We found a fantastic deal from Thompsons Tours for 10 nights, bed & breakfast, including flights from JHB to Phuket for R6900. That very same deal is still available from Computicket Travel for R7299pp.

10 nights, 10 mates, Baht, beer and beaches!

Phuket and the surrounding islands of Thailand are amazing. There is so much to do and see and it really does cater for everyone. From the couple of honeymoon who just want to chill and enjoy the sun and sand to the groups of friends who want to party!

I made notes every day on my iPhone  just to document the holiday. Makes for some good memories when I come back to read it! These daily notes might not make sense to all of you, but they do to all of us that where there!

Day 1:
Flying sucks! Hotel room not ready as we arrived early so dumped our bags and jumped in the pool! Hit the town once our rooms were ready and we had unpacked. After checking out the scenes in Patong, went back to hotel and took a nap. Went to Savoy for dinner which on the one side of the road has one menu and when we said we wanted a table, took us across to the road to sit on the beach and handed us a ‘tourists’ menu! Food was pretty good with Pieter hitting the Thai red curry hard. Walked around after dinner and headed home to get some sleep to cure the dreaded jetlag.

Day 2:
Woke up late and booked an island hopping tour. Hit the beach for a while and got a little burnt. Saw whales having sex in the sea. (To clarify that, whales = 2 ugly tourists!) Back to hotel to shower and clean up. Hit town for supper at a Greek inspired Thai restaurant.  Way better food than Savoy! Went down to Bang la road and hit the main area where all the lady boys hang out. It’s unbelievable how gorgeous some of the lady boys are. Messes with your head. 20 years of experience with girls working against you! Got to bed by 1am.

On a sidenote, the prepaid simcard here charges per minute for data, so with an iPhone I’ve been royally screwed.

Day 3:
Woke up early to catch our ride to do some island hopping! Roughy 35 of us on a big speedboat. Saw bamboo island first. Some amazing snorkeling! Then to Phi Phi island. Stopped off for buffet lunch then went to see Monkey island, swam at Maya bay and off to the last island which is where we all drank piña coladas and watched the Chinese tourists make the most ridiculous camera poses. One of the coves we stopped to take pics of is where they collect swallow nests made out of their saliva. The saliva nests are sold to the Chinese to make soup and is worth R200 000 p/kg.

You get really tired being out in the sun the whole day! Seeing the islands and rock structures was amazing. Also the different colours of the water! Greens, blues and shades of turquoise.

Walked down to town that evening and met this crazy Aussie chick! Ate dinner at a really cheap and local Thai restaurant called No.9 which played Queen on repeat! Walked home instead of taking a Tuk Tuk and got to sleep at about 1am.

Day 4:
Hired scooters for the day and I managed to crash mine into a car within 15 meters! Damages are going to be around 14000 Baht. :( I got away with some minor scratches and a sore neck. The lady’s car I hit was very nice about the whole incident. After that, I quickly got the hang of the scooter and we headed down the coast. Hiring scooters is probably the best way to explore Phuket! Got back to resort around 5pm. Caught a swim and then had sundowners and supper down the road. Sat at the pool bar, drank and played board games until one by one everyone headed to bed.

Day 5:
Gerhard’s birthday!
Took the scooters for a cruise past Patong beach to see some of the other beaches. I lost the group coming back as they headed off to the big Buddha. (I had no idea where they were heading after I lost them, so didn’t have a clue which direction to head to catch up) Went shopping, drowned my sorrows for losing the group by chowing Burger King and had a nap at the hotel until everyone was back. We had our free dinner at the hotel and then hit the Irish pub in Patong to watch the delayed SA vs NZ game as well as the Chelsea game. Met a bunch of British okes that are massive Southampton supporters. Hit Bang la road for drinks and to party. We had to leave at 4am as the bars started closing. So we headed to Burger King for “breakfast” and as we about to leave, we find Danie passed out in the back of BK! Had to carry him and throw him into the back of a tuk tuk and then with the help of security at the hotel, carry him to his room. Eventually got to bed around 6am. Slept till lunch.

