the Absolutely Smashed people around us got a bit too much for us and we moved right out for Fatboy Slim's set.  We were pretty exhausted by then and we tried to dance a bit but he just wasn't as good as he was when we saw him at the Colab in Centurion in South Africa.  He rocked my socks off at the previous gig!!!  In the end, we decided to go and we took a leisurely stroll towards the exits stopping for hot dogs and pancakes and wondered why we hadn't just spent the entire day on these super-comfortable sofa-type things by the food area.

As we were leaving, Fatboy Slim played “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream vs The Hoxtons.  I remembered when he played that at Colab and I was blown away that he was pretty much playing an entire Cream song at a dance gig!  All in all it was a good day with great memories.  While we were disappointed in some respects, the are always going to be situations like today where you just can't predict the popularity of a rapidly rising star (no excuse for not realising the pulling power of Underworld though).  Spending 45 minutes in line for the toilet is never going to go down well and that certainly could have been better marshalled but as I mentioned before, those facilities were spotless by the end of the evening and you really can't fault them on that.

All in all I'll give the day 8/10 then because I just know I'll be singing Sam Sparro all week.

Wat Thepnimit

Wat Thepnimit (or Thep Nimit) is about 3km outside Phuket town on the road to Chalong (Chao Fa Road) in Tambon (sub district) Wichit. You can't see the temple from the road, though the entrance is quite obvious. The temple is behind Thepnimit School. When I visited yesterday morning, kids were arriving for school...



The temple was very quiet, as the local temples normally are. It's not a large temple, but as always I found some points of interest (if you like temples!). The main building was locked, as they often are - the local temples are not normally open 24-7.





Normally the temples have a kind of bell tower. Here the bell was in something like a pagoda, brightly painted with pictures of lotus flowers.

I had read on another website a story about a new chedi built at Wat Thepnimit about 3 years ago to house what is described as "Buddha’s relics". It seems many local people helped to build this new golden Chedi which is about 8 meters high and very golden indeed!



The Monks houses here looked very simple and there were cats and chickens running around all over the grounds.



You find "holy trees" all over Thailand with cloth tied around them and Buddha images placed among the roots. Here's one at Thepnimit temple:



Some of those cats I mentioned decided I was worth following. Maybe they are used to someone bringing them food. One cat would not sit still for a photo. If I moved back a meter to take a picture, it followed...



Then found a friend...



• Wat Thepnimit Location on Google Earth
• More Phuket Temples

HotelTravel.com - A Phuket Success Story

A few months ago, I had an email from HotelTravel.com asking about advertising or setting up partner links with this here Phuket blog. Which was nice. HotelTravel.com is a big banana on the internet, and I had been wondering if they had any affiliate program, as it's a top quality website and always seems to pop up in Google searches... they must be doing well, I thought.



The HotelTravel.com website is very easy to use, rates are low and there are live agents waiting to chat - and I mean there really ARE live agents.. I always thought that was a bit of a con, the live agent button, normally redirecting you to a call center in Bangalore or something, but I have seen the HotelTravel live agents! Rather than do everything by email, I printed out the partner agreement and visited their office which is right here in Phuket. Only when I saw the offices did I realise what a big company it is. This was impressive! It looked very modern and efficient, I was quite taken aback, as things in Thailand don't always look so sleek!

So I have busied myself adding some links to HotelTravel on my Recommended Phuket Hotel pages. You can also search for worldwide hotels using the HotelTravel.com search box at the top of this page. On the hotel pages on this blog you'll find several links to different hotel booking websites, making it easy to compare and find the best deals. Online is the way to book these days.

Now, what's this about a success story? Yes, HotelTravel.com is based in Phuket, and employs more than 200 people, but it's the story about how it started that makes us all wish we had our hands in a pie like this! There was an article in the Phuket Post newspaper recently about co founder Blair Speers and a genuine rags to riches story...

After a long holiday in Phuket, Mr Speers says "I arrived at the airport with 250 baht in my pocket. I bought a drink and then went to check in. There I realised that the airport tax was more than I had in my pocket. There was nothing for it. I had to beg or go back. I only just had enough to get a taxi back to the house!"

He started a school teaching English, but was cut short by the landlord suddenly tripling the rent on the building - and that's typical round here - the landlord sees you doing well and wants a slice of your fortune thank you.

He was then all but broke again, his girlfriend started doing laundry to make ends meet and his motorbike was repossessed. But you know, if you have faith, things turn around.. and he got a job with PlanetHoliday (now part of Agoda.com), but lost the job when he got sick. Bummer. Then, out of the blue an old friend (who had some money) got in touch, they chatted, and in March 2000, HotelTravel.com started with it's online Phuket Hotel Reservation service. The internet is a funny old thing. If you are just starting to get into it now, well, you might make a living. If you got in early enough, and worked hard, well done to you.

HotelTravel.com is now, as I say, a big cheese.

Poor me - I never had even a hotmail address until 1998! Spent all my time diving and backpacking, oh why didn't I start a hotel reservations website!?

• Phuket Hotels by HotelTravel.com
• Thailand Hotels at HotelTravel.com
• Phuket Post - Story of HotelTravel.com