Phuket Archery Club owner Santi (left) and his brother Chai, on the range. Chai is holding a conventional long bow, while Santi has a modern compound bow. - Photo © Alasdair Forbes 2010.

Twang. Thunk. Robin Hood was good at it. So was William Tell – he could split an apple at 100 paces. Henry V of England won the battle of Agincourt 600 years ago in great part due to his archers. Closer to Thailand, Phra Narai in the Ramayana was an astonishingly good archer.

And now you can be too, maybe. You won’t know till you try, and you can now try at the newly opened Phuket Archery Club, in Phuket Town.

The club is the brainchild of Santi Tontungtrong, who learned how to use a bow and arrow in Bangkok, got hooked on the sport, and decided it was just what he and Phuket needs.

“We have all these shooting ranges here, and guns are too easy to get hold of,” he said. “When kids get hold of a gun, they are going to want to use it. This is a much healthier outlet for them. It’s a real sport. I want to get schools involved, too.”

The range at the club consists of a piece of open grass surrounded by a metal wall on two sides and a building on the left. Set up in this space are 16 targets at various distances from the covered firing area.

There’s a shop with arrows, bows of various types and prices, finger guards, arm guards and quivers for those who want to get really serious about things.

But the club has plenty of equipment for hire. Pay B200 for the use of it, and B50 for the range, and you get a happy hour of twanging away. The club will even throw in free lessons for those who’ve never done it before.

If you have your own equipment, you pay just B50 an hour for using the range, or there’s a deal until the end of October: pay B300 a month and get the use of the range at B20 an hour.

There’s plenty of parking space, and there’s an area for a café when Santi can get someone to rent it.

The Phuket Archery Club is just off Ong Sim Phai Rd. Heading away from the Robinson department store towards the seahorse roundabout, keep an eye on the right side of the road. You’ll see two enormous arrows sticking out of the ground.

Santi can be reached at +66 (0) 8 1979 5680, or contact his niece, Sudrak Phongpheng, by email to phongpheng@hotmail.com

Who's the current owner? We're not at Liberty to say...

Phuket Observer believes that Liberty, a cliff-top dwelling on Millionaires’ Mile, may be the most expensive home yet offered in the Phuket luxury home market.

The reported price tag: US$7 million, or around 224 million Thai baht. That’s more than the Thai government announced earlier this month it would spend on the “national reform process” following the Red Shirt protests in Bangkok and elsewhere in April and May this year.

Or put it another way: If you paid cash for this house, in Thai one-thousand-baht notes, the notes, laid end-to-end, would stretch almost 36 kilometres, or the distance from Phuket Town to the Sarasin Bridge.

But then, this is no ordinary two-bed, one-and-a-half-bath home. For a start, it’s on Millionaires’ Mile in Kamala, at the far end facing Patong. Where else? It was designed by architects Arte Charpentier of Paris, whose portfolio also includes Century Avenue, a five-kilometre stretch of stunning buildings in Shanghai (along with the city’s Opera House and the its Police HQ) and the St Lazare Metro station in Paris, along with hotels, office buildings and private residences, and the rest of the Jomchang private development where you’ll find Liberty.

The house has living space totalling 1,213 square metres and sits on just under a rai (1,600 sqm) of clifftop land. It steps down through five levels (not including the swimming platform at the foot of the cliff). And if you don’t like the idea of all those steps, there are elevators connecting each level with the next.

It has five bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, a huge cinema and entertainment room, equally enormous European and Thai kitchens, a pool (infinity edge, of course) with an outdoor bar, and a private sala overlooking the Andaman Sea.

Please note: the place comes fully equipped with the best appliances but you’ll need to bring your own furniture. For more on this once-in-a-lifetime, not-to-be-missed opportunity, see the Liberty website.

The new XJ. No one in Asia will see it until it's launched in Phuket.

Jaguar Cars has chosen Phuket over everywhere else in Asia for the regional launch of its new luxury, superfast XJ model, which has an electronically limited top speed of 266 kmh and a 0-100 kmh time of 4.9 seconds.

