Phuket Magazine Website- 1,000 plus pages of info on Phuket & the Andaman.

There will also be a beer garden as well as market stalls selling food, souvenirs and trinkets. On New Year's Eve, artists including boy bands B-Mix and Strikerz, girl popsters 001 and pop/rock artists Parn, James and Neo-X will take to the stage at the soccer field on Thaweewong Rd at 10 pm.

The highlight of the concert will be The Rock Stars - a combination of Thai rock legends, including Edward Vanco and Kaleidoscope. Stopping for a short intermission to count down to midnight - when 300 fireworks will light up the skies off Patong Beach - the artists will continue through to 1 am.

On January 1, the concert will be repeated, but will start at 8 pm with performances by Phuket FantaSea entertainers. The midnight fireworks display will involve a stunning 2,000 rockets. iTV will include footage from both nights in its coverage of New Year celebrations around the country in a broadcast starting at 10:30 pm on January 1 (the broadcast on New Year's Eve will be of the Bangkok celebrations).

Phuket Magazine Vol.19 No.4
The Art of Nature By John Everingham Our publisher and renowned photographer John Everingham heads deep into the luscious rain forests of the Andaman region to bring you this photo essay showing the wonderful examples of design and decoration found within the structures of the natural world. When it comes to art, there is no better greater designer than Nature in all her glorious moods and mediums.
Andaman Hi-Life This potpourri of exotic and intriguing lifestyle innovations from around the glorious Andaman region will keep you up-to-date with all the latest trends. From wine testing to outdoor opera; from four-handed massage to watching the sunset with the Big Buddha; from avoiding the crowds while sea kayaking to the most scenic Wi-Fi connection spots on Phuket, all the latest lifestyle trends are captured here.
Iconic Southern Thai Images, Endangered Southern Species By Collin Piprell Dragon Art Media's Editorial Director Collin Piprel reviews the history, usage and future of Thailand's southern tradition boats: the reua hang yao, or longtail boat, an icon of the shores of Phuket and the greater Andaman region; and the kor lae, the traditional and colourful vessel, native to the seas around Koh Samui.
What's Blowin' in Phuket? Scoring the Local Music Scene By Sam Wilkinson The music scene in Phuket may have started with a grungy rhythm and blues blasting out Clapton numbers in a seedy bar, but in recent times it has evolved in all sort of electi ways. Sam Wilkinson, who has been a highly active part of the Phuket music scene for the past twelve years, takes us on a journey of exploration into all the new and exciting developments from blues to techno and from reaggae to opera.
The 2008 Mom Tri's Boathouse Short Fiction Competition The Greater Phuket Magazine is a proud sponsor of the annual Mom Tri's Boathouse short fiction competition. This year's event saw an outpouring of creative work from all corners of the world as well as creative writing seminars held at Phuket schools by author Jake Needham. A writer's evening of awards, discussions and abundant libations at the Boathouse topped it at all off.
Ten Questions with Author Jake Needham by Baz Daniel Jake Needham, who again judged this year's short fiction competition, is one of Asia most successful and stylish authors of crime fiction with highly-praised novels such as Killing Plato, The Ambassador's Wife and The Big Mango to his credit. Barry Daniel caught up with him and his wife over dinnar at Mom Tri's Boathouse and asked Jake ten penetrating questions about his life and art.
Mad Dogs and Cricketers go out in the Phuket Sun by Baz Daniel Having suffered a sadistic initiation into the arcane game of cricket at an English boarding school, our unlikely heros swears never to have anyting to do with this form of torture again. This is, until some forty years later, when he's invited down to play in a "friendly" against the Green Man Gorillas during the Phuket Cricket Sixes. The inevitable consequence is a weekend of sweat, humiliation and against all odds, enormous fun.
Nightlife Column - Crawling with Good Form by Molly F. McGill Our regular doyen of Phuket's night scene, Molly F.McGill takes us on a crawling tour of Phuket Town's late night haunts. In facts, she had intended to cover several differnet "crawls" but the first one went on for so long that she never made it to crawl number two. Perhaps, next issue?
Expat Diary - Letta 'Ome by Mango Rastaman III A sealed Singha beer bottle washed up on the beach off Sabah in December 2005. It contained a strange missive from a Jamaican Rastafarian named Mango Rastaman III, who appears to have fallen into an inebriated holiday trance on Phuket's Kata Beach after meeting a Thai Rastafarian girl from Issan. His appeal for his Jamaican brother Solly to come and join him might have been misplaced, but makes for highly amusing reading. Seth Bareiss provides the accompanying rasta-cartoons.

The company, whose interests in Thailand are held by AirAsia Aviation, will also introduce a Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok service on January 15, with seats costing as little as 990 baht. The largest shareholder in Air Asia Aviation is Shin Corp which is controlled by the family of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Air Asia Aviation is expecting stiff competition. Other airlines have already started to drop prices in response to the news. Thai Airways International is entering the low-cost airline market with its Sky Asia budget airline scheduled to take off in early April. Sky will be the third budget airline launched in Thailand in quick succession, with Orient Thai Airlines' One-Two-Go also starting services earlier this month.

AirAsia flights can be booked though any AIS (Advance Information Service) or Telewiz shop - also owned by Shin Corp.Brought to you by:The Phuket Gazette