What inspires you to travel?
Learning, learning, learning.

What are some of your favorite destinations?
I'm a big fan of the mountains, green places, places with trees. Stuff that appeals to the hippy hidden under all this hair dye and fancy Adidas.

What are your travel essentials?
Cameras (usually a couple), shoes (usually a couple), a yoga mat if I have room, clothes that I like, underwear (hmmm, this can be tricky, sometimes when I'm low on space, I bring enough for every other day and then turn them inside out ... don't tell anyone though).

What do you miss about Bangkok while you are away?
Ohh tons of stuff, movies, art, air-conditioning, my shoes, my boyfriend if I'm filming the TV show, food ... but whatever, that's all waiting for me when I get back. The cool thing about traveling is that home generally stays the same, it's there waiting to welcome us with open arms when we get back.

How do you maintain health and fitness when you are away?
I make a point to practice yoga when I travel, however I rarely can do a full 90 minutes. Usually I'm squeezing in 15 minutes on whatever surface I can clear away. Food-wise, I'm lucky that vegetarian food is generally easy to find in Thailand, however I often find myself quite bored with eating the same mixed stir-fry vegetables over and over again.

What is your most treasured possession you have picked up while traveling?
I rarely shop when I travel ... unless it's to foreign countries, then I try to get books on language. Even if I'm not going to really dig into the language, I like to learn 30-40 words while I'm visiting. Plus, I love to read grammar books when I'm hanging out around the house ....

Despite entering the local scene over three decades ago, go-karting has only ever enjoyed a minimal following here, especially since there’s never been a permanent racetrack in Singapore to train on. Even Kart World, the go-to place for karting enthusiasts all over the city, had to close down last year when it neared the end of its lease. But things are set to change thanks to Singapore’s first permanent competition-length racetrack, the two-year old Kartright Speedway (511 Upper Jurong Rd., 6265-3303, www.kartright.com), fiercely promoting the sport with the second season of its AutoInc Singapore Karting Championship (SKC).

Inaugurated in 2010, the SKC is sanctioned by the Singapore Motor Sports Association (SMSA) and officiated by the Singapore GP, two very significant mandates from the local motoring industry. When it first started out, the championship drew over 70 competitors competing in five levels grouped according to age. Gearing up for its third round (Jul 16-17), the SKC 2011 now has hosted about 50 participants and this is before the qualifying rounds.

According to Yuey Tan, ambassador of the SKC 2011 and a podium finisher at the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Series, one of the SKC’s main objectives is to attract sponsors and expand the market. ”Motorsports is about 60-years-old now, and has opened doors to revenue around the world. Just look at the Singapore MotoGP and how successful it is. If we continue to promote the sport the way SKC is doing now, hopefully, we will be able to achieve a more inclusive motorsports industry where both the F1 and kart racing can thrive,” he said.

It’s not just the SKC 2011 that’s driving competitive go-karting in Singapore. Other championship events have also been drawing throngs of motoring enthusiasts. The OCBC Corporate Karting Challenge 2011 (next eliminating round occurs on Jul 2), a four-hour kart endurance race that tests wits and strategy, is now in full swing, with over 30 companies vying for a spot in the grand final. “The response has been good. This is our first time organizing this event and it definitely helps that we have Kartright Speedway to support us,” says Ben Lim, events coordinator at Kartright Speedway.

Want to be a part of the next big thing in local motorsports? Eric Ho, Round 1 champion at the SKC 2011’s Senior Master Class category tells us how he first started out.

How did you train when there wasn’t a permanent racetrack years ago?
Now, the Kartright Speedway is the natural and ideal place to go but back then, I was racing karts in the carpark. Besides driving lap after lap, I also figured out the kart set-up that worked best for me was at the carpark.

What other things do you do to prepare for a race?
Training is an endless pursuit for the physical and mental optimum.
I keep my meals light, simple, non-oily and non-spicy so that the only burning sensation I experience comes from the fired-up engine.
I also do sports. I can play tennis for two to three hours but give me 15 minutes of kart racing and I’d be asking for a break. It’s that vigorous!

What’s it like to be legitimately speeding?
Speeding without a chance of getting a ticket is wonderful. I feel so free from all constraints, especially when my machine and I “become one.” It feels great.

Do you worry that karting is somewhat environmentally hazardous?
No. Public buses can also be seen as an environmental hazard if that’s the case. What comes out of those few tiny exhaust pipes can’t change the world. Motor racing will soon be running on electricity, anyway, and I’m guessing that’d be way sooner than the other vehicles.

Have you ever gotten a summons for speeding?
Yes, but I’m not proud of it, ironically. The last time I was summonsed, I was going at 96km/h along AYE when the limit was 80 or 90 (km/h). And I still remember that was in 1996!

How do you help promote karting in Singapore?
Back in 2007, I organized practice sessions and fun races through online forums with other karting enthusiasts. I try to share my experience with others whenever I get the chance to, especially when I’m attending karting clinics or exhibitions. People need to understand that karting is a sport like any other, where mental and physical fitness are essential.

Famous last words?
Kart racing is finding cohesion, where aggression is unleashed yet controlled.

Tell us a little bit more about yourself.
I am blessed with a wonderful wife and a lovely pair of twin daughters who enjoy the same type of music as me.