Ordinary mortals will not get to get behind the wheel of the new Jag – that honour will be reserved for a clutter of VIPs invited from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and, of course, Thailand.

They will get the full treatment, with lunch at Mom Tri’s Boat House Regatta restaurant at the Royal Phuket Marina, plus test drives on road and track with expert instruction so that they can fully appreciate just how much more fun an XJ is to drive compared with, say an S-class Merc or even a Honda Jazz.

Doing the Asia launch in Phuket does have a practical reason – the Jaguar people are going to be in Phuketr anyway at that time, because the company is a major sponsor of Phuket Race Week, the island’s windy regatta, during which boats lose masts, capsize and generally have an exciting time.

So the Jag VIPs will also get to watch the thrills and spills on the water in VIP comfort aboard the Six Senses Phuket Raceweek VIP Spectator Boat, or for those who prefer dry land, from Koh Bon (though they’ll still have to get a boat over there).

And just in case they haven’t brought the big wallet with them, they’ll still be able to take home one of the lesser models – the latest XFR saloon and XKR sports model will also be in Phuket.

Phuket Race Week takes place from July 21 to 25, based at the Evason Resort in Rawai. For more, see here.

The sun sets over the Andaman Sea. Now holiday home buyers can have confidence that the real estate view is rather more attractive, too, according to Jones Lang LaSalle's transparency survey. - Photo by Rene Erhardt

After tourism and rubber, property is the third-biggest industry in Phuket, so sellers of homes on the island – who have been looking at blank order books thanks to the global financial crisis and the Red Shirt violence in Bangkok – will be happy to know that Thailand’s ranking for the transparency of its real estate market has improved, giving buyers increased confidence.

The country still ranks 39th out of 81 property markets surveyed by real estate services giant Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) and its investment management business, LaSalle Investment Management, which compile the biennial rankings.

In the last survey, in 2008, Thailand came 45th. Its score has improved steadily, from 3.40 in 2006, to 3.16 in 2008 and 3.02 this year. (Scores range from 1 for total transparency to 5 for “opaque”.)

“The improved score is primarily a reflection of more transparency in the capital markets, specifically as they relate to real estate,” a release from JLL explained. “Currently there are 60 firms listed under the Property Development sector on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). There are also 26 property funds that trade on the SET, holding assets of various real estate types. These listed vehicles are subject to higher governance and regulation, as well as regular and standardized reporting, thus providing more transparency to Thailand’s real estate markets.

“This is in contrast with the past when Thailand suffered badly from a lack of information about real estate transactions in the market. Major sale transactions in particular tended to be kept confidential by the sellers and/or the purchasers. As a result, actual transacted values against which to benchmark were scarce.”

'Generally, rising levels of transparency help reduce investment risks." - Longlom Bunnag, Chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle in Thailand

However, Longlom Bunnag, Chairman of JLL in Thailand, warned, “Generally, rising levels of transparency help reduce investment risks, particularly for foreign investors. However, the improved level of transparency in Thailand’s real estate market does not necessarily attract more investment.

“Certain investment decisions in some semi-transparent and opaque markets are opportunistic and in some cases exploit the lack of transparency, thus capturing higher returns.”

“That said, higher levels of market transparency and an increased availability of reliable market information do even the playing field overall, helping investors as well as owners and occupiers make more informed real estate decisions,” he said.

Australia ranks first in JLL’s 2010 survey, followed by Canada and the United Kingdom. Thailand, at 39th, still ranks as “semi-transparent”, one place behind Brazil and one place ahead of Bulgaria.

Phuket’s biggest rivals in the tropical beach property business, the Philippines, Indonesia (Bali) and Vietnam rank a long way behind; the Philippines in 48th place with a score of 3.15, Indonesia at 57th with a score of 3.46 and Vietnam six places from the bottom of the list with a score of 4.25, lower even than such murky places as Pakistan and Kazakhstan.

