Josh Janssen

I am excited to announce that today I launch a new project that will see me interview interesting people every week!

Josh Speaking is an audio show that asks the questions to deconstruct the lives of interesting people to pin point the important factors of their success.

Shane Jacobson (Kenny, Charlie & Boots, Top Gear Australia, Beaconsfield) is interviewed on episode one.

The candid 70 minute interview speaks about life before the success of Kenny in 2006 and the transition between part time performer to full time entertainer.

Listen to the full Shane Jacobson Interview at the Josh Speaking website.

Just over a week ago, I produced a video for Annex Products — the company that brought us the Opena Case & QuadLock. Playa Case is an iPhone 4/4s case that ‘discreetly’ holds up to two condoms on the back of your iPhone. The video launch on Sunday, April 1st, and was quickly picked up by the popular technology blog, Gizmodo Australia. Since then — just over a week later — the Playa Case video has been featured on hundreds of websites including CNET, Mashable, Gizmodo US and Huffington Post.

It seems my predictions of 2011 being the year of streaming has official begun, with the introduction of Australia’s first on-demand music service available on Sonos. In a lot of ways, Australia has been a few steps behind in media streaming. Services like Netflix, Pandora, Rhapsody and Spotify being unavailable in Australia, has highlighted the problems with licensing media streaming internationally. Companies are having to individually negotiate licensing deals with each country and frankly, Australia hasn’t been number one on the to do list.

This is why, I am happy with the introduction of Anubis.fm to Australia. Search, browse and play anything from Anubis.fm’s catalogue of more than 2 million songs, as often as you’d like, throughout your entire home—no computer required.   Create your own playlists and program your own channels. All new and existing Sonos customers will receive a free 30-day trial to the service. Anubis.fm on Sonos is part of the ‘Music on Tap’ plan and costs AUD$12.99 per month.

I was a little worried when I saw Anubis.fm was operated by Sony Music Entertainment Australia Pty Ltd, but am happy that they have incorporate all the big labels into the service including;  Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI Music, Warner Music, and key independent labels.

“Our goal at Sonos is to provide music lovers with access to all the music on the planet,” said John MacFarlane, CEO, Sonos, Inc. “By adding popular music services to Sonos, like Anubis.fm, we can continue to give our customers the ability to discover and enjoy unlimited music possibilities in any or every room.”

With hardware companies focussing on streaming in their products, we should expect to see many more services coming to the Australia market.

Today was our trip to James Bond Island. It was going to be a long boat ride to the island, so I decided to take two sea sick tablets. Although it is great at ensuring I don’t get sea sick, they do cause drowsiness. It was a one hour drive to the pier and we were picked up from the resort by car at 7:30am. Within five minutes of being the car, I had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up until we arrived at the pier.

I must have looked pretty tired as we sat and waited, as on of the hosts of our tour came up and asked if I was tired. We waited another half an hour until the rest of the tour participants arrived. They were mainly from Germany. We climbed onto the boat (I am slowly getting less uncoordinated). The boat was a traditional Sea Junk. It was a lot bigger than the speed boat on the Phi Phi Island tour. It was a two and a half hour journey to our first location, which we slept through most of. I definitely wasn’t getting sea sick, the tablets had knocked me out pretty well. Our first destination was surrounded by shallow waters and the group split into two (English and German speaking).

We climbed/fell into a smaller boat which took us to a floating village. We were in for a bit of a shock. ‘The James Bond Island Tour’ sounded pretty glossy and we were not expecting the poverty we came across while visiting the floating village. The first thing that hit us was the smell. We thought Patong was pretty bad, this floating village literally smelt like a ‘floater’. We felt very out of place, being the only group of foreigners on the island. It was an amazing experience seeing the way they lived. The tour guide took us through the local school. It felt a little wrong and intrusive that we were just walking around their school. I didn’t take my camera out, as it didn’t feel right, like it was an invasion of privacy. The tour guide encouraged me to take my camera out. As soon as I did, the school children were intrigued. Gathering around me as I showed them some of the photos I had taken. They would stand in front of my camera, I would take the photo and then they would quickly run behind the camera to see the shot. They were laughing and enjoying themselves, which eased my mind that it was okay that we were there. We didn’t stay long at the floating village. We fell in to the small boat and drove to our larger boat further out. When in the smaller boat, we were drenched by the water hitting the side of the boat. The water was really salty and our eyes were burning. It was now time to see James Bond Island.

