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In celebration of the auspicious occasion of the birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, 5 December 2013, Image Asia Events Co., Ltd. wishes to mark this special occasion.
This space kindly made available by Ka Villa.
A boutique collection and well gated community of only 9 North-facing tropical homes with private swimming pool and all elements of a luxury lifestyle. Every villa offers panoramic sea views. Designed in tropical-modern style with open concept to maximize comfortable living. Each villa stands 3 levels high plus a large rooftop terrace with a 12 meter infinity-edge swimming pool overlooking stunning views of the Andaman Sea and Chalong Bay.
Panoramic Sea Views Beautiful Villas Most Convenient Location Excellent Price
Tel +66 (0) 86 9822 888, +66 (0) 88 7624 602 www.aquavillasphuket.com
124 F2
THE COCO
CHRISTMAS COCKTAIL PARTY
Please join us to celebrate the official opening of our stunning new on site show units For a chance to win A NEW IPAD simply present your business card on the day
Whilst every care has been taken in preparing this page, the developer does not guarantee its accuracy nor intend it to form any part of any offer or contract. The developer reserves the right at any time to make changes to the project at its own discretion.
We invite you to share in the essence of Dont Worry - Be Happy through the spirit of Mai Pen Rai, because when youre our guest, nothing else matters to us.
75 B1
68 E2
email : sales@keehin.com
www.keehin.com
sales@baansukapun.com
14 H5
47 B2
www.windowonphuket.com
facebook.com/Window.Phuket
Regulars
Phuket Island map 8 What's on: on & off Phuket (including the movies) 12-15 Word of mouth 16 People profile: Bill O'Leary (Southeast Asia Pilot author) 18-19 Legal matters: Arbitration as an option for dispute resolution 62 Property matters: Phuket property high season rush 64 Business profile: Femke Beekers, GM of BEST WESTERN Allamanda Laguna Phuket 66 Social Phuket 68-69 Things to do in Phuket 72 Useful telephone numbers 73
Cover photos: Left: 69 Slam Swimwear, Patong Right: Impiana Resort Patong Beach
28 40-41 45 68-69
Advertising enquiries
Peter: +66 81 894 9668 peter@image-asia.com (English) Pommy : +66 89 873 6544 mktg@image-asia.com (Thai/English) Jill : +66 89 873 6558 sales@image-asia.com (Thai/English)
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WHAT'S ON
French Fair
Till 1 Dec 2013 @ Jungceylon Shoping Mall Phuket French Fair 2013. Promoting French brands, new products and French knowhow. Sample food, drinks and more from France. Entrance free. +66 81 891 3670. christian@phuket-receptif.com.
designfurniture.asia
Furniture inspired by the best designers as Eames, Le Corbusier etc.
33 B2
To Cherngtalay
To Bangtao Beach
To Talang
Bangtao Showroom at
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47 C1
2 H6
To Bangtao Place
To Phuket Town
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WHAT'S ON
Off Phuket
Phuket Boatshow
9-12 Jan 2014 @ Royal Phuket Marina Phuket International Boatshow (PIMEX) Marine, lifestyle, property & marine products & services. 60 boats on display. 2,500 sqm indoor display. 120 exhibitors. +66 81 892 7670. phuketboatshow.com
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Central Festival Phuket, +66 76 209000 Jungceylon Shopping Destination Patong, +66 76 600555
FROZEN
Genre : Animation, Adventure, Family Starring : Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk In Frozen, fearless optimist Anna (Bell ) teams up with rugged mountain man Kristoff (Groff ) and his loyal reindeer Sven in an epic journey, encountering Everest-like conditions, mystical trolls and a hilarious snowman named Olaf in a race to find Anna's sister Elsa (Menzel), whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom of Arendelle in eternal winter. Encountering Everest-like conditions, mystical trolls and a hilarious snowman, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race to save the kingdom.
