Developments planned for the Forgotten Road

Well I think it would be a little bit bold for me to suggest my article a few days ago had anything to do with this, but I was interested to read this story in the Gazette about the ‘forgotten road’ of Patong.

Interestingly the forgotten road actually has a name – its called Phang Muang Road.

The Gazette article quotes Patong Mayor Pian Keesin saying they are planning to invest 5 million baht to fix the potholes in the road and hope to have the work completed by high season.

Unfortunately for us who use the road frequently there was no mention on when they plan to finish the road completely however with an estimated  price tag of 300-400 million baht for the project it will probably not be any time soon.

Give the business owners a break…

As we all know the global economy is struggling, swine flu has scared a lot of people from traveling and many Governments still have travel warnings to Thailand (I have no idea why on this one). Clearly business owners in Phuket are doing it tough at the moment, particularly if you rely on the tourist economy as most of us do.

Having made the decision to live and work in Thailand you must respect their traditions and beliefs, afterall I used to get very worked up over people who would move to Australia and then choose not to speak our language or even worse not stand still and quiet during our national anthem So it is only fair that we ‘farang’ also respect the ways of the Thai people.

The last 2 days has seen some religous holidays of signifcant importance to the people here in Thailand. These are the days of Asarnha Bucha Day and Khao Phansa Day.

Asarnha Bucha Day commemorates the Lord Buddha’s first sermon and Khao Phansa Day marks the start of the Buddhist Lent. During this time Buddhist monks are restricted to their temples for a period of three months and young men over the age of 20 who have not yet ordained as monks can use this time to enter monkhood.

While I certainly have no problems in respecting the Thai ways I do start to have a problem with the selective way in which certain ‘requests’ and ‘bans’ are implemented.

It was widely reported in the Phuket Gazette that “Kathu Police Superintendent Grissak Songmoonark told the Gazette that bar operators in Patong have already agreed to close down on Asarnha Bucha Day, when a host of religious and team-building activities have been arranged by the Patong Entertainment Business Association (PEBA).”

“As for July 8, Col Grissak said bar owners would be “asked” to cooperate with the no-alcohol ban, as they have in years past.”

The article, published on July 3, also says “Col Grissak said his station had yet to receive any official orders from the district office formally banning alcohol sales on that day.”

So by my maths about 4 days before a potentially major shut down of Thailand’s largest tourist region the official position had not filtered down to the local police precincts.

By Monday July 6, the message had not gotten any clearer. The local police had a meeting to decide their position and we were informed that as a bar/restaurant we would be able to open to sell food, but under no circumstances could we sell alcohol or have a band on either day. In speaking with several other bar owners I got several different versions of what they had been advised to do over the period.

This is where I have a problem. If there was one law for everyone then it would be fair. However as I am constantly told Thai law is very 50/50 and as such can be applied different ways to different people.

While most every bar observed the ban on July 7, by the evening of July 8 many larger bars where open and selling alcohol while one large bar on the beach was open (and full) with the regular band playing all night. Many other venues such as The Port also where able to operate business as usual with their bands playing on both nights and alcohol being served not just with dinner, but to anyone who walked in to sit down and listen to the band. In my mind that constitutes as a bar, quite similar to my place, however we observed the ban and didn’t serve alcohol or play a band.

If you are lucky enough to be a larger hotel or resort with a bar and a band then congratulations, you also got to stay open and trade. Restaurants by and large were also not effected by the ban, and it was business as usual for them.

I am not complaining about having to be closed, in fact I was out last night at several of the venues that were open and we had a great night, it is just very disappointing that there is no consistency in the implementing of the law.

It is also quite tough for tourists who travel here, some only stopping over for a few days, who had absolutely no knowledge of the ban and hence the closing of all the famous nightspots in town. I am sure it not only left a sour taste in the mouth of struggling bar owners in town, but also many of the tourists who were here to have a good time and help our struggling economy by splashing their cash around on a few nights out.

The Forgotten Road

All of you familiar with Patong will know the road that runs parallel
with rat-u-thit road and Nanai road. Although I’m quite sure none of
you will know its name.

I like to refer to it as “The road with no name”.

Perhaps that is the reason it is in such a poor state.

This is a very busy road for locals however it is rarely seen by
tourists. The road is a disgrace. It is completely made of dirt and
rock and is littered with pot holes. When it rains the road turns in
to a muddy quagmire and the pot holes are more like bunkers you would
find if you were playing golf at St Andrews.
The last few days have been particularly bad and this morning after
some rain it was downright dangerous as it was so muddy and slippery.
With Bangla boxing stadium, the new Tiger complex and many new condos
going up on this road something needs to be done and quickly.

A novel approach to combat Bird Flu

Just read an interesting story on the Phuket Gazette website.

The story talks about how the employees at the Phuket Airport are avoiding catching bird flu by singing Happy Birthday.
Yes you heard it right, by singing Happy Birthday.

Apparently it takes about 20 seconds to sing the song and all employees are being encouraged to sing the song every time the wash their hands, hence ensuring their hands are cleaned properly.

Only in Thailand

Fine Dining in Patong

The last week or two here in Patong has been very quite and as you can imagine when you have a business in the hospitality/tourist market this is not what you want to hear.

I thought I would treat Carla and I to a nice night out, so we decided to head down to a restaurant that we had been hearing about for a while to see what all the fuss was about.

We made our way down to the 9th Floor, which is located up a back Soi off Rat-U-Thit Rd, and made our way up to the top floor where we found a very stylishly decked out venue.

It seemed a little ‘too nice’ for something that you would expect in Patong, but the place lived up to the hype we had heard.

As with all places around here at the moment it wasn’t that busy, but it had 6 or 7 tables of customers which is certainly more than you could hope for at this time of year. One of the first things you notice about the place is the abundance of waitresses who all spoke good English and were nice and friendly offering very attentive service. They were also very stylishly dressed in something that reminded me of a Robert Palmer film clip.

We both enjoyed our meals with Carla having a delicious Rib Eye Steak (850 baht++) and I decided to have one of my favourites in the Veal Cordon Blue (650 baht++). The veal was particularly good rivaling my personal favourite cordon blue found back in Sydney at Eiger Swiss Restaraut.

We decided to splurge and shared a Chocolate Fondue for desert served with some fresh fruits…very rich, very delicious and no doubt very bad for my bulging waste line.

Before leaving we had a quick chat to the owner, Thomas, who was on hand to ensure everything was running smoothly and we assured him we would be back to celebrate Carla’s birthday in a week or so.

We highly recommend a trip to this place while you are here in Phuket.

I’m Here

I’m just an average expat Aussie guy here in Phuket with his beautiful bride trying to make a living in this Paradise that is Phuket.

I will use this blog to muse some random thoughts on Phuket among other things and also probably list some of the better places to go and visit that are a bit more off the tourist track. After all when traveling it is always better to get the low-down from some locals as they always have the best info on the places to go and see.

We own a bar/restaurant here in Patong also called the TWO BLACK SHEEP (www.twoblacksheep.net). Obviously it is one of the best places in town to go to and you can say hi to Carla and myself here, but I will try not to spend all my time here telling you how good the bar is Suffice to say it is very good, awesome food, fantastic band every night, all the live sport you can possibly wish for and in a friendly ‘hassle free’ environment.

I will try to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis, but please bare with me if it goes a while without update, afterall we are living in paradise and sometimes things get us sidetracked

I hope you enjoy the information, pictures, thoughts and ideas on here and please feel free to use the comment button and let me know what your thinking.