We arrived at James Bond island around mid day. There was a small market, with mainly Muslim women. They were selling sea shells and jewellery and were a lot pushier and grumpier than the sellers in Patong. I guess I understand why. They are stuck on an island, relying on our sales for their next meal. Bree and I bought ice cream from a local man. I opened my Magnum with Almond. Crunch. I nearly broke a tooth. He was obviously worried that the ice creams would melt. He had his freezer so cold that the ice cream was rock hard. After an hour on the island, we went back on the boat, where we had lunch. Lunch was nice. A mix of thai curries, salad and seafood. It was time to return to the main island. We stopped at some calm water, where we could go for a swim. We were both pretty zonked from the tablets and spent the time watching the funny fat Germans jumping off the boat in their speedos. It was another memorable experience and one that contrasted our previous experience in Thailand. The tour guides were lovely and were very informative throughout the day. We headed back to the resort where we had dinner at one of the resorts restaurants ‘Into The Beach.’

Yesterday, we spent the first half of the day relaxing at the resort, we were tired from the Koh Phi Phi tour. We have been very happy with our choice of resort. It is away from the hustle and bustle of Phuket Town and Patong, but we’re still close enough to go there to shop and experience some of the controlled chaos.

I have been fascinated by the Thai language and have been trying to learn as much as I can. I have been asking waiters, shop keepers and our driver Mr Game, how to say different things in Thai. Unfortunately, my short term memory is pretty shocking, so as hard as I try and say the words in my head, I forget.

Yesterday morning I spent part of the morning learning different words. Hello, yes, no and thank you. I did a quick search on Youtube and found a heap of video of people teaching Thai. This video was of great help:

After memorising the words, I put them to good use. We called Mr Game and drove to Patong. There are lots of people trying to sell things. Whether its a tuk tuk or tailored suit. I was able to use the phrase ‘Mai Krap’, meaning No Thank you. It was amazing. The people seemed a lot more responsive to my normal ‘No, thank you’ in English.
I would definitely recommend to anyone going to thailand. At least learn the basic phrases, the locals really appreciate it and its great for your confidence.

We hadn’t spent much time in the actual shopping centre and went inside and had a good look around. There are optometrist everywhere in Patong. I had already bought two pairs of glasses. I saw another optometrist and saw that he had some pretty nice glasses. Half an hour and an eye test later, I had bought another pair of glasses. Soon I will have a different pair for every day of the week!

On the street we tried some food. A Banana Pancake, it was cool watching the cook make them. He must have made thousands of the things and really had his technique down.

Walking along the street, there were so many tailors. More than previous days. They would ask how long we have been in Thailand, then follow it up with a when we were leaving. I quickly realised that by me saying five days, they knew I had enough time to pick up a suit. After realising this, I would answer the question with ‘tomorrow morning’. They were very quick to politely end the conversation.

We planned to go down the beach and buy some fireworks, but being poor with directions, we couldn’t find it. We will try again tonight and ask Mr Game to take us directly to the beach.

At 10pm we left Patong, made a stop off at 7/11 for more water and went back to the resort.

We were so tired after walking around Patong for Five hours, we went straight to bed. I recorded audio of my thoughts, which I have transcribed for this blog. We had to leave our resort at 7:30 the next morning.

I am going to keep this post short. Because I am pretty tired! Today we went to Phi Phi Island. We woke up nice and early, had breakfast and were then driven to a pier twenty minutes from our resort.

There was about ten people on our speed boat, including a couple from Adelaide that we had met at Pat’s Home Thai Cooking.

It was raining heavily at the beginning of that day and improved to a drizzle in the afternoon. One thing that I learned today was that Phi Phi Island is actually a cluster of islands, not just one.

Going to Phi Phi Island was probably our least favourite activity since being at Thailand for two main reasons. One, the weather was terrible and two, we felt like the people in charge of todays trip were too focused on money/upselling.

We had already spent money to be part of the tour. They tried to sell us a DVD, photos and even charged us to use the toilet on the island. We bought a DVD from the elephant trekking and didn’t feel pressured. At the elephant trekking we felt like we were learning about Thai culture, where at the Phi Phi Island tour, they were too busy worrying about explaining pricing options for extras.