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in Phuket
WHAT'S ON Entertainment
December Choices
Regular Events
ACYC Ao Chalong Yacht Club Competitive but fun club racing on Sundays twice a month. All are welcome to sail. Just turn up! +66 81 985 6879. sduncanson@quantumsails.com. www.acyc.asia PIWC Phuket International Women's Club Monthly meetings: Committee - 1st Thursday, Meet & Greet - 2nd Thursday. Lunch - 3rd Thursday. Coffee Morning - 4th Thursday. All welcome; registration is essential. +66 76 316711. info@phuketiwc.com. www.phuketiwc.com IBAP The International Business Association of Phuket Regular meeting is on the 2nd Friday of each month. secretary@ibap-phuket.org. www.ibap-phuket.org BBAP British Business Association - Phuket Monthly dinners & social evenings. socialsec@bbap.org. www.bbap.org Computer Clinic Phuket Computer Clinic Free computer clinic roundtables (Windows problems, internet service) every Sunday, 10am at the Sandwich Shoppe, Chalong. Lions Club Lions Club of Patong Beach Monthly meeting & fellowship dinner, 2nd Tuesday each month. +66 81 374 2088. info@lions-club-patong.org. www.lions-club-patong.org GOMS Grumpy Old Men's Society A grumpy but happy group of local gentleman gathers every 1st & 3rd Monday of the month at Chalong Pier Beer Garden. vguytonbeck@gmail.com. Cricket / Rugby Outrigger Hotels /Twenty Cricket League at ACG Cricket Ground Matches every Sunday 9am. Touch rugby Wednesday evenings. www.phuketcricketgroup.com / www.acgphuket.com.
DJs & Live Music @ Bliss Beach Club, Bang Tao They say the WOW factor kicks in-hard. Vibrating, quivering. BLISS 2nd Anniversary 7 Dec. Live Music @ Two Chefs, Karon House band every night around 8 pm with a mix of new and old songs. Great prices on beer and sangria. Live bands @ Red Hot, Patong Formerly Margaritas. Live bands every evening from 7.30. Big TV screen and a pool table. Live Jam nights @ Skyla's Beach House, Kamala Chilled international music including live jam nights. They also teach surfing & 'SUP'. Live bands @ Sanaeha, Phuket City Live music a few nights a week. Female singer covering hits from the 60s every Tuesday to Saturday. Live Music @ Candlelight Bar, Karon Reggae band every Sunday night. Shirts & shoes optional. Live music starts at 9.30pm. Live Music @ Tai Pan, Patong International singers. Classic Rock through to the latest dance hits. Every night through to 11.45pm. Jam sessions @ Music Matters jazz bar, Phuket City Jazz, Salsa, Caribbean, African, S. American & more. Jazz jam sessions Wed & Sat. Live sports @ Roxy Bar, Phuket City Fun atmosphere, food & live sports. free pool & wi-fi. Quiz every Wednesday. Happy Hours 5-8pm. Bar Bands @ Timber Hut, Phuket City The Thai pub scene. A fun place featuring one of Phuket's great bar bands. Boat Bar @ Paradise Complex, Patong Beach The only gay disco in Patong with daily popular cabaret shows around midnight. DJs & live music @ Banana Bar & Disco Patong Dance club with a mix of Thais & visitors. Live music on ground floor bar. Disco upstairs. Live music & cheap beer @ Rom Dee, Phuket City Small venue, live music every night & cheap beer. Gets busy, but laid-back approach. International DJs @ Seduction Discotheque, Patong R&B on first floor, house/dance on second. Well-known international DJs often spin for the crowd. Latest hits to disco classics of the 70s & 80s.
Times & dates of events are subject to change. Please contact the organiser for up-to-date information.
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Phuket Universal Services Co., Ltd.
58/24 Moo 6, Thepkasattri Rd., Rassada, Muang, Phuket 83000 Tel: +66 (0)76 238824-6 Mobile: +66 (0)84 843 3492 Email: pusco@phuketemail.com www.phukettransport.com
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We all know one of those places they never advertise but theyre busy. Why? Word of mouth. People tell their friends, You must try.. and the word spreads. In this monthly column, we spread the word further about the great-value nooks and crannies that we know about on Phuket.
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5.30am-11am. On Satun Rd. at the entrance to Pavillion Hotel, near Plook Panya School. One of most popular breakfast choices among Phuketians is Khanom Jeen . My favourite Khanom Jeen restaurant is 'Mae Ting'. Operating with a self-service concept, you can pick up plates of rice noodles at the counter, to enjoy choices of curry such as Beef curry (Gaeng Nua), Chicken curry (Gaeng Kai), Fish curry (Nam Ya Pla), Crab curry (Gaeng Poo) and more ... A variety of vegetable dishes are available .
Palai Seafood
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9am-10pm. From Chao Fah East Rd, head down Soi Parlai past the Phuket Zoo right to the beach. The largest beachfront restaurant on Chalong Bay with a great view. Good food , and not just seafood but a wide variety of Thai dishes at reasonable prices. S teamed crab with seafood sauce , steamed lemon sea bass and baked prawn with glass noodles in hot pot is a Must Try!!
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Cafe' Y Te'
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10am-10pm. In the valley between Phuket Mining Museum and British International School. Right at the side of the road. A small and friendly restaurant serving a range of delicious natural Thai food . Inexpensive but nice atmosphere with local hospitality in touch with nature . Recommended dishes are prawns in tamarind sauce and fried sh with curry paste . Hard to nd the place but worth the eort.
