Article Category - Events in Phuket

PHUKET is set to explode on New Year’s Eve. Fireworks will light up the skies right across the island, the beaches will be full of revellers, and people will be out partying hard everywhere. As the clock strikes midnight on Wednesday night, the boys will be kissing the girls, the girls will be kissing them back, and shouts of ‘Happy New Year’ will echo across the island.

YOU better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. That’s right, Santa’s coming to Phuket and will soon be making appearances all over the island. He’ll be at the Green Man pub all this week, ready to have his photo taken with all the good little kiddies, and on Christmas Eve, he’ll strip down to his board-shorts, and he and his pretty helpers will cool off with a cold drink and a swim at the ‘Wet ‘n’ Wild’ pool party at Ricky’s Flamingo Splash Bar in Kata.

THIS year’s Phuket Carnival is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever before. The six-day carnival, which celebrates the official opening of the high season, will begin on December 15, after being put back from November because of bad weather. Throughout the six days, there will be plenty of action, mostly on the beachfront at Patong and in Bangla.

ARTIST Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Pink Man has pushed his pink trolley into Phuket’s galeria346 in Phuket Town. The Pink Man in Paradise, an exhibition of performance-photography works, is set in Bali after the nightclub bombings of October 2002. The Pink Man wanders through pictures of the island’s natural surroundings pushing his trademark pink trolley as a jarring symbol of tourism’s consumer culture.

Special Dinners, Shakespearean actors, guest international Dj's, Football and fishing. Its all happening over the next 2 weeks so click on the link below to find out more information

A remarkable man lives behind a piano in Baan Rim Pa, a famous restaurant just outside Patong. An unassuming, genuinely modest local legend, even now — 18 years after his initial three-month contract ran out — Tommy Doyle wonders why people come to see him. Despite the pointers along the way, he remains unaware of his gift. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1936, he was soon on the move as his family moved from place to place. He was a diminutive, sensitive boy, and other kids realized this, bullying him, and his self-confidence took a beating.

Night markets first appeared in China AD 836 and provided a cool sanctuary for fresh-produce traders to sell their commodities away from the midday sun. The marketplace was a communal venue for villagers, traders and local townspeople to share stories, catch up on local news, manage information and socialize. Open from 5.00-11.00pm every Saturday and Sunday, Chatuchak Market, also known as Taay Rod, Perd Taay or JJ Weekend Market, sits opposite the Nakha Temple, just off Chao Fa Road West, in Phuket Town. On these nights, this usually dusty, barren patch of land morphs into a teeming mass of locals, tourists and traders.

Loy Krathong, which translates literally as “floating krathong”, is one of the most affecting festivals in Thailand. It dates back about eight centuries, and probably originated in the ancient northern Thai capital of Sukhothai. In modern times, ponds and waterways all over the country are covered with flotillas of krathongs -- little lotus-shaped banana-leaf boats carrying flowers, incense sticks and coins -- the light from their candles reflecting delicate motifs on the waters.

Quantum of Solace

Starring: Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Gemma Arterton, Olga Kurylenko Director: Marc Forster Genres: Action, adventure, thriller Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in this sequel to 2006’s Casino Royale, starting a mere 60 minutes after the action ended in the last Bond film. The famed British secret agent seeks vengence for the murder of his lover, tracking the nefarious organisation Quantum to a plot to overthrow the government of Bolivia. Joined by Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who has her own score to settle with the leaders of Quantum, Bond encounters Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a businessman and major force in Quantum, who plots to control one of the world’s greatest natural resources. Judi Dench reprises her role as M, and longtime Bond composer David Arnold pens a thumping soundtrack.

Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong is celebrated nationwide in Thailand. It’s a traditional festival held on the full moon of the 12th month of the Thai lunar calendar, usually in November. The big celebrations are usually where there are rivers, canals or sources of water, with different unique characteristics. Loy Krathong has been celebrated from generation to generation since the Sukhothai era. The word loy in Thai means to float, and a krathong is a banana leaf cup decorated with flowers or lotus blossoms. People place candles and incense sticks in their krathong and then float them on a local river or pond. As they push it away, they ask for forgiveness in polluting the waterways, pay respect to the god of the river and ask for good luck in the coming months. People also launch lanterns to release sadness from their lives.

After taking office at the beginning of September, Patong’s new municipal council and mayor, first elected four years ago and recently returned for a second term, announced a seven-point set of policy initiatives. To add some perspective to the challenges faced by Patong, the Phuket Post turned to Deputy Patong Mayor Chairat Sukban for an examination of the experience and vision of Patong’s municipal leadership. What was the biggest problem the Patong Municipality Team faced when first taking office four years ago? Four years ago, Patong experienced serious flooding. Part of the area lies in a depression, and there’s limited drainage, so it effectively became a shallow lake. That’s the first problem the team had to solve.