Day 6:
With everyone nursing hangovers, chilled at the pool. Francois and I went for a roadtrip that afternoon on our scooters down the South Coast to check out more beaches and whatever else we could find. Visited the southern tip of Phuket and saw some amazing views. Went further round the coast and at some random pier met Werner who had earlier in the day gone out on his own island scooter trip! Can’t believe how we met in a random part of Phuket at some random little pier. Awesome.

I was designated restuarant finder for the night and found the most local place we had eaten at so far of the trip. Half the menu didn’t make sense! “Pork with crap” on the menu! On the way back into town, got pulled over by the cops. Flashed them my SA drivers licence and they were fine with it. :) Other tourists and Pieter earlier on in the day without any form of a licence weren’t so lucky. 300 Baht fine which you have to take alternative transport (Tuk Tuk) to police station to pay before they let you drive your scooter again. More a money making scheme than anything else!

Did a little shopping at the markets before heading back to Irish pub to watch United take on Fulham. Met the English okes again! Really dig chatting to them. Eventually convinced them to hire scooters and explore the place. All they do is have a piss up each day. Haha!

Chowed a spicy McChicken burger and cheesy fries at 1am before heading back to the hotel to bed. Guilt trip of note when I woke up the next morning from that late night meal!

Day 7:
Big plans to hit the South coast at 9am for a massive beach day, but the weather was really horrible. Torrential downpours for most of the morning. So handed back our scooters and booked an open-ended ticket to Phi Phi island with the plan of staying over the night.

Ferry to Phi Phi took 90 minutes! We struggled to find accommodation that everyone was happy with, so 6 of us stayed at a bungalow resort, while the rest stayed in dormitory style rooms. Had dinner at some random restaurant and across the road (walkway really) drank the infamous Thai buckets at an Irish pub! Thai buckets are like jam jars we get at home, but way more potent! They come in plastic buckets that kids usually play with on the beach and everyone carries them from bar to bar. 2 of those and you well on your way. We then headed to the beach bars, Slinky and Apache beach bar (biggest party bars with pretty decent house DJ’s) where we partied till 1am. The music stops at 1am, so we headed to one of the numerous other beach bars where you can lie on the beach and chill out. Amazing end to one tiring yet fun day. Took some amazing long exposure shots at 4am from my balcony overlooking the island.

Day 8:
Woke up and Walda and had a buffet breakfast at another hotel (for 180 baht, cheap cheap!) and then went to lie in the sun on the same beach where we had partied the night before. Francois and I took a kayak and snorkel gear and headed to Monkey island. Did a spot of snorkeling and tried our hand at some serious sea/river rafting in between the mountains and rocks. Headed back to the beach, ate the most amazing chicken & cheese balls (better than anything from KFC) and spring rolls. Changed our accommodation to where the others were staying as it was closer to the centre of town. Had supper at Pirates restaurant, tried some skipping on the dancefloor at Apache beach bar and went to watch the Thai fighting at Reggae bar. Saw 2 volunteer fights (anyone can fight and gets a free bucket) and 1 pro fight. The pro fight was awesome! The okes smashed each other around, even out the ring! The volunteer fights were rubbish. The guys didn’t try very hard to hit each other.

Crashed into bed at 12.

Day 9:
6 of us woke up early to catch the morning ferry home. The rest were either hanging from the night before or wanted to live the island life some more. For me, staying on Phi Phi island for more than 24 hours is overrated.
Minibus driver from port to our hotel was one crazy mofo! “Animan Beach Resort, Clip Animan… there is no Animan!” Haha!

Jumped into the pool the minute we got back and chowed the legendary club sandwich from the hotel. Took a nap and then we decided to book a tour of the Hongs and James bond island for the next day! Had dinner at a Thai place we spotted a few days ago in Bang la road, did a little bit of shopping at Shopping Paradise and headed home around 12.

Day 10:
Early morning as the bus for our tour picked us up at 8:30. We saw Hong island, James Bond island, had lunch at a Muslim fishing village that literally floats on the sea! We then went kayaking where a guide took us under some amazing rock formations! Stopped at one last island to swim and relax before heading home.

Decided to head to the Irish pub for our last evening supper and we should have eaten there more often! The food was really good.

