alanmorison

What's better value, plane or bus from Phuket to Bangkok and back?

With air closures and fuel costs pushing up prices, the road may be a winner. A Phuketwan reporter took up the challenge.

By Chutima Sidasathian

IT WAS a moving experience. Going to Bangkok by plane, coming back to Phuket by bus, then describing which was the best.

In terms of cost, there was no comparison. The bus won by a long distance. The flight was about three times more expensive, and there were extra hidden costs.

It's harder to book a plane than a bus these days since Nok Air and One-Two-Go stopped flying the route. People are looking at low-cost alternatives.

Everything is changing. I flew Thai Air Asia and they charged an extra 50 baht for my small piece of luggage. That did not happen the last time I caught a plane.

And I had to get from the old Don Muang airport to where I needed to be, so that was either a taxi fare or a longer trip by bus.

Flying to Phuket, I'd probably need a minibus or a taxi to Phuket City. The bus, though, drops me in the centre of town.

COMING back, we caught the bus at the Southern Bus Station, in Putamonton 1. It's a new bus station with facilities that are better than many airports.

Showers are available for three baht, along with a toilet at the same price. Tissue is five baht.

It was a 24-seater, and I scored a good seat on the window, with my friend alongside. A blanket is provided for each passenger, unlike on the aircraft.

There is also a small bottle of water and a snack. There's Thai custard and a piece of bread to spread it on. And there's a cold towel to wipe your face and hands.

We get to watch TV. For half an hour, there are karaoke songs. Then a foreign movie comes on.

It's 'Robocop', and the English version is screened, with Thai subtitles.

A bus hostess patrols the aisle, making sure everyone is content. There are two drivers, and one takes over after six hours to make sure the trip is a safe one.

If time is not a big issue for you, these days a VIP bus is better value.

-- For details on prices, go to www.phuketwan.com

The original heading in the Gazette reads: Immigration Chief targets 'national stability'. By making it read Immigration Chief Cracks Down On Unwanted Foreigners, Targets ‘national stability’ the Thai Visa version takes a leap in another direction and generates unnecessary alarm.

The article is poorly written, confused and confusing. It is impossible to fathom just exactly what's being proposed. More time should have been spent getting the facts right in the first place.

Set for takeoff is Phuket Air Park, where the developers say they have Department of Civil Aviation permission to go ahead and reach for the skies from Paklok.

The airfield homes may prove a runaway success.

Head of the management team, Suchat Raksanob, said that Department of Civil Aviation approval had been given to the 100 million baht project, which has been given the name Phuket Air Park.

Forty houses are scheduled to be part of the 100 million baht development, on land plots varying from half a rai to two rais. Electricity and other wiring will be underground.

--Full report at www.phuketwan.com

The travel industry has spawned new phrases and words that are as confusing as 'friendly fire' is to warfare or 'leader' is to politics. We'd like to expose a couple of popular lies in tourism.

That prefix eco-, first attached by well-meaning people, has now been misused so constantly to the point where it has no real value any more.

It's the eco that isn't worth hearing.

These days, an ecotour can be a ride on the back of an elephant, a whip around Patong Bay on a jetski, or a trip on a speedboat with no life jackets to a wrecked reef.

Geo- is just as bad, and yet its time is coming as the chosen replacement prefix for the meaningless eco-.

Some brochures still have the audacity to describe Phuket's beaches as ''pristine.'' You're kidding.

''Sustainable tourism'' now has so many meanings that it is of no further practical use.

If you asked six people what was meant by ''sustainable Phuket,'' you would get six different answers - perhaps seven if someone is in two minds, the way many people tend to be these days.

These new words and phrases are tourism's biggest lies. Anyone know a bigger one?

-- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

Thanks for clearing that up.

It's a difficult issue. If the reason for a decline in traditional Thai hospitality and good-natured tolerance is caused by Western dog-eat-dog influences, there are nationalists who would say (just like good nationalists everywhere) ''Get rid of the Western influences . . . and the Westerners.''

You certainly cannot expect to find the same kind of gentle goodwill in the cities and resort towns as you can in the countryside.

Yet for all the lack of meaningful interaction beyond daily commerce, the Thais respond better than people just about anywhere else. And only a Pol Pot would try to drive everybody back to the countryside.

Most aircraft accident investigations (even in the USA) take between one, to two years before they publish the official report.

Seems the 1-2-go accident was a combination of bad weather, weather radars at the airport not functioning and incompetent and tired pilots.