Businesses in Phuket gather together 23-26 October for the annual IBAP Fair at Central Festival Phuket. Held around this time every year, the International Business Association of Phuket (IBAP) Fair offers its members an opportunity to showcase their products and services to both locals and visitors alike. This year’s fair takes place from 23-26 October and has moved back to Central Festival Phuket after last year’s experiment in Jungceylon. Exhibitors cover a wide range of businesses, from local hospitals and wellness centres, through home products and services, to local media and entertainment. Although open for four days, the main part of the fair will take place on 25-26 October.

There are certain things in the world which I took granted: the strength of the western economy, the passive nature of Thai people, soccer as the most played sport on the planet, and the Beatles being the most famous band in history. In these changing times, is Muhammad Ali still the most recognizable figure across the globe? The western world is on the slippery slope to financial ruin, and there isn’t much anyone can do to avoid the inevitable recession. We all know what is happening in Bangkok, and hope things will be resolved peacefully before it gets more out of hand. I recently learned that fishing was the biggest participant sport in the world, which shattered my soccer myth completely. And maybe Tiger Woods, George Bush and Osama Bin Laden are more recognizable to the youth of today than Muhammad Ali.

Agro-tourism represents a new niche for Phuket, and already there are many kinds of agro-tourism attractions, such as Thai herbs gardens, rubber plantations and various kinds of orchid gardens. The Phuket Service Centre for Crops and Product Resources office in Talang, across from Meang Talang School, is at the centre of this new theme for tourism in Phuket. Driving up to the crops centre’s location is a quick trip into the heart of Phuket’s agricultural environment. Set amid a rubber tree plantation, the location is fresh with oxygen from growing trees, and it quickly clears and freshens the lungs. But lately the scene there isn’t totally pastoral. Amid the rubber trees stands a tower 34 feet high for a 100-metre zip line that runs past the treetops, a new attraction the crops centre established for tourists and locals to learn about Phuket’s agriculture ­— and to raise their heart rates.

The Phuket Fringe Festival has a simple-yet-grand mission, explains founder David Shrubsole. “I want this Fringe Festival to grab the rest of the world by the hair and say, ‘Look what we can do!’ I want it to bring the extremely high standard of various performing arts that we have here and showcase them to the world.” For this year’s inaugural festival, which takes over Patong’s Playhouse Theatre Restaurant from 4-13 October, Shrubsole has assembled an eclectic lineup of local and some not-so-local talents to dance and drum, to cut-and-mix, to clown and cajole — and most importantly to inspire. Following is an inside look at many of the performers featured at the festival.

Wine and cheese! It’s the future – I’ve tasted it. For many years of my early life, I was comforted by the little shoe box where I lived. Nothing was easier than thinking that wine was for the upper classes, yuppies, French and Italians. Northern England working-class nuances stipulated that, when in a public house, you must have a pint of brown ale in your possession. Even if the beer was served in a woman’s glass, you would be ridiculed by the bar stool hierarchy and banished to the dart board, or even worse, the dark satanic coal mines. Fortunately enough, I am in a state of self-imposed exile from my beloved home country. Times have changed, I’ve changed, and England has most definitely changed. I now embrace the Gallic mentality of allowing children to drink a glass of red with their dinner, and I cannot see anything wrong with it.

Phuket’s Vegetarian Festival is one of the most surreal events held anywhere in the world. If you don’t know why, take a look at the line-up of events: hot oil bathing, bladed ladder climbing, fire walking, appeasing of the gods, and self mutilation. As if that’s not enough, upon the last night of the festival, the gods believed to have descended upon the festival are sent off in a barrage of drums and firecrackers, which combine to set a scene that can only be described as that of an ancient war-zone. Beginning on the first night of the ninth lunar month and stretching for nine days thereafter, the Taoist Vegetarian Festival is Phuket’s most anticipated event of the year. Through old traditions symbolizing purity of both mind and body, attendees wear only white and abstain from alcohol, sex, telling lies and eating meat, while 70 percent of Phuket Town’s restaurants serve only vegetarian food. It is also thought that through these age-old rituals participants will be granted good fortune and perhaps a reversal of bad fortunes that have been predicted.

Phuket has seen an explosion in nightclubs and discotheques over the last few years with the opening of Clublime, D-Club, Seduction, and more recently Hollywood Discotheque, which opened only last month. Blend this together with long time establishments such as Tiger, Banana and Tai Pan, and you have a well-saturated market place offering everything from chart music, dance and hip-hop to trance, electro and the kitchen sink. The newest edition to Phuket’s thriving disco scene is Club53. I was eagerly anticipating the grand opening party, and even dusted off my old glow sticks and adorned my symbolic white gloves in preparation. Club53 is situated on the corner of Soi Bangla, underneath the infamous Rock Hard Go-Go, and set within the premises that were formally known as Rio’s. This great location undoubtedly ensures vast numbers through the turnstiles to dance around their handbags all night long.