After supper we headed back to our favourite night spot where all the lady boys hang out. It’s by far the most entertaining area of Bang la road and not only for trying to work out how the hell the girls we looking are are boys, but by watching the interaction of the old men picking up the girls/boys. Crazy stuff. Headed back to our hotel at around 1am.

Day 11:
The last day of our holiday. Packed, checked out of our room and headed to town to do a bit of shopping and spend the last of our Baht. Chilled at the pool while a few of us had a massage, showered and waited for our transport to the airport. Once again, flying sucks.

So there you have it! My Phuket holiday. I had the most amazing time with my mates and would do it again in a heartbeat! If any of you are planning on going to Phuket, drop me a comment with any of your questions. I’ll be glad to help out.

Check out more of my pics from Phuket on Flickr here!

The 3D soccer experience at Nu Metro is a complete letdown and here is why

Firstly we arrived 10 minutes early for the game and after waiting in line for 15 minutes for their 1 cashier to help everyone, we eventually got into the cinema 5 minutes after the game had started. Strike 1.

Secondly, I’m paying R100 a ticket to watch the game. I would expect at that price the 3D glasses to be free but you have to buy them for R5. They have these signs up that says you saving the planet by bringing your own but I don’t buy that.

I think tickets should be R100 and if you bring your own 3D glasses you should get R10 – R15 discount. Also, perfectly timed, they only started implementing this rule from the 18th of June – the day they started showing the games in 3D. Strike 2.

Lastly and probably the most important part of the entire 3D experience – there is no commentary! You won’t believe the difference commentary makes to sport. No matter how entertaining a game is, without commentary you lose at least 40% of the fun. My wife loves soccer as much as I do, but she actually left at half time to rather go shop than watch the rest of the Netherlands vs Japan game. Strike 3.

So if you planning on going to watch a game in 3D at Nu Metro, rather find one of the Sony 3D exhibition stands during the World Cup and catch a few minutes of that experience. Don’t waste R100 to watch a game without commentary and where you walk out feeling ripped off.

Some stats and observations from the opening round of fixtures

• 25 goals in 16 games. Less than 2 goals a game!
• 4 red cards
• Biggest win was by Germany. 4-0 thumping of Australia
• Upset of the tournament so far: Switzerland beating the favourites Spain 1-0!
• Goal of the 1st round: It’s a toss up between Tshabalala’s break away goal against Mexico and Maicon’s goal for Brazil

Germany are looking really good after their win, alongside Brazil, Argentina and Holland who also racked up early wins. It’s still early days and the only team struggling is Spain. No team has ever lost their opening fixture and gone onto win the World Cup.

Expect more goals in the 2nd round of fixtures as teams try to make up for their earlier mistakes if they made any in hope of progressing to the last 16!

Australian keeper getting beaten. Again.

Second to that, Ghana beat Serbia 1-0 with a well taken penalty to give Africa its first win of the tournament! One thing to note in this game was the way to ref and linesman communicated to give the handball penalty. The ref never saw it, but with the intervention of the linesman over their walkie-talkie system, he was able to get the call correct.

Lastly, Slovenia beat Algeria 1-0 with another goalkeeping mistake. Looks like Group C is the group where the goalies are taking the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. One thing I must say is both Algeria and Slovenia look pretty ordinary and shouldn’t pose much of a threat to England. England just need to get their ducks in a row!

So that’s it for Day 3. Not too much excitement other than the 4 goal blitz of the Socceroos by Ze Germans.

So here is Day 2 of the 2010 World Cup as experienced by me:

South Korea vs Greece

• The South Korean’s, now called ninjas by myself, looked pretty impressive.
• That being said, Greece are useless, so maybe the ninjas still need to prove themselves.
• How bad are Greece? Still haven’t scored a goal in a World Cup.

Final score: 2-0 to the ninjas!

I didn’t catch much of the match as I had one eye on the rugby, with South Africa totally destroying France at Newlands in Cape Town.