Not only that, they even went as far as to say that they would not accept 20 baht tips in the tip box. “You can tip us 100, 500 or 1000 baht. Please no 20 baht or coins” He said. Sorry mate, I have been taught beggars can’t be choosers. You may fool the Europeans, but you’re not fooling us. We gave them nothing. We are normally very generous in relation to tips, but I didn’t like the fact that they were telling us what to do. We did have a great time snorkeling. It took a little time to get use to. Also, getting in and out of the boat was always an interesting task. People knew when I was entering/exiting the boat as they would hear a “Woooow, wow, wow” and a bang as I would hit my head.

It was a very long day. When we got back to our resort, at around 6:30, we quickly jumped in the shower. We had spent the day wet, which was a little uncomfortable.

Looking through the Lonely Planet Phuket guide, we found a recommendation for a Mexican restaurant called Los Amigos. It was nice. The staff were extremely friendly and even helped us practice Thai. When we called Mr Game to drive us, he told us that he was worried and thought we had forgotten about him!

Tomorrow we do not have any activities booked. We will wake up a little later. Go to Evason’s private beach on Bon Island, followed by dinner on Patong beach.

I forgot to mention yesterday. At the restaurant I had the option of Chicken or Wagatiable. I wasn’t sure what Wagatiable was. “What is Wagatiable?” I asked. “Eggplant, Onion”……”Ohhhh! Vegetable!”. The language barrier really makes me want to learn their language! This trip makes me want to spend my life traveling like Catriona Rowntree, but with a good personality.

Sawadee Krap! We woke up at 7:15am today, which would have been fine, if we didn’t have to be at the lobby by 7:30am to leave for the day’s adventures. We skipped breakfast and made it just in time. We were driven to a location fifteen minutes away, where we were then greeted by Tam. “My name is Tam, like Tim Tam. Welcome to the land of smiles” He said as he grinned ear to ear. We sat and waited as other people from our group arrived from different hotels.

There were ten of us in our group. We  all stepped inside the minivan, getting comfortable for the one and a half hour drive to the mountains. On the way, Tam spoke to us about what to expect. Today, we were Elephant Trekking and White Water Rafting. Bree and I were unsure of what to expect in relation to the white water rafting as it was our first time. As Tam was speaking to us, I couldn’t help but be impressed by his intelligence. English wasn’t his first language, but he was able to articulate himself so well. Not only that, but after speaking to us in English, he turned to others and spoke in German!

I slept for half the drive to the mountain, as I had taken two motion sickness tablets, which made me a little drowsy. We arrived at the Sealand camp site and our first activity was Elephant Trekking. Tam had pointed out the different words to yell if we wanted the elephant to move forward (OYYYY) or stop (OHWWW). We were directed to an elevated platform, where we hopped on the elephant. We had been told that if the elephant is wagging its ears and tale it means its happy. “Great! Its happy!”.  Our Elephant driver yelled “OYYYY” and the elephant began walking. It reminded me of camel riding in Central Australia I did a few years ago. We went through a forest, which had mud paths throughout. Ten minutes into our adventure, the driver yelled “OHWWW”. He jumped off the elephant and told me to drive him. I got out of my seat and move slowly onto the neck of the elephant.

For twenty minutes we went through the forest, with our elephant driver walking next to the elephant in bare feet and hand rolled cigarette in mouth. He took photos as we went. I tried to get the elephant to stop “OHWWW”, but he didn’t respond to me. I even tried a little bit of a Thai accent. I was tempted to yell “OYYY, OYYY, OYYY”. Tam told us, if you say it lots, the elephant would go faster, up to forty kilometres and hour!

It was now time for white water rafting. There were some Australians with us. Whenever traveling its always interesting to see who introduces who and who speaks first. “Where are you from?” I said, as we sat in the back of a ute.”Melbourne” the couple responded. “oh, cool, same, we’re from the south eastern suburbs”. “So are we – Narre Warren”  They said. Wow, it really is a small world. The girl had gone to the same high school as me, only 10 years earlier. I began to list names and it turned out she knew the same people as me!

