Samui Phangan Magazine October - November 2018

Sitting at my desk and looking out over Samui’s stunning scenery it is that time again to start composing my editors notes for the next issue. I would like to thank all those that took the time to write and I hope that I did not miss anyone out and replied to you all. Especially I’d like to mention the email from Nancy & Julian, they emailed me from Kent in the UK after spending month on Samui. With mostly only praise for our beautiful island and magazine Nancy & Julian brought up the topic of accidents on Samui. We all came to the same conclusion, sadly Samui seemed to have more than its fair share of accidents and by that, I mean mostly traffic accidents. The Samui Rescue Service is already doing a fantastic job and with the amount of good hospitals on the island you are luckily able to get to the nearest hospital quickly. Our only thoughts were about the “First Responders”, with a general lack of any first aid training most Thai citizens would rather video the event or make selfies with it instead of getting in and helping. With that in mind I had a meeting with Scott H. van Doren, Scott is the #1 Emergency First Response: EFR Instructor in Asia & Worldwide within the EFR organization. Scott has 30+ years of emergency rescue training having served as member of the United States Military’s Special Operation community. Scott later served as a Law Enforcement Officer and a Team member of the Emergency Response Team (ERT), responding to medical and crisis management incidents. Scott is also a H.E.A.T. Instructor with courses conducted at the U.S. Embassy & Royal Thai Police Law Enforcement Tactical Training Centre. Scott is no stranger to Samui and regularly conducts Emergency First Responder courses here. Scott has very kindly agreed to write some articles for us about EFR and our initial article starts this issue in our Green Scene. We all hope that through these articles a few more Hotels and Developments might be interested in running courses for their staff. It is a simple equation, if you have your staff well trained it will not be long before one of them is in a situation where this training can be the difference of life or death.

Our magazine is again packed with new articles and every important development on the island. We welcome in this issue some great new advertisers including Amari, Pregos, Stacks, Sunflex Asia, Rudi’s Austrian Carpentry, a new professional photography and an incredible Villa Uno. Our legal buzz section comes in two parts this issue as we found it important to clarify some of the news on the changing laws regarding work permits, and very good news it is too. Congratulations are in order for both Horizon Homes winning the DOT Property Awards 2018 Best Real Estate Agent Thailand and to Verano Residence being honoured the award for the Best Villa development 2018 (Koh Samui) from the famous PropertyGuru Thailand Property Awards. You can read more about these awards in our Island Scoop section.

As always, we wish you much enjoyment with our magazine and life on our amazing islands. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions which we will do our best to answer.

Have a Great Day
John Granville
Editor