We don't know the cause, and as the flying public, we need to know. Guesswork doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to disasters that may have been avoidable. 'Accident' is not a word I would use for this kind of crash. 'Accident' implies that all precautions were taken and it just happened anyway. Loss of aircraft in the sea or over jungle, or where the plane is smashed to smithereens, clearly take longer to resolve than cases like this one, where all the remaining pieces are available and the factors are largely known. For goodness sakes, the pilot is already on trial for a similar crash of a similar scale in Indonesia that took place in March last year. Something is not right.

WE NOW know that a Qantas Boeing 747 flying from Hong Kong to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila last Friday.

An oxygen bottle exploded in midair, blasting a hole through the fuselage and forcing the pilot to make a hurried landing expertly, without the usual instrumentation.

That's alarming. But it's great to know what really happened, and all within a week, too.

Hey, what about that far more serious incident, the One-Two-Go crash on Phuket on September 16 last year?

What caused that? Was it pilot error, the bad weather, a problem with the ageing aircraft, or a combination of some or all of those elements?

Er . . . we don't know. Or rather, someone probably knows. But we haven't been told.

The Australian authorities acted quickly to determine the cause of the potentially tragic explosion and to reassure passengers everywhere that flying is, essentially, still safe.

Within a week, we learned enough to be prepared to fly again. But the One-Two-Go crash on Phuket that killed 90 passengers and crew 10 months ago?

We know next to nothing about the cause of that tragedy. The one-year anniversary is due in a few weeks.

Relatives and friends will put flowers on the graves of the victims without knowing what caused their loss.

And we understand from reliable sources that it could be - wait for it - perhaps next year, 2009, before the Department of Civil Aviation in Thailand releases what it has discovered about the crash.

Next year!

No explanation for the delay. Not even a rough idea as to what's going on in secrecy behind closed doors in Bangkok and the US, where the black box went for examination.

Yet we are all expected to happily take to the air again as if nothing ever happened.

Now isn't that amazing?

-- More at www.phuketwan.com

Giving Thai officials the finger on arrival on Phuket and elsewhere will become customary if Cabinet approves a proposal from Thai Immigration officials to make fingerprinting compulsory for foreigners arriving at Thailand's international airports.

The proposal would enable officials to also keep track of foreigners as they travel around Thailand.

Thailand's Immigration Chief, the Commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, Police Lieutenant General Chatchawal Suksomjit, revealed that the proposal had reached Cabinet and was awaiting approval when he talked to a reporter as he opened the new Phuket Immigration HQ at Saphan Hin in Phuket City.

- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

Giving Thai officials the finger on arrival on Phuket and elsewhere will become customary if Cabinet approves a proposal from Thai Immigration officials to make fingerprinting compulsory for foreigners arriving at Thailand's international airports.

The proposal would enable officials to also keep track of foreigners as they travel around Thailand.

- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

JULY 29 brings the formal opening of Phuket's new Immigration HQ, and the first test for a range of new approaches to visa applications. There's also a new holding cell for near misses.

The new Immigration headquarters brings state-of-the-art technology, closer ties with the Tourist Police, and greater ease in obtaining and renewing visas.

Earlier this year, the Superintendent of Phuket Immigration, Police Colonel Chanatpol Yongbunjerd, provided a preview tour of the fresh white building at Saphan Hin.

A modern Internet-connected system will allow resorts and guest houses to advise Immigration of arrivals and departures, free from the paperwork and delays of the old system.

In a breakthrough for official transparency, a committee of interested parties from outside the department is to be set up to offer feedback and advice on improvements to the entire Immigration system.

The concepts that work well in Phuket are likely to be adopted elsewhere in Thailand.

-- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

Sorry, no apology for our 'new journalism.'

Your choice. I just find the sentence: "inevitably, the cutbacks will affect tourism on Phuket and before long, investment on the island in property and resort construction." directly after the first part of news information purely opinion, and it should IMO not be there. (I also don't agree with the statement, but that is a different matter).

In the rest of the article you missed Bangkok Air BTW as one of the carriers still flying to Phuket from Bangkok.

Happy to have anyone use the Comments facility to add to any article on phuketwan.com. No need to register first. We don't pretend to be perfect, the way some news organisations do. Please explain why you disagree so all phuketwan readers can share the benefit of your opinion. Yes, Bangkok Airways still flies to Phuket. It's interesting to note how wide the pickup rate was of our scoop on the Nok Air cancellation.

CONTROL of Patong's decision-making local tessaban council now rests with Pian Keesin and the Rak Patong party after Sunday's poll, and that means the advocates of the Patong Hill underpass are in charge.