However, Malaysia, which has been trying to lure property buyers away from Phuket with promises of freehold land ownership and long-term residence visas, ranks 25th – and 2nd in Southeast Asia – with a score of 2.30. Singapore leads in the region, in 16th place worldwide with a score of 1.73.

The survey was compiled from responses to a 20-question survey, with each question having a five-choice answer (1-5), with 1 meaning the market is highly transparent and 5 meaning the market is opaque.

Here is the full list:

Group shot for the cameras. From left: Urs Brunner, actresses Mamee Nakprasitte, Viyada Umarin and Kalorin Neemayothin, with fomer tennis ace Paradon "Ball" Srichapan and Urs's wife Maleerat, the angel in Angel & Bear Productions.

Western films set in Thailand up to now have all pretty much had the same characteristics: The stars are Westerners and Thailand is simply an exotic backdrop. Thai actors and actresses are all taxi drivers, gangsters or gogo girls.

Bitter/Sweet, which had its Thailand premiere in Phuket last night (June 11) as part of the Phuket Film Festival, deliberately sets out to break that mould.

Urs Brunner, whose Angel & Bear production company funded the movie, and who also shares the writing credits, told the Observer at the post-screening party at the Vijjit Resort, “We wanted first to portray Thai women as strong, independent and intelligent. I also insisted that the Thai actors must have as much time onscreen as the Westerners.”

Urs Brunner (second from right) with Mamee Nakprasitte (right), Kal (left) and local Boncafé boss Phakin "Nasser" Tanskul.

On this level, the movie works very well. Napakpapha “Mamee” Nakprasitte plays Ticha, a 20-something Thai girl who has risen above her rural roots to run a successful PR company in the Big Mango. It helps, of course, that the camera absolutely loves her, and her sidekick Mook (played by US-born Kalorin “Kal” Supaluck Neemayothin). Both are convincing as strong, independent and intelligent – and gorgeous.

They also get as much screen time as the three main farang actors – Kip Pardue as Brain Chandler; the amusing Spencer Garrett as Austrian exile Werner; and veteran James Brolin as coffee tycoon Calvert Jenkins.

Much of the action revolves around the coffee business and the coffee plantations of Krabi, which also allows the movie to work as a promotional tool for Thailand in general and Krabi in particular. Apparently the Tourism Authority of Thailand, which initially turned its nose up at the project, is now very interested.

The scenery in Krabi is jaw-droppingly beautiful, and this comes across well, particularly during a short interlude in which the two main characters, Brian and Ticha, take time out to see the sights. Director Jeff Hare knows good scenery when he sees it and makes the most of it.

The movie also works as a promotional tool for Thai coffee. This is no bad thing for Urs’s other interest – his Chonburi-based coffee processing, distribution and retail company Boncafé.

Bitter/Sweet is most unlikely to feature in the Oscars (though it did win best director and best movie at the Houston film fest). The plot is a simple “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again” romance with some amusing comedic moments, a little tension here and there, and no surprises.

The acting is generally convincing, though Liz Burnette gets a credit as “Ticha’s voice” so one imagines Mamee’s English may have been a bit too Tinglish at times (though in Thai she is forceful and in command of her role).

Bitter/Sweet is much more sweet than bitter. It slips down as easily as latte, and rates overall as good light entertainment without too much thought required.

Urs told the Observer that it will be showing in movie theatres around Thailand – it has subtitles in English when dialogue is in Thai, and vice-versa, so is accessible in either language. In most of the rest of the world, it’s going straight to DVD; deals have already been done for Australia and Japan and a number of other countries.

One hopes that copies have been sent to every US director so that they can consider whether the time has come to portray Thailand and the Thais more as they are, and less through the warped lens of  American cinematic hegemony.

The design of the new Centara echoes the Sino-Portuguese architecture of old Phuket Town.

Centara Hotels & Resorts will open its new Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket  at Karon Beach in October this year, its fourth hotel in Phuket.