White water rafting time, Tam went through some safety guidelines with us. We put on helmets and life jackets and entered the raft. Inside the raft was Bree, myself and the ‘Nazza Wazza couple’. For forty five minutes we paddled and bounced as we went down the rapids. At one stage, we jumped out and went for a short swim.

Forty five minutes later, we went back to the ute and drove to a waterfall at the top of the mountain. It reminded me a lot of the waterfalls in Vanuatu. There were a few local kids jumping off the rocks, which was a perfect opportunity for me to experiment with high shutter speed photography.
We drove back down to the camp side and had a lovely lunch of tradition Thai food. Fish and a sea food soup.

It was the end of a massive day at the Sealand campsite and was now time to go back to our resort. A one and a half hour drive and we were back. Pat had told us that elephants bring good luck and that we should buy a lotto ticket, win and then bring him to Australia.

We ate at the resort again tonight. Although, it is a little more expensive, we save money by not having to get a taxi.

Tomorrow, we head to Phi Phi Island!

PS: Sorry for any poor grammar, spelling or sentence structure. It is late here and I don’t have time to proof read!

If you have any suggestions on what else we should do while we’re in Phuket, please leave a comment below!

Josh

Today we attended our first activity that we booked through the travel agent – Pat’s Home Thai Cooking. We were both excited to learn the different techniques in cooking one of the worlds most recognised cuisines, Thai food. We were picked up from the lobby at around 9am, after another big breakfast at the resort.
A lady was driving the car. She didn’t talk much and wasn’t very confident in the traffic. She was tooting her horn and yelling a bit, which we hadn’t experienced when driving with Mr Game.

In the back of the car there were brochures for ‘Pat’s Home Thai Cooking’. On the front was a photo of a smiling Thai lady, it was Pat. Bree and I had the same thought, is the lady driving us Pat? If so, she isn’t as smiley in person and she didn’t introduce herself.

We arrived at Pat’s house and were greeted by two young Thai girls, giving us both a drink wrapped in Banana leaf. At this stage we were the only ones there. Twenty minutes later a group of nine other people arrived. A mix of Germans and Australians. By this time we realised that it was in fact Pat that had driven us and she wasn’t happy. The taxi had picked up the guests in the wrong order. Which is why everyone was late. Pat had picked us up as we were close to her house. We saw her yell at the taxi driver, then told us that he was driving the way that was more convenient for him, instead of making sure the guests were on time. Although the taxi driver had done the wrong thing, he did seem pretty humiliated being yelled at in front of us.

It was now time to cook! We prepared and cooked Panang Gai, Pad Thai, Tom Kah Gai, Laab Gai and Kao Niaow Mamuang. It was very interesting. The German’s did talk while Pat was talking, which was a little annoying, but I just decided to highlight their rudeness by listening to Pat attentively, nodding and making eye contact. While cutting up the fresh ingredients Pat was very loud in voicing her opinion on our chopping. “Not that way! This way!”. Ohhh, she wanted me to cut the chalot into wedges. She could have just said so. The language barrier was a little bit of an issue, which was surprising, considering she spent close to 10 years cooking in Los Angeles.

After three hours of cooking, we headed inside her dining area, where we ate our meals. We spoke to a couple from Melbourne, as well as a couple from Adelaide.

It was now the afternoon and it was time to leave. Pat drove us back to the resort. I can’t believe we have only been in Thailand for four days and we have already experienced so much. Being a bit tired, I decided to relax in our room for a couple of hours. Then, dinner time. We hadn’t had dinner in the resort yet and considering we had spent the past two night out in the marker, we headed down to the resort restaurant. It was a lot more expensive, as expected, it was the same price that we would pay in Australia. The view was amazing. We were looking out at the ocean, with a nice cool breeze. We were the only people in the restaurant.

After dinner, we went for a walk. As we went past the Infinity Pool, we noticed that there was no one there. No posh and becks to make us feel inadequate. “Is the pool still open?” we asked. “Yes” the barman said. Perfect. We headed to our room, put on our bathers and rushed to the pool. It was very cold. I loved it. It was very refreshing. With the hot weather we had been experiencing, I really began to appreciate pools and cold showers.

After fifteen minutes in the pool, we headed back to the room, which brings me to now. On the computer, writing my thoughts of the day. Its now time to jump in bed. Its 9pm here and we have a massive day tomorrow!