The re-elected mayor used a car emerging from the underpass as his main campaign image.

However, Khun Pian, leader of the Rak Patong (Love Patong) party, feels obliged to wait until the official results are declared in seven days before making any comments.

He has seen election results overturned and run-offs held again in the past.

But Khun Pian did say in his final speech before his weekend victory: ''The sky belongs to the birds, but the mayorship of Patong belongs to Pian.''

Provided the election result becomes official, when it comes to the tunnel under Patong Hill and perhaps other proposed innovations, Khun Pian no longer faces an uphill battle all the way.

Plans for a two-billion baht underpass through Patong Hill suffered a major setback in May when the tessaban rejected the budget for a feasibility study.

The then head of the tessaban board, Raksak Nuset, said the underpass study was too expensive. A new feasibility study would have cost 39,680,000 baht.

Khun Raksak said the project appeared to have taken on a life of its own, without local people being consulted first. Khun Raksak did not contest the election, and Khun Pian's party now has the numbers.

--Full report at phuketwan.com

We eat at at least one or two different restaurant each week for phuketwan's extensive data base of Phuket restaurant reviews. Last year's Phuketwan Restaurant of the Year, the Dibuk in Phuket City, represents very good value for money. You can eat French or Thai, or a mixture of both. I love to go there and order and share half a dozen appetisers. If you really want something special and money is no object, try the Aleenta, just over the bridge in Phang Nga. There, fine dining is treated as fine dining. The Banyan Tree also has a couple of good restaurants. In Chalong, Kan Eang@Pier is usually good for Thai food in a pleasant environment.

A NEW resort brand from Turkey is headed to take over the old Sofitel Magic Lagoon Resort and Spa, near Khao Lak in Phang Nga. The 300-room Rixos Premium will be taking bookings from August and is set to open in November.

It will be the first all-inclusive accommodation in the region, presumably along the lines of Club Med on Phuket. A wellness centre will form part of the resort.

Some residents of Khao Lak have heard that more Russians are likely to visit Phang Nga and are not especially pleased.

We came across a review of the 'seven-star' Rixos Premium Hotel Belek, in Turkey, that appeared in Britain's Observer newspaper in 2007.

The writer, Gemma Bowes, noted the scale of the resort, raved about the private pool villas, and added that quite a few Russians enjoyed the resort:

''The tranquillity of the indoor pool is disrupted somewhat by the raucous group of Russian businessmen who delight in dive-bombing each other and screaming down the slide.

''Some of the drunker ones turn up at the excellent gym clutching cans of beer, and one falls flat on his face off the running machine after trying to mount it on full speed.''

-- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

THE Governor of Phuket, Niran Kalayanamit, is concerned that there may already be an oversupply of condominiums on the island, with 60 projects now under construction.

More than 1000 units are being built in Phuket City alone, Khun Niran said.

Most of these are near the Macro cash and carry store, opposite Central Festival, or in the popular restaurant suburb of Samkong, not far from Bangkok Phuket Hospital.

Land Office spokesperson Jareeporn Punaudom said that 20 condominium projects had been approved this year, equal to the total for the whole of 2007.

Rawai, Kata, Karon, Patong Chern Talay and Phuket City were all home to large building sites.

-- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

If you look at the full article, I find it very bad journalism the way fact and opinion are intertwined.

Fact and opinion have always been intertwined in both good and bad journalism. It's just that we try to make it obvious, and to provide a complete context. In a world full of blogs and forum sites like this one, the character of news is changing as fast as the process of dissemination. Readers still get to decide what to believe. But these days, they demand a more complete picture, instantly. Few have the time to read the news item then the Opinion piece. One of the reasons online coverage is destroying newspapers is because readers' expectations have changed. Sorry, no apology for our 'new journalism.'

I notice the beautiful nature of Thai people becoming tainted.

That's a fair-sized generalisation. What do you mean?

NOK AIR is cutting its daily flights between Bangkok and Phuket from the end of July, along with services to three other destinations.

About 20 Nok Air staff at the airport on Phuket are also going to lose their jobs as the aviation industry crisis, fuelled by rising oil costs, impacts on Thai travel nationwide.

Inevitably, the cutbacks will affect tourism on Phuket and before long, investment on the island in property and resort construction.

The message coming from the real estate industry on Phuket is that the outlook has never been more promising. This is a surefire indication that sales are slow and now is the time to set your own price

Full report at www.phuketwan.com:

http://phuketwan.com/article/tourism/nok-a...ghts-sack-staff

There's a more complete report already at www.phuketwan.com

THAILAND'S Department of Civil Aviation today strongly criticised the budget airline One-Two-Go for deficiencies in the safety and management of its services.