Tell us something we don't know about you.
I was a pretty good BMX freestyler during my teenage years.

What's your current preferred sound?
Nu Disco, Deep House, Funky House.

How do you think the local clubbing culture have changed over the years?
It has become more vibrant with lots of choices. I am proud that I played an influential role since its early days through my involvement with Zouk.

What's the best thing about being a resident DJ?
Being a resident DJ at Zouk, I have the opportunity to develop my own repertoire to entertain and educate every week.

For those who have never been to Disco:Very, what can they expect?
Good music and great vibes for an awesome night out.

Soak in a groovy night on Jun 24, 10pm. Velvet Underground, 17 Jiak Kim St., 6738-2988. $28-35 includes two drinks.

How does IEHAC create its sonic landscapes?  
We take a riff or a drum part and play the heck out of it. Usually we find something that sounds good, then work on it till it sounds great. If it doesn't we scrap it and start again. We'd also toss things up a bit live, playing things slightly differently each time. It's only for the recording of this album where we had to finally decide on what we'd set in stone forever as the final version.

You have often compared the band’s music to soundtracks if you had to score a film, what would it be about?  
It would involve a flying pirate ship cruising through wormholes in outer space, traversing space, time and dimensions, and somehow entering into present day Singapore. Maybe they figure the food is heavenly here. That's probably going to be a real crap movie the way I tell it, which is why I'm a musician, not a filmmaker.

What are some memorable incidents that happened during the production of A Universe Made of Strings?
Our previous bass player Kenny left the band when we just started recording so we had big shoes to fill with time ticking away, producer and guitarist Roland had a near meltdown on several occasions from the stress. While I was tracking guitars in Leonard Soosay's Snakeweed Studios, the studio's kitten Miss Fit tried to eat my effects pedals and cables during the recording. She was actually adjusting my delay pedal's settings on the fly. We kept the part in.

What can a novice to an IEHAC gig expect?
Highly charged and stirring instrumental music with loads of sonic layers, played by five people rocking it up on stage like there's no tomorrow. The best part is they're not even going to notice that there isn't a singer who would probably just ruin things anyway by warbling all over it.

If the band had to pick a legendary pirate as mascot, who would it be and why?
Jack Sparrow. How can you not love a foppish effete pirate who wears eyeliner?

Be part of the buccaneering on Jun 24, 9:30pm. Esplanade Recital Studio, 1 Esplanade Dr., 6828-8377. $25 from Sistic.

I came here in 1986 as Marketing Manager with Singapore Airlines. Our biggest problem was trying to get anyone to come here. Their perception was that it was all green, clean, and boring. Getting them to stay more than two nights was a nightmare.

I always thought, “What’s wrong with that?” You get here and you think “Everyone’s having a nice life. Let’s not tell too many people.”

Nowadays, you can’t get rid of people when they come to stay at your place.

I remember going to the first wine bar in Holland Village—it was called Palm’s. To go to a wine bar here back then was very adventurous.

Working for an airline, you fly first class and live in economy. When I went to work in hotels, I was living in first class and travelling in economy.

There’s a guy in my wife’s first novel—In the Shade of the Tembasu Tree. Hal Leadbitter is a bit of a desperado, who screws half the world. Even my mother asked “Surely Mark’s not Hal, is he?” I had to tell a lot of people I’m not him.

Everyone we know thinks they’re a character in the book.

If I were President, I would mandate that the government cease their active practice of forcing home tenants to vacate their premises of many years on the pretext of renovation. We have big regrets about that happening to our old house in Bukit Batok.

Now we live in a bit of a secret little place on the West Coast; it’s an old building but the apartments inside are great and it’s smack bang on the water. The strange thing is that our son now lives there on the seventh floor, our daughter’s on the tenth floor and we’re on the fourth. It’s Greedy Tower.

I remember you used to have to take a ferry to get to the Beaufort Hotel on Sentosa. A year ago, I was walking through Resorts World, looking for lunch. There was a Japanese restaurant with a set menu for $700. I looked inside: It was absolutely empty.

I don’t think I know any high rollers.

My plan one day would be to work wherever I feel like working. I don’t need to be in a particular place.

If I can just go for a surf in the morning, with all the other five o’clock people, and then go drink coffee and read the paper, that’s fantastic.

Some people come here and get a bit carried away with themselves. You can kid yourself pretty badly as an expat.

I started what became the Wanderers rugby team here. In our first season we went quite well and won a couple of games. The next year we got serious, and won the competition undefeated. I was 43 at the time. It felt great, but you can’t kid yourself that you could do that elsewhere. Try that in England and you’d be killed in about 15 seconds.

Life is creating memories. And if you have the opportunity to keep creating interesting new memories, why not? Singapore enables that to happen.

Living here has been life-altering. For the better; for us, for our children and for anyone that we’ve had anything to do with.

We’ll leave one day. And I’ll miss mixing and mingling with like-minded people, in a quality environment.

I don’t think I’ve been brainwashed too much.

What is your technique?
For this exhibition, low shutter speeds create abstract movements in relation to the story, causing a trace of movement of the face, feet, or other parts of the body. The medium used is a digital medium format Hasselblad camera and studio lights. There was no merging of images. This is a traditional technique of photography.

What was your source of inspiration?
I got my inspiration from meeting people