9am-6pm, closed Sunday. Phang Nga Rd, 300m from On On Hotel. A very cosy and relaxing caf offering a wide range of tea , coffee & cakes of the best quality. The service is warm and friendly. Cakes are mouthwatering and light. Banof Pie at 70 baht is a must-try. Perfect for reading or chilling out with friends or family. Good for small business meetings.
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aurant & we'll include r favourite little bar or rest our t you b ut Tell us abo fon@image-asia.com to: ils deta il Ema . th' Mou 'Word of
68 E1
silverado_beadphuket@hotmail.co.th, silverado.bm@gmail.com
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BILL O'LEARY
Bill O'Leary
26 years ago, Bill O'Leary arrived in Phuket as crew aboard a yacht. Fast forward to 2013 and he's helping develop the marine side of three Malaysian government-backed mega tourism projects. Here's how he went from yachty 'yobbo' to entrepreneur, artist, musician, avowed family man and now corporate 'suit'.
Where are you from? Charleville Outback Queensland, Australia Tell us something about your early years. Im the second of four kids to an Irish immigrant Flying Doctor who worked for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) for 30 years in rural, then far north Queensland. My childhood was a blur of high-flying awe punctuated by institutionalised terror. The awe was flying with Dad when hed let me pilot, pull teeth, give injections and eat snake amongst the full-blooded Aboriginals. These adventures were offset by long terrifying stints of Catholic boarding-school brutality. Dad was a living legend in the outback and had hundreds of amazing stories we put into a book and screenplay after he died. I remember one flying clinic where hed circumcised dozens of infants in one session at Aurukun Mission up on the Cape. He reckoned he and the pilot kept the left-overs in a Vegemite jar full of sawdust and used them for months after as Barramundi bait. Half a dozen end-bits skewered onto a 3/0-sized hook caught so many Barramundi he reckoned it was cheating. When did you move to Phuket and from where? In 1987 after filming Dead Calm, I sailed on the famous yacht Stormvogel from Hamilton Island on Australias Great Barrier Reef through Indonesia to Phuket. How well did you know Phuket before moving? Id never heard of it before. I was pronouncing it wrong from the start. The Aussie yobo in me loved the notion of sailing off to some magical island in Thigh-land called Fwwwuuu-ket and visiting those amazing rock formations at Fee Fee Island and Fan-ga Nar Bay. Did you come here intending to work or set up a business? No way! When the dinghy hit the beach, I succumbed to a nasty bout of culture shock going AWOL troppo for a few days that culminated in me getting booted off Stormvogel. I didnt care I thought Id found heaven. Unfortunately I hadnt retained sufficient funds for a return
ticket. Down and out, I begged Vincent Tabuteau and Jan Jacobs to help them fit out June Bahtra at Rattanchai shipyard so I lived on deck up the creek in Phuket Town. Those were hard days and sweaty mosquito-bitten nights staring up at the stars. Sometimes now I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now. Tell us about your life in Phuket. Im the luckiest foreigner to ever set foot on Phuket. My Seppo [Australian dialect for American citizen septic tank] mate Barry Bailey got his melon run over by one of those early jetskis with a hanging outboard motor. So I got his job running the three boats at the newly opened Amanpuri back in 1988. Anthony Lark (Trisara) was the GM and the property had started to set the Kingdoms luxury benchmark that still hasnt been topped. We started a charity band called Free Beer with hotel GM Larz Ydmark and Laurent Myter and played fund-raising gigs with various visiting rock stars. The Amancruises managers job in those early years never felt like work. I was living the dream. I stayed through the top of the bell curve where we managed and operated 26 luxury boats, with 60 Thai crew. I invested in Phukets first marine services businesses, Thai Marine Leisure and Phuket Yacht Services with good friends Andy Dowden, Vincent Tabuteau and Jan Jacobs. We sold out to the Prataraprasit family, who built The Yacht Haven marina on the site. Another friend, Tony Green, and I founded Phuket Water Taxi, Steppa Boats and H20 Sportz Indonesia, the first fast charter company, fiberglass boat factory and top end half day diving in the region. More luck came my way when I was invited to invest in Irish Pubs Molly Malones and Scruffy Murphys then in the two Pizza Company franchises in Patong. Im divested of everything now, but Id probably do it all again if I was given the opportunity. Theres still one thing left from the old days, though. Grenville Fordham (MD of this magazines publisher), Andy Dowden and I write and publish an amazing sailing/cruising guide, Southeast Asia Pilot, every few years and that keeps me pretty busy charting the region. Tell us about the latest development in your professional life? Ive just started a two-year contract with the Malaysian sovereign funds Government Linked Companies Destination Resorts and Hotels and Desaru Coast Developments. Were building three mega tourism hotel and themed attraction projects in Johor Bahru, Iskandar and Langkawi. Im helping plan, build and operate their marinas, workboats, ferries, luxury cruise businesses, beachfronts and coastal areas.