The DCA Director General, Chaisak Aungsuwan, delivered a summary of the findings of the department's own investigation into One-Two-Go and its parent company, Orient Thai Airlines.

the Director General said today that the air operator certificates of both airlines were being suspended for 30 days from July 22 because of poor safety standards.

The One-Two-Go suspension is happening just as British and American families of the victims of the crash of Flight 269 last year pursue compensation in US courts.

-- See the full report at www.phuketwan.com

The crash of One Two Go Flight 269 disturbed a peaceful Phuket Sunday in 2007, just as the tsunami had done a few years previously. Now the tragedy seems destined for extensive international court action in search of justice and the truth.

Large lawsuits now complicate the circumstances surrounding the crash on Phuket of the flight from Bangkok last September 16.

We knew they were coming. The only question was whether the lawsuits would beat the release of the full, official report on the tragedy.

Now we know: the law firm has won. The problem is that because the legal action has been announced first, the official findings, when they come, will now be subjected to increased speculation.

And there is likely to be extended debate about what happened, perhaps even two versions of events.

A spokesperson for Ribbeck Law Chartered, a Chicago-based law firm specialising in aviation disasters, told Phuketwan on July 12 that the firm has actually done its own investigation of the crash, employing its own aviation experts to define precisely what happened.

--Full report at www.phuketwan.com

THE Swiss sailor involved in the bizarre saga of the boat invasion and the body in the water finally has his passport back and is free to leave Thailand.

For Pierre-Alain Oberson, it has been a strange six months in limbo, waiting. The mystery at sea in which he played a central role gripped expats on the island.

What was the real story, the whole story?

Eventually, police must have decided that the Kata killing was self-defence because Oberson's passport was returned on July 7. The incident took place on January 9.

''I still don't know why it happened,'' Oberson told Phuketwan. ''At times, I still find it all hard to believe.''

-- Full report at www.phuketwan.com

THE THIEVES who almost killed two young expats by kicking them off a motorcycle into a stone wall in Patong recently will never be caught.

Why? Because the local police do not even accept that any crime was committed.

So there can be no hunt for the perpetrators, because there is no record that the night's horrific event was anything more than a motorcycle crash.

Jake Carey, 21, and Carly Moorhouse, 17, came close to death as a result of a bag snatch by a couple of muggers as they were overtaken on Patong's beach road about 2am on June 1.

Several weeks on, the victims, one a young staffer and the other a student from the British International School Phuket, are still struggling to fully recover.

What most riles Paul Moorhouse, a well-known Phuket property developer and the father of Carly, is that local police have never sought to record a proper account of the crime.

The circumstances of the mugging, the crash and the aftermath echo the concern of Thai and expat residents and tourists about crime on Phuket.

They also illustrate the challenges faced by the island's newly appointed police chief, Major General Apirat Hongtong.

General Apirat has promised to improve law enforcement on the island and has said he will transfer any police officer who does not fully support his policy.

In most other countries, the incident would probably be treated as a case of attempted murder, Moorhouse says. But on Phuket it has simply been recorded as a motorcycle accident, and that's it.

''Two young kids could have been killed, very easily,'' Moorhouse says. ''So that's a worry.

''Yet what is probably more worrying than the crime itself, though, is the attitude of the police, the apathy of the police.''

--Full story at www.phuketwan.com

A VIP group among non-Thai workers on Phuket is being suggested as part of a computer data base overhaul that would make information about all outsiders on the island available across most official departments.

Thais from other provinces could also be included.

The access to a complete data base would enable more departments to instantly check on the status of the person they were dealing with.

There are 7746 ''foreign'' residents on work permits, according to Vice Governor Worapoj Rattasima. These permits are traditionally dealt with by the Immigration Department.

A total of 29,264 Burmese, Laotians and Cambodians also have permits to work, mostly in construction, on plantations or as house maids. These are traditionally dealt with by the Provincial Employment Office.

-- Details at www.phuketwan.com

This year, Phuketwan has been told, the 79 towers have been checked in advance. No doubt the appearance will be given on Monday that everything is in readiness should a second tsunami roll in sometime soon.

We would like to know how many of the 79 towers were found to be faulty when they were checked in readiness for Monday's performance.

That answer would surely tell us whether the daytime warning system works all year long, not just on the one day each year when the system is ''tested'' for national televison.

--More questions at www.phuketwan.com