Argentina vs Nigeria

• Messi has officially turned up at the World Cup. He, like Ronaldo, usually under perform when playing for their country, but today Messi was wearing his Barcelona boots.
• The Nigerian keeper, Enyeama, had a great game. It looked like the Messi vs Enyeama show and the winner on the night? Enyeama. How he managed to keep Messi from scoring only the footballing gods will know.
• How awesome is it to have the legendary Maradona at this World Cup? I’m telling you now he is wearing an Argentinian kit underneath his suit and if his team are down a goal with 5 minutes to play, I wouldn’t bet against him whipping off his suit Superman style and taking the field!
• Argentina are officially my 2nd favourite team to take the World Cup.
• Nigeria are a solid side, but I don’t see them offering much at this World Cup. I think the likes of Cameroon or Ivory Coast will have the best showing of an African nation.

Final score: Argentina 1 – 0 Nigeria

England vs USA

This was going to be a huge match for me. It’s the opening of England’s World Cup campaign and will be the only group match that I won’t be watching England live. The yanks look a decent side and definitely worthy of pulling of an upset in this World Cup.

We headed down to the V&A Waterfront to catch the game with throngs of US and English supporters at the make-shift Dubliner pub. The atmosphere inside was awesome and the English definitely know how to shut up the opposition supporters in song.

• England had their chances to win the game, but with the number of mistakes made (not only at the back) a draw seemed a fair result.
• Capello made some tough selection calls that back-fired. Milner was clearly not feeling well and subbed after 30min and King can’t finish 90 minutes of football. As a defender, that is a prerequisite!
• BP have actually employed Robert Green to plug the oil spill in the gulf. See how swimmingly well that is going?!
• Gerrard should of been made captain long time ago. He was all over the park, making tackles, attacking and even scored after 5 minutes.
• Heskey had a decent game, but once again has shown what a blunt pencil in front of goal he is. We need goalscorers up front. Why not play Rooney up front with Gerrard just off him?
• I love the England football supporters. So much pride and history instilled in all of them. I wish SA had more of a history in sport – although we busy creating it we speak!

Final score: England 1 – 1 USA.

One last thing. Do you wonder why Americans have this preconceived misconceptions about Africa and that animals roam wild in our streets and back yards? Blame idiots that tweet things like this:

“Thirty minutes before departure the police are going to check the route of the team bus to make sure it is clear of elephants.” – This was tweeted by the official US Soccer Twitter account. Unbelievable.

So day 2 was pretty action packed and with Sunday’s big game only being Germany vs Australia, I’ll make the next post short and sweet. :)

I’m not the best writer, so I’m going to struggle to express how I felt on the opening day of the World Cup, but I’ll try anyway. Cape Town honestly felt like another planet – I don’t think SA will ever experience such comradery, ‘gees’ and happiness like we did on the 11th of June 2010. It surely can’t be topped?! Streets lined with thousands of people singing, dancing and blowing vuvuzelas. Everyone was on such a buzz – me included!

I headed down to the V&A Waterfront to watch the opening ceremony and both games. The opening ceremony was a little bit of a let down, but I guess having it during the day meant you couldn’t make use of any lighting, which is one of the things that really makes them special. Not too worry though, Bafana definitely made up for it on their opening fixture against Mexico.

Bafana Bafana vs Mexico

SA almost had the perfect start to the World Cup with Tshabalala firing SA into the lead with what can only be called a spectacular goal! South Africans across the country erupted when that goal went in – I couldn’t contain the excitement!

With Mexico enjoying the lions share of the possession during the game, I knew that we would have to minimise our mistakes to hold on for the win and unfortunately a defensive lapse by our captain, Mokoena let the Mexican’s equalise. So 1-1 the game ended and out of the 4 teams in group A, Bafana are looking the strongest to go through!

Moment of the match: Our ninja goalkeeper, Khune, making that diving save minutes after we had scored. He is going to be the difference between us qualifying for the 2nd round. Mark my words!

Uruguay vs France

I knew quite a few people that went to go and watch this game live at Greenpoint Stadium. It finished a dull 0-0 draw with both sides having a couple of half chances to score. France, having qualified for the World Cup solely on luck, don’t look like posing any threat. They have a number of world class players, but can’t seem to find to play well as a team together.

Uruguay also don’t look that impressive either. One thing they will go into the record books for is picking up the first red card at the 2010 World Cup.