The resort will have 262 guestrooms and villas, divided between 108 deluxe rooms, 81 deluxe spa rooms, 45 pool premium rooms, 18 pool suites, six one-bed pool villas and four two-bed pool villas, along with four F&B outlets: the all-day restaurant, The Cove; the Mare Italian restaurant and bar; the Luna Chill-Out Bar and Lounge; and a Beachcomber Beach Bar.

Other facilities at the resort, the design of which references Phuket Sino-Portuguese architecture, will include a tennis court, fitness centre, a spa, a playground and two playrooms for children, one for ages 4-10 and another for ages 10-16.

Centara is part of the family-owned Thai giant Central Group, which also owns the Central Department stores (including Central Festival in Phuket and the ill-fated Central World in Bangkok, destroyed by arson in the wake of the recent Red Shirt violence); Robinson department stores; B2S bookstores; electronics retail chain PowerBuy; DIY chain Homeworks and sporting goods store chain Supersports; and a minority stake in Big C supermarkets; .

It also operates the Thailand franchises of brands such as Hong Kong drugstore chain Watson and UK retailer Marks & Spencer.

Gotcha - but just a little bit over the line. New Zealand's Nicholas Clere concedes the third goal.

The final was between Australia and Iran, but the match the local crowd came to Surakul Stadium to watch yesterday was the battle for third place in the Seniors World Cup, between Thailand and New Zealand.

As the Thai teens jammed into the stadium screamed their approval (or simply screamed to show they could do it louder than the other kids), Thailand utterly dominated the match.

Partly this may have been because the humidity felt like it was around 2,000%. That, combined with a temperature not far off 35º had the Kiwis looking like limp lettuce in no time. Added to that was the state of the pitch, waterlogged after recent heavy rain, resulting in any ground ball going about five yards before stopping, throwing up a tail of water like a jet-ski. It was slippery out there.

This game's a scream! Teens celebrate another goal for the home side.

The Thais, naturally more used  to such conditions, ran rings around the cautious Kiwis. The contrast between the two sides’ styles of play could not have been greater – the Kiwis playing tentative triangles – forward, sideways, back – and the Thais playing long fast passes, swinging play joyfully from side to side, always pushing for the far goal.

At times it seemed as though Thailand had three times as many players on the pitch as New Zealand did. Whenever a Kiwi got hold of the ball, the Thais were all over him. Whenever a Thai got hold of it, chances were 50-50 there was no Kiwi anywhere near.

NZ goalie Nicholas Clere got stacks of exercise as the Thais fired shot after shot at his goal. Eventually, the fusillade took its toll – it had to; sheer weight of numbers. Final score: 3-1.

Oh yes, and the final: Australia 4, Iran 1. Congratulations to all you old blokes. A fine afternoon’s entertainment.

Job2Do

It’s taken a while, but Phuket now has its answer to Koh Pha Ngan’s full moon reputation – the Phuket Roy Fest. Granted, the Roy Fest is not every month, but it has big names that Pha Ngan would find it hard to match.

The festival (“Roy” means, roughly, “cool” in southern Thai dialect), takes place on June 25 and 26 at Karon Beach. The 26th sees a full moon rise shortly after 6pm. Roy Fest will feature a line-up that includes such Thai stalwarts as Reggae artists Job2Do and Fourgasm, ska bands Joe Fox and Tamone, hip hop band Buddha Bless and a load of deejays, including platter-meisters from Singapore, Japan and Ireland. Here’s the full programme:

Friday June 25
6-7 pm –  Joe Fox (Ska)

Buddha Bless.

