Tag Archives: thailand

Help Us Organise a Waboba Tournament in Thailand

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Waboba Tournament

Waboba Tournament by Gigantes at Live Beach, Mangualde

Here’s another good reason to help us organise a Waboba tournament in Thailand. The tournament that just ended in Mangualde, Portugal, was a huge success.

We’d like to start with a local tournament and hopefully take a Thai team to the Waboba World Cup. If you have a Waboba team, a club or a suitable venue for a tournament in Thailand, we would like to hear from you.

The below report is by Leeroy at the tournament that just ended in Mangualde, Portugal:

16 teams, over 90 players total, played in the Waboba tournament hosted by Gigantes Sports Mangualde at Live Beach and after 64 exciting games the winner was BEIHAUS!

Athletes can hardly wait for the next tournament and the champions hope to be eligible for the Waboba World Cup. As for now, team Beihaus are available, willing, and eager to teach or play against any team that would like to challenge them.

GSM, third runner up cannot wait to give BEIHAUS another go, they were the only ones that managed to win a game against the champs and are dying to take the title away. Their team tactics and strategy have to be worked on and they are definitely not going to let the opportunity go by!

“More, more, more!” and “What are we going to do between 19:00 and 21:00 every day?” can be heard from everyone. Emails tell us how much they liked this new sport and even though finals were last Friday, EVERYONE misses the tournament and will surely continue playing Waboba.

Waboba thanks Gigantes Sports Club and their team for the excellent organization and dedication throughout the tournament. Fair play was guaranteed by the president of the club and the referee, both calm cool and definitely playing by the rules. They would love to host the World Cup in 2012 and help Waboba organize it at Live Beach next June, but that depends if we have teams from other countries ready to play and challenge Beihaus!

Thank you to the Mangualde City Council for backing up this new sport and as discussed Waboba is in Mangualde to stay! Also thank you to the Live Beach team for making this tournament possible by giving us the space from 19 to 21 each day, promoting the tournament and having the hindsight of identifying a good thing when they see one.

More images here.

Waboba Asia Video Competition: Random Inspiration #1

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The closing date for entry to the Waboba Asia Video Competition is September 10. That means you have the whole glorious summer to come up with something. To get you in the spirit, here’s a little piece of random inspiration from Vimeo, a great old video from Matt Harding. But where hell is he??

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

The first prize in the Waboba Asia Video Competiton 2011 is a holiday in Phuket, including flights for two to Phuket from anywhere within Asia, plus two nights in a five-star hotel, plus $700 USD in cash. The competition rules are here.

Waboba Asia Video Competition – Win a Phuket Vacation

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Waboba Video Competition Winners

Thanks to the Mazzarella family, winners of the Waboba Asia Video Competition 2010, for sending us these photos from their weekend at the Hilton Sanya Resort and Spa.

The Mazzarellas won two nights at the Hilton plus 5000RMB in cash when they came first in the Waboba Asia Video Competition 2010. They have been so busy with their ski factory that it took them until now to find time to collect their prize. But we’re told they had an amazing time there with their visiting relatives from Italy.

If you like the sound of a free stay in a five-star hotel, you definitely need to enter our Waboba Asia Video Competition 2011.

This year’s prize consists of flights for two to Phuket from anywhere in Asia, plus two nights in a five-star hotel, plus $700 US in cash.

To enter the competition, you need to shoot a video up to three minutes long, upload it to a video website like YouTube, Tudou or Vimeo, and tell us about the video at competitions@waboba-asia.com.

The style of video is entirely up to you. It can be arty, sporty, fast, funny, but it must have the Waboba Ball in there somewhere, preferably with it bouncing on water.

Here’s last year’s competition winner:

Life’s a Beach and a Ball on Vimeo.

Feeling inspired? Get your camera out and start shooting. This year’s full competition rules are available here.

Moonies Find Life’s a Gas on Thai Party Island

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The Bionic Salesman
A Journey around Thailand

Koh Phangan Full Moon Party

Koh Phangan

Birds fly south for the Winter. Salmon swim upriver to spawn. At full moon the lesser-spotted backpacker, doe-eyed and bulging with hormones, flocks to the island of Koh Phangan for a night of ritual jiggery, eyes wide and body painted day-glo technicolor rainbow.

The Wiki tells me that the monthly full moon parties on Koh Phangan’s Haad Rin Beach started in 1985 and grew quickly, to the point now where they routinely draw in as many as 30,000 revellers.

The party has got so big that it has spawned dozens of imitators, advertised on sign boards all over southern Thailand… the No Moon Party, the Half Moon Party, and my personal favourite, the “Ample Moon Party” (which presumably comes somewhere between half moon and full moon). But the full moon bash is still the original and best.

I was a bit late for me, not just because the party doesn’t really get going until midnight, but also because I am at the time of life where a full night’s sleep is just so much more appealing than a night of semi-naked gyration and waiting for the sun to rise.

So I skipped the party but bought the video of the party. I took in a pre-party party on Koh Samui, then went to bed, got up the next day and rode the ferry to Phangan to see what it’s like when all the island has a sore head. Continue reading →

Driving by Numbers

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The Bionic Salesman
A Journey around Thailand

So much for the rain. The newspapers were full of flood warnings as I set off on the second leg of my journey around Thailand, but it rained only three times on a three-week trip.

Those three rain storms all came on the first day as I drove down the east side to catch the ferry to Koh Samet. The rain came in blocks of sky, an aggravated shout that soon ran out of breath. For a while it was like driving through a liquidiser. Mostly, there was brilliant sun. Continue reading →

Island of Two Ps and a Queue

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The Bionic Salesman
A Journey around Thailand

phi phi island

In the hierarchy of traffic accidents, a ding is smaller than a bump, and a prang is bigger than both of them. I dinged the hubcap on the hirecar. To take a break from driving, we took the boat to Phi Phi, chocolate-box island of upside-down cliffs and impossibly concave beaches. Continue reading →

The Swedish Beach

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Hakans BarThe Bionic Salesman
A Journey around Thailand

Pattaya is Russian, Phuket’s Kata Beach is French and Karon Beach is Swedish. Certain beaches pull in certain nationalities.

At Kata Beach, this is easy to explain. Club Med dominates the seafront.

Waboba being a Swedish product, we were pleased, but somewhat bemused, to see the mini-marts at Karon Beach doing brisk business selling what looks like a local Swedish newspaper.

But what draws the Swedes to Karon Beach? It was a mystery to us until we found this (see picture). If you’re Swedish, you don’t need me to tell you that you’re looking at Håkans Bar, one of the most famous (to Swedes) landmarks in all of Indochina.

It was, apparently, the base for some kind of Swedish television program. Was it a documentary or a reality TV show? I haven’t a clue, but I’m told it was immensely popular and it keeps the Swedes coming here.

There are bits of the TV show on Youtube here. Maybe someone Swedish can tell us what it’s all about.