Moment of the match: Thierry Henry trying to claim a handball from the Uruguay defense. Pretty rich coming from him considering how his blatant handball that was the difference between France and Ireland qualifying for the World Cup!

So there you have it, my short and sweet experience of the opening day of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa!

So Twitter bought the best iPhone Twitter app, Tweetie 2, and has relaunched it Twitter for iPhone. We all got that? Good. What a couple of people are upset about with the update, is Twitter’s choice of icon. This bird with its ugly blue gradient background and drop shadow FTW (not). The blue doesn’t even match the light blue hue of Twitter’s logo.

Behold the ugly icon. Now polluting everyone's iPhone homescreen.

You see, Tweetie 2 had this gorgeous speech bubble icon, deep set within a grey background. It looked sexy, was recognisable and fitted in with the entire look and feel of the app. It sat proudly on my iPhone’s homescreen and I would of paid even more than $2.99 for the app – it’s that awesome.

The gorgeous Tweetie 2 icon. RIP.

I’m not upset with the fact its gone. I knew it would change, but what I wasn’t expecting was that ugly thing they call an icon, replacing it. Worse still are the reasons from the designers about why. Read the comments on this Dribbble post from some designers on the new icon. (Included is a shot of what was supposedly the Tweetie 3 icon. Nice.).

for reasons I won’t get into (or can’t, depending how you read that), we opted for the one that’s there now. – Mark Otto

Tweetie was acquired because we noted how many people were searching the App Store for “Twitter” and wound up in total confusion over which app to download. We wanted something that was not only named Twitter, but looked like Twitter to *new* users. In that regard, there was a conscious decision that the app did not need to look like an evolution of Tweetie, but rather, something that looked like an official Twitter app. – Doug Bowman

If the reason for the new icon was so that people wouldn’t be confused when trying to find Twitter on their iPhone, why did they not go for an icon with the “t” in Twitter? The official app on a Blackberry uses the “t” as a icon. So why not on iPhone?

The Twitter 't'. Famous the world round.

Also, Twitter don’t place much significance on that bird. Go and look at Twitter.com’s homepage. That tiny bird is in a shade of grey and all the way on the right, compared to the massive light blue Twitter logo. That little bird isn’t even on a person’s profile page. The other thing is, there are so many variations of a blue bird floating about representing Twitter, that no matter what the “official” twitter bird logo is, it won’t ever stand out.

What I’m trying to get at is that whatever Twitter’s decision regarding their version of the icon, it still doesn’t look like the real deal. It fits in perfectly alongside all the other custom, 3rd party Twitter apps. How does that differentiate the app then? The only thing *new* users will differentiate the app by is its name – Twitter for iPhone. So whatever “business/design decision” it was, it wasn’t the right one in my book.

The app has a number of different categories – eating out, entertainment, shopping, things to do and accommodation just to name a few. You won’t find a list of every single restaurant in Cape Town in the app, but what you will find is some of Cape Town’s favourite places. Almost like the best of the best!

Each listing has all the contact details, a decent review as well as a link to where its located that will open up Google maps. So no getting lost for you my international friends.

Cape Town Safari is free and is available now in the App store.

Disclaimer: Cape Realty is a client of World Wide Creative, who I’m associated with.

Chelsea - Barclays Premiership Champions 2009/10

It has been an amazing season of English Premiership action. With Drogba netting the golden boot award with 29 goals, Petr Cech keeping 17 clean sheets and sharing the golden glove award with Pepe Reina and Chelsea scoring 103 goals (the most in history) during the 2009/10 campaign, there really couldn’t be any other Premier League champions.

Finishing off the league with an 8-0 thrashing of Wigan was a fitting way to the 2009/10 season. I was also lucky enough to watch Chelsea take on Blackburn at Stamford bridge during this season, so out of the 3 league cups Chelsea have won since I’ve been alive, this was definitely the most special. With the FA Cup still to play for, this could end up the most successful season in Chelsea history!

Enjoy the pics I found online. :)

There really is nothing better than winning trophies. Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea!

I’ve already been back twice since my first Origins experience – its that good. Next time, I’ll definitely taste their food and venture upstairs to see what else they hiding.

Origins Coffee Roasting. 28 Hudson Street. De Waterkant.