7-8 pm  - Job2Do (Reggae)
8-9 pm  - Mahajamruen (Electro Live)
9-10:30 pm – DJs Thanathron (Techno)
10:30 to midnight – DJs Activa (Electronica)
Midnight to 2 am – DJs Agnelli and Nelson (Trance, Electronica – from Ireland)

Saturday June 26
6-7 pm – Tamone (Ska)
7-8 pm – Fourgasm Live Band (Reggae)
8-9 pm – Bhuddha Bless (HipHop)
9-10:30 pm – DJs Spydermonkee (Drum & Bass)
10:30 to midnight – DjB (Electronica – from Singapore)
Midnight to 2 am - DJs Yogi (Trance, Electronica, Techno – from Japan)

And the best thing is, it’s free.

Trattoria staff celebrate; At centre is resort GM Peter Komposch. Exec Chef Silvano Amolini is at left.

Want to know which is the best restaurant, not just in Phuket but the whole of Thailand? According to Thailand Tatler magazine, it’s La Trattoria at the Dusit Laguna Resort.

It’s the second time the restaurant has received the accolade from the Tatler; the first time was in 2007. The hi-so magazine didn’t just name the editor’s favourite place – it polled readers.of course, Tatler readers are not generally people who frequent Auntie Pen’s Somtam Shack, so there were probably quite a few of Thailand’s 60 million restaurants that didn’t make the cut.

It’s still an impressive score, however, and Peter Komposch, General Manager of the Dusit, was excited. “La Trattoria is delighted to receive Thailand Tatler’s award once again. This recognition is indeed a privilege and a reflection of a positive feedback from our guests.”

The man who makes the food (with a little help in the kitchen) is Silvano Amolini, Executive Chef. The Dusit press release doesn’t mention his reaction to the award, but we can safely imagine it was positive.

Instead, it lists some of his signature dishes, “blending new Italian sensations and tastes”, and including Insalata di rucola con timballo di gorgonzola e noci, sciroppo al Balsamico, or Pici toscani con stracotto di manzo al Chianti. You can all figure out what those are, can’t you?

The Observer recently visited the restaurant for Earth Hour. See that report here.

Michael Ma - "I’ve been green for 30 years."

Michael Ma’s getting pretty fit these days. It’s all that climbing up and down steps at his latest acquisition, the hillside Indochine Resort in Phuket, formerly the troubled Villa Santi property development.

The Phuket resort is a new departure for Ma’s company, the Indochine Group. It’s the group’s first venture in Thailand, and its first resort – all the other Indochine properties so far have been bars, restaurants and night clubs.

Is it hard running a resort? Not really, he says. After all, in the rooms and villas, people serve their own drinks. All the resort managers he has spoken to agreed that the food and beverage aspect is the hardest – and F&B is something Indochine knows inside and out, and on a large scale.

Each of its major outlets – five complexes in Singapore, two each in KL and Hamburg and one in Jakarta, which Dubai next on the list – can hold up to 2,000 people, and the ones in Singapore have catered to events for the International Union of Conservation for Nature, the IMF and the World Bank, along with after-event parties for the MTV Asia awards and the International Indian Film Academy Awards.

It also hosted the International Olympic 2012 Bid parties of London, New York, and Paris – all at the same time in different venues.

Apart from the big parties, individual guests have included Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair and his wife, Mrs. Cherie Blair, and Prince Albert of Monaco. None of these people would tolerate shoddy F&B for long.

The hardest thing about Indochine Phuket, he says, has been getting it finished. The contractor’s six months behind schedule. “This is the hardest it’s ever been,” he says. “Even in Jakarta and Delhi things went much faster than this. That’s why I need to be here right now.” But he perseveres, stumping up and down the steps to deliver instructions in Thai, Lao or English, depending on who needs chivvying along.

Ma’s Indochine Group quietly bought Villa Santi a couple of years ago. He loves the site of the resort, climbing up a hill at the north end of Patong Bay, giving it a panorama that delights Ma night and day. All his existing bars, restaurants and nightclubs – in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Germany – have great views, he explains, but Indochine Phuket is the only one with a 24/7 panorama.

Daytime panorama from Indochine. At night there are the bright lights of Patong, hot air balloons and, often fireworks.