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What do you see as your biggest success to date, either here or elsewhere? Being a good Dad for our four amazing kids. If they disagree Ill beat them bloody senseless! Whereabouts do you live in Phuket? In Pakhlok just east of Heroines' Monument. What determined your choice of location? I loathe the traffic and wanted to be a 20-minute drive from everywhere so I stuck a pin at Heroines and drew a 3km ring around it. I also wanted to be10m above sea level (tsunami-proof ), with lots of privacy and a straight speed-bump-free access road with no neighbours. Took me a while but I found the perfect plot at Eco Nanua and built a fortress there. What do you like most about living in Phuket? The Whitsunday Islands in Australia are pretty awesome, but Phuket is geographically more diverse and has more to offer. I love the ocean and Im far less paranoid about swimming and diving in the Andaman Sea. In Oz everything in the water wants to kill you. I love Thailand and Phuket is the best place in Thailand. The island is literally floating right in the middle of the most awesome cruising grounds on the planet. Phang Nga Bay, Krabi, Phi Phi, Racha, the Koh Yaos, Lanta, The Similans, Surins, Burma and Andaman Islands are stunning and all within easy reach. For a boat guy like me its simply paradise on earth. Do you expect to return here after your KL stint? For sure. Im a Phuketian - having lived more years on the island than anywhere else. Homes not where youre born its where youre prepared to die. What's the hardest/most frustrating thing about living here (and in Kuala Lumpur)? The traffic really shits me and the growing number of resident expat Thailand knockers. My family is in the midst of getting our Thai Nationality, so I feel more at home here than I do in other countries. Some people wouldnt be happy in heaven. I wish those that dont like Thailand just stopped complaining and went back to where they came from. Nowheres perfect why do they think this should be? And in KL? The traffic mostly and I miss being called Khun Bill. In Malaysia they call me Mr. OLeary, Sir, Boss and even William Francis - but I dont know who theyre talking to. How old are you? 52 last 4th of July. 1961 was an awesome batch havent met a bad one yet. What about your wife and family? My wife is Carolyn. I met her on Hamilton Island when she was 19 and weve been happily married for 22 years. Children? Timothy 20 3rd year Chapman University California; Bronty 19 starts at USC in LA in January; Meg 14 and Mia 11 live with us and are studying at The Garden School in KL. Which Phuket schools did your kids go to? Greenhouse and British School (BIS). Then Tim went to NIST in Bangkok and Bronty to Harvard Westlake in LA. What do you think the future holds for you? Continued vitality, health, creativity, prosperity and if Im lucky, maybe even a tad of wisdom. Progress not perfection. Nihil Admirari is my way of life. How do you evaluate success? Serenity and peace. It comes and goes, of course, for all of us. When I truly dont care about the good opinion of others, am happy in my own skin and try to practice patience, kindness, tolerance and love thats success. The happier I am, the more successful I am and vice versa. By these criteria, the most successful bloke in Phuket must be the weathered onetoothed garland seller at the Boat Lagoon lights. Is there anyone happier on the island? Hes my hero. Actually, plenty of successful people live on Phuket theyre mainly Thais. Whats your dream car? Audi Q7. Its a wolf in sheeps clothing. What do you do with your free time, if you have any? Kids, art brut and writing screenplays. Which are your favourite restaurants / clubs / beaches in Phuket? Anything north of Heroines Monument or on Surin beach.
Co-authored by Bill OLeary
It's hard to beat the Amanpuri for all three but its exclusive and expensive. Do you do much travelling, either around the immediate area or overseas? Yeah, I love travelling on boats to new places anywhere in Asia. Ive also got a good mate who invites me fast boating with him in the Mediterranean. I love Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Amalfi, Capri and St Tropez. With two kids in the states, Venice Beach in California is growing on me too. Its got fruitcakes just like Phuket. Are you involved in any local charities, clubs or associations? I dont have much of a social life anymore. Im over it. The older I get, the more I agree with Shopenheur on the phases of a mans life. Its family time or solitude that I actively seek now. Charities? We anonymously support the few worthwhile (in our opinion) island charities. When we have a windfall, we like to pay it forward. I reckon thats what keeps all this good luck rolling in.
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Sunsail Asia