With all the comparisons with Cannes, can we expect the Phuket Film Festival to attract startlets posing for the cameras? - Photo by Eric D

Apparently undaunted by the way the 2009 Phuket Film Festival fizzled out, organiser Scott Rosenberg is gearing up for another go at it, and has issued a call for entries for the 2010 event.

The first festival was in 2007, with the second due to have been in June last year. That collapsed when the Thai government decided to host an Asean summit in Phuket with massive security to counter any attempts by the opposition Red Shirts to disrupt the summit.

This, Rosenberg said, scared off some of the big names – and with them the money, so he decided to cancel the festival. Minutes after he sent out the cancellation notice, the summit was postponed to October. Rosenberg says his company lost a million baht as a result and denied that the real reason for the cancellation was ongoing financial woes. (See earlier story here.)

Thai politics have calmed down a bit since then, and so far no summit meetings are planned for Phuket between June 4 and 13, the scheduled dates of this year’s festival.

Rosenberg commented “The [Cannes International Film Festival] had a rocky 3-4 year start and while we don’t want to emulate them, we sure do want to grow up to be like them.”

True. The first Cannes festival was supposed to be in 1939 but the occupation of much of France by Germany proved a bit of an obstacle. The Cannes festival was not revived until 1946. The following year a storm blew the roof off the purpose-built festival venue.

“The 2010 [Phuket] Festival expects to screen about 30 – 40 films with a People’s Choice Awards held for selected films,” Rosenberg’s company announced.

“This year the Phuket Film Festival is partnering with B-Side, an international web-based protocol for previewing Festival films and measuring audience reaction to the films. B-Side also allows film makers not only local Festival reach for their films but international exposure as well.”

Films may be entered for the festival by going to here or by emailing the organisers.  The deadline for submissions is April 30. A demo of the B-Side system can be seen here.

Entertainment at last year's Old Phuket Festival: Kids ride in a rickshaw, a young boy demonstrates his kung fu prowess and a dragon is paraded along Thalang Rd.

The 11th annual Old Phuket Festival, which this year will run from February 19 to 21, promises a feast of free entertainment along with the chance to mingle with locals who will also be celebrating the Chinese New Year.

So easy I can do it standing on my head: Performers from China spin plates at last year's Old Phuket Festival.

As in past years, streets in the old part of Phuket Town will be pedestrians-only, with street entertainers, food stalls and the chance to take a look inside some of the old town’s fascinating shop-houses.

In the Queen Sirikit Park (on Thalang Rd, next to the Toursim Authority of Thailand’s offices), ten entertainment groups from China, acrobats, Shaolin Kung Fu experts, Tibetan dancers, a mask dance from Sichuan and extracts from Chinese opera will occupy the specially erected stage. There will also be street parades of locals in traditional costume.

For those of a religious bent, buses will take people on tours of five Chinese Taoist shrines. The tour schedule begins at 1pm every day. There will also be rickshaws to ride in, and gentle boat trips on Klong Bang Yai canal, which runs under Thalang Rd and was once the city’s main trade thoroughfare.

For egotists, the Post Office will offer a special souvenir: get a stamp with your photograph on it, which can be mailed anywhere.

An F/A 18 jet fighter parked in front of the Nimitz's "island".

The nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier Nimitz, with close to 6,000 crew on board, dropped anchor off Phuket yesterday (January 31) for a few days of R&R. It was accompanied by the guided missile frigate USS Rentz and the destroyer USS Pinckney.

Phuket is a change of scenery for the crew, who have spent seven months involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, providing air support for troops on the ground in Afghanistan, and flying more than 1,450 sorties over that benighted country – an average of 12 sorties a day.

The Nimitz is big – 333 metres long, with a fight deck covering 1.8 hectares – and goes up ten decks above the waterline and the same below. It needs to be big – it carries 62 aircraft: F/A 18 jet fighters, EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, E-2C Hawkeye command-and-control and early warning aircraft, plus a bunch of helicopters used for everything from transport to clobbering submarines. Parking space on the flight deck is at a premium.

Commanding the ship is Capt Paul Monger, and the Nimitz also carries his boss, Rear Admiral John “Fozzie” Miller, who is in charge of Carrier Strike Group 11, which includes another four warships. Both are former pilots who still enjoy a spin from time to time.

Movie buffs may recall the Nimitz starring in the the 1980 sci-fi movie The Final Countdown, alongside Kirk Douglas, James Farentino and Martin Sheen. More recently, in 2005, the US TV channel PBS aired a 10-part miniseries called Carrier, documenting naval life aboard the Nimitz.

Franck Blanchard is the band's bassist

For romantics who enjoy jazz, French group Jazz Cool Band (JCB) will play a one-night gig in Phuket Town on February 14 – Valentine’s Day – in the Suan Chaleamprakiet 72 years Queen Sirikit Park (next to the Tourism Authority of Thailand offices on Thalang Rd).

The nine-piece band – which includes sax, clarinet, piano, bass, trombone, trumpet, bugle and drums, fronted by Jean Louis Nguyen Qui on vocals and sax – have two agendas: to promote the big-band jazz sound, and to help raise money for charity. In the case of the Phuket concert, organised by the Rotary Club of Tongkah, the funds raised will go to improving the the library at Bang Niew School in Phuket Town.

This is JCB’s first performance in Phuket, but the band are no strangers to Thailand. They played charity concerts in Bangkok in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007. Last year they did a tour that took in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phitsanulok and Khon Kaen. They have also released four CDs, each linked to raising charity funds.

Their repertoire includes jazz classics by musicians such as Glen Miller, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, along with favourites performed originally by crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat King Cole.

They also sing in French, Brazilian and Chinese, and since coming to Thailand, have added some of HM the King’s jazz compositions. – sure favourites with Thai audiences – to their playlist.

In Phuket, the band will be the highlight of an evening of entertainment featuring a classic and exotic cars show and a performance by the Phuket Youth Chamber Orchestra. These, on ground level, will be free, with the gates opening at 5pm.

JCB will play on the upper floor, above the car park, from 7 to 9:30pm, with a half-hour break at 8pm. Tickets to their performance will cost 1,500 baht apiece.

For samples of JCB in performance, visit their MySpace page.

Down the plughole backwards - the Superbowl swallows another victim.

The Observer was invited to the official opening today of the shiny new Splash Jungle water park at West Sands, next to Mai Khao Beach and the airport. We hired a guinea pig to test out the rides. Here’s his report on the Big 5 rides:

“Being short and furry (cute, too), I opted to start on the lower level, about four miles up. Well, that’s what it feels like when you’re short and furry. A lot of steps. There are three chutes on this level, each twisting this way and that.

“The beige-coloured one is tackled while sitting in an inflatable ring with two solid handles for white-knuckle gripping. It’s a bit like how I imagine bob-sleigh would be. Ever seen that on TV? When they take a bend too fast and disappear over the top, followed by an explosion of snow? I’ll swear I came that close. Oo-er.

“Up the steps again goes your intrepid guinea pig. This time the nice chaps take away my bob-sleigh for the next ride in the green chute. I’m told I have to go down feet-first, forearms crossed on my chest. What you might call the coffin position.

A tough job, but someone's got to do it: two of the Splash Jungle lifeguards demonstrate how it's done.

“This one’s more like luge, without the luge. It’s impossible to stay in line while slaloming  round the bends, and I suspect I take a couple of curves with my head bumping along the bottom of the channel and my feet sticking way up the air. In the last millisecond, everything straightens up, however, and I exit into the pool feet first, which means my nose gets a high-pressure clean-out.

“Your fearless guinea pig now climbs up a lot of steps again to the blue chute. This one’s completely enclosed. A pipe. A big drain. A big Black Hole. How do they know there’s nothing in there? Rocks? Missing persons? The Starship Enterprise? Things that eat guinea pigs? Oo-er. But I’m being paid the big bucks, so once again I assume the coffin position, which seems particularly appropriate for this descent into night, and plunge in.

“I cross the event horizon. It takes milliseconds. And hours. But once again I exit, astonishingly in the same universe, and get my sinuses cleaned out again. I’ll swear I was upside down a couple of times. Impossible to tell when it’s completely dark and you’re traveling at just under light speed. Phew.

“Now it’s the biggies. The top of the tower (a lot more steps). Here, at roughly the same height as Mount Everest, there’s a choice: The Boomarango, the Superbowl or back down the stairs. But the boss is standing behind me with a cattle prod, so the stairs are out.

“Once more into the ring with the white-knuckle handles. Once more into a dark tunnel that slopes down at roughly 90 degrees. Yes, I’ll swear it’s vertical. Then out into the sun on a wide runway that curves skyward. So this is the Boomerango.

The plumbing at Splash Jungle, with the Boomerango at left.

“They told us that it’s impossible – impossible – to go off the end of the chute. Now I know they were wrong. Here’s me. Here’s the end of the chute. About two millimeters to go and I’m still going waaaay too fast.

“Then I stop and start sliding back. They were right! But now I’m travelling backwards at warp speed. I can’t see where I’m going. What if I hit something? I have no control! But let’s be realistic – when was the last time a guinea pig was in control of anything? I splash down safe again. Phew.

“More steps. And more. Back up to the top again. Climb back into my ring. Enter another black tunnel. Superbowl time. Out of the tunnel into the bowl. Round the rim at a speed guaranteed to turn the hair white. Round again, and then backwards down another black hole. Down the plughole. And splashdown.

“I’m alive! I’m alive! I’ve done the big five! Can I get paid now, please?”

Okay. Five lettuce leaves, wasn’t it?

No, you cheapskate. It was ten… That’s more like it. Thank you. Don’t call me – I’ll call you. Not.

Entry fees to Splash Jungle until April 30 (including taxes) are B2,100 for adults and B 1,229  for children (height 100-130 cm). Children under 100cm tall get in free. For Thais and foreign residents the prices are B1,755 for adults and B1,229 for children between 100-130 cm tall. Shuttle buses from various points in Phuket are included in the ticket prices.

For more information or reservations, call +66 (0) 7637 2111

No beach, but Cape Sienna has jaw-dropping views over Kamala Bay and a chic ambience.

Cape Sienna, the chic cliff-top resort on Millionaires’ Mile, Kamala, is the most romantic hotel in Asia, and the fourth-most romantic in the world, according to the 2010 Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice survey.

Cape Sienna (website here), which opened just 10 months ago, also ranked eighth in Asia in the survey’s “Relaxation & Spa” category.

Apart from Cape Sienna, however, Phuket hotels and resorts were more remarkable for their absence from the survey’s top 10s.

The Sugar Palm in Kata - scores in the 'Trendiest' category.

Only three other resorts made the lists: The Sugar Palm Grand in Kata was the second “Trendiest” in Asia (though it failed to appear in the top 10 worldwide) and the J W Marriott on Mai Khao Beach was fifth and the Holiday Inn, Patong, eighth in Asia in the “Family” category (though neither appear in the worldwide Top 10).

Phuket failed to get into the Top 10 in any of the other categories, which were: Bargain, Best Service, B&B and Inns, All Inclusive and Luxury.

TripAdvisor does not explain its methodology in coming to these results, but according to hotelmarketing.com, the website uses a proprietory search technology “to scour the Web for articles, reviews and opinions published on various travel topics including hotel properties”. The site’s claimed 10 million members are also asked to rate and review properties they have stayed in – and many do so.

HotelMarketing explains (here): “TripAdvisor assigns each hotel a “popularity index” based on the quantity and quality of data.” It then “ranks the hotels in each city and then region based on their web popularity score”.

Multiple slides and tubes at Splash Jungle with, over to the right, the Superbowl.

You’d think that a holiday place like Phuket would have had a water park long ago. The fact that it hasn’t was not for lack of trying. Several plans have been put forward, including one for tourist epicentre Patong, but for one reason or another – investment, permits, shareholder disagreements – none of these plans ever came to fruition.

Now, however, Phuket is to see the opening of not one, but two water parks in the next four months. In April, appropriately around the Thai water-fight festival of Songkran, the Phuket Waterpark is scheduled to open in Kathu, in the centre of the island. We’ll bring you more on that soon.

For all the family: The Aqua Play Pool.

But first, on January 29, the Splash Jungle water park at the West Sands property development, next to the airport, will be opened by Thailand’s Minister of Health, Jurin Laksanavisith.

Splash Jungle will have five big attractions:

The Lazy River: 335 metres of water meandering through seven “parts of the world”, from Asia to the North Pole.

The Wave Pool: Hours of enjoyment for all ages, simulating the currents and waves of the sea, but  in safety.

The Boomerango: Starting with a thrilling drop through a tube, followed by a high back-and-to ride ending in a splash pool.

The Super Bowl: Starting with a drop through a tube, riders are launched into the Super Bowl, with centrifugal forces keeping thjem high on the wall for several turns before they exit into a splashdown pool.

The Aqua Play Pool: Aimed at whole families, this has multiple water features including slides, a giant tipping bucket and water cannons.

In addition, there’s an aquarium and a children’s slide pool, and escape for parents in the Igloo Sauna or Hot Spring Pool. There are three food and drink outlets serving up full meals, sandwiches or snacks.

Costing 500 million baht (about US$15 million), the Splash Jungle covers 2.2 hectares (14 rai) and was built by White Water Industries, the biggest name in the game with more than 4,000 projects completed and rides created in Disneyland and Sea World.

The park will open to the public on January 30. Entry tickets will cost B1,795++ per adult, and B1,050++ for kids from 100 to 130 cm tall. Kids under 100 cm in height get in free.

So people – practice shrinking, Now.

But where Phuket currently excels is in attracting DJs with international reputations.

Joachim Garraud - don't let the boyish good looks fool you; this is a clever man.

On January 20, for example, French deejay, composer and producer Joachim Garraud appears at Sound (in Jungceylon, Patong) for one night. Despite his youthful looks, Garraud has a musical history going back 21 years, when he started work as a DJ at The Boy in Paris, a club synonymous in France with the beginnings of techno in that country.

Just two years later, he was one of the DJs at the first rave in Moscow, the Yuri Gagarin Party, which was attended by an estimated 300,000 Russian ravers, and this was followed up in succeeding years by appearances at huge events in Manchester, at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt and at the Love Parade in Berlin in 2006, in front of a million people.

In the studio which he set up in Paris, he has produced, composed or remixed for the likes of Jean Michel Jarre, David Guetta, Kylie Minogue and David Bowie. He has, since 2005, had his own record label, F**k Me I’m Famous – a reflection, perhaps, of his astonishment at his own success. His website is here.

Meanwhile, on January 30 at Stereo Lab at the south end of Surin Beach, Hed Kandi make a welcome return – their third visit – with Sam Cannon on the turntables and disco diva Shena on the microphone.

Shena - her second album came out just a couple of months ago.

Trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Shena has since recorded dozens of singles, including The Weekend, which reached No 7 in the UK charts. She performed the song on the UK TV programmme Top of the Pops, following which it was nominated for a Grammy award. She has also released two albums, the most recent – One Man Woman – at the end of last year.

When she’s not doing her own thing, she’s in demand as a backup singer for the likes of Luther Vandross, Angie Stone, Chaka Khan, Mariah Carey and James Brown. Sample her voice ate her website, here.

Tickets to the Sound event cost B400 (which includes a free drink), while the Stereo Lab event is, as usual, free (but no free drink). The Sound website is here while Stereo Lab’s can be found here.

Whew - it's a bit crowded here. At the start of one of the races in the 2009 Phang Nga Bay Regatta.

Nineteen boats are so far signed up for the “fun” regatta – the annual Phang Nga Bay Regatta, which goes under the gun on February 4.

More boats can be expected to join in the next couple of weeks – there were 50 entries in the 2009 event. It’s one of those nerve-racking things that regatta organisers in Phuket have to put up with; very few boats are registered until the last minute.

This year’s regatta will see racing on four days – the 4th to the 7th, with registration on the 3rd.
Partying will begin before the regatta with the opening event, as in the past few years, at the Chandara Resort in Ao Por.

Conveniently close to the Ao Por Grand Marina, the resort is now managed by the Absolute group, promising to make it an entertaining evening with the potential for painful starts for some of the less serious crews.

As in last year’s regatta, there will be six classes: Racing, Cruising A and B, multihulls, bareboat charters (last year this was filled entirely with Darwin-class boats from Sunsail) and the one-design Firefly class.

Although the regatta started out 12 years ago as a casual antidote to the very serious King’s Cup Regatta, serious competitors are by no means excluded.

Last year’s Racing Class winner, for example, was Yo!2, owned and skippered by Peter Ahern. Ahern in based in Perth, Western Australia, and his yacht is usually berthed in Port Dickson in Malaysia. You don’t come all that way to drift around the bay swilling beer.

For more details, visit the regatta website.

John Moloney.

Which is why we expect the next Punchline Comedy Club at the Holiday Inn, Patong, on February 10, to be packed.

As usual, there will be three main acts – this time a couple of Canadians and a Brit.

The Brit is John Moloney, who has been doing standup comedy professionally for the past 10 years. In the past couple of years he has been trotting around the globe, performing in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the USA, Germany, Hong Kong, Dubai, Amsterdam, and China.

He was voted Best Live Performer for two years running at the London Comedy Festival, and apart from stand-up comedian, his website describes him as  “after-dinner speaker, writer, food critic, TV presenter, actor, and musician. For a taste, see here. His website is here.

Pete Johansson

London-based Canadian Pete Johansson ranges across current events, moving seamlessly from one topic to another. Last year he was nominated for the Best Newcomer award at the Edinburgh Festival (despite his 19 years of stand-up). Writing in the Scotsman newspaper, Kate Capstick noted, “His closing riff on engagement rings, intimacy and anal sex is one of the unmissable joys of this year’s [Edinburgh] Fringe [Festival].” So you’ve been warned.

Johansson’s wesbite is here. Click on “Clips” for samples of his act.

Stewart Francis.

The other Canadian, Stewart Francis, also lists acting and screen writing among his talents (he has written for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He specialises in a stream of one-liners, rarely connected, but rarely less than hilarious. His website,which includes clips form past shows, is here.

The show starts at 8:30pm in the Holiday Inn’s Taksina room. A  ‘comedy’ bar selling drinks at sensible prices (beer B100, spirits B120, wine B140) opens next door at 7pm. Tickets are available until the day before the show at B960 apiece from the hotel, from Woody’s Sandwich Shoppes in Chalong, Cherng Talay and Patong, or the Royal Phuket Marina Health Club. They are also available on the door for B1,200. The Phuket Punchline Comedy Club website is here.