The view is an essential part of Ma’s outlook on business, his approach to tackling new projects. He explains, “I like to see the end-game first. Then I work backwards. I see the picture and I know the ending of the story. I’m a film producer and director.

“I love food, wine, partying. I’ve been doing that since I was about 14-15 years old. Then I got into art and design, so it’s an eclectic mixture of my experience. When I was a commodity trader I went to the best bars and restaurants all over the world – and you see the difference. I know exactly what I want.

“Every day, at the end of the party, there’s romance. Every day there’s drama. It’s an Oscar-winning story. So you just take that story and elongate it to eight hours a day or, in the case of the resort, 24 hours a day.”
Ma’s definitely got a sybaritic side to him – he counts beautiful people and glitterati such as Sting, David and Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, INXS, Gong Li and Mariah Carey among his acquaintances.

But apart from that and his palpable business acumen, he is also very serious about the environment and takes his social responsibilities as a given.

These attitudes are not PR BS. Many resorts – indeed, many corporations, even property developers – tout themselves as “green”. But few can claim among their friends Dr Ashok Khosla, President of the IUCN, the umbrella for hundreds of green activist groups, including the WWWF and Greenpeace. The IUCN is the only environmental organisation to have observer status at the UN. Ma is its Singapore representative.

In an interview, he launches immediately into an explanation of how he is striving to make Indochine Phuket as green as possible.

“It’s not that we ‘want’ to be green – I’ve been green for 30 years. We don’t do shark fin soup, bluefin tuna, yellow tuna, or sturgeon. We’ve been doing this for 11 years in Singapore and everywhere else.

“Everything that we’ve built new [at Indochine Phuket has environmental considerations in mind]. There’s double insulation, there’s LED lighting, there’s a heat exchange system going in so that whenever we turn on the aircon we get free hot water.

“Our investment level is higher but the aim is to reduce power consumption. We’re looking at composting. Anything non-dairy, non-protein will be separated for local pig farms. Any plant trimmings will be turned into fertiliser.

“Our ‘timber’ decking is 50% recycled plastic, 50% rice hull. All the plastic chairs you see are recycled plastic with UV inhibitor so they’re built to be light and last for years. That’s the sort of spec we’re going for.”

Whenever possible, locally-sourced materials are used, not just because they may be cheaper, but because transporting them produces less CO2 than if they were brought, say, from Bangkok.

Similarly, for many companies, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is something they feel they must do in order to show they are good corporate citizens – with a helpful PR spinoff.

Ma, however, was taking his social responsibilities seriously long before he went into business. In Australia, where he grew up after his family fled the arrival of the communist regime in his native Laos, he acted, when he was just 16 or 17, as an interpreter between the Indochinese community (many of whom could speak little or no English) and the authorities and NGOs.

Through interpreting, Ma met the Mayor of Sydney and other politicians, and soon graduated into an advocacy role. He was urged to go into politics and joined the more conservative of the two main political parties, the Liberals. This was not, he explained, because he had political ambitions, o because his views are right wing – far from it – but because someone pointed out that the Liberals had no members with Southeast Asian backgrounds.

“I joined so that I could maybe counterbalance some of the people on the extreme right – the Pauline Hansons and so on.” In 1990 he was voted Young Liberal of the Year.

Twenty years on, and he is still involved in supporting the community, locally and in a much wider way. In Singapore, he says, he is on the board of such entities as Action for Community Enterprise, and is a consultant with the National Environment Agency and the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Naturally, the company is involved. In the recent past, Indochine has organised events supporting tsunami relief, aid to children with HIV and heart research. This is in addition to its Green Festival, aimed at raising awareness of the issues before the Copenhagen Summit on climate change.

All of these has a strong fun element, reflecting Ma’s own philosophy of life. He’s not going to go as far as giving up his good food, wine and partying to go live in a cave in order to save the environment. And he’s not going to give up his stretch limo. “People ask me how I can be green and have a stretch limo. I tell them it can carry eight people with the same engine as the four-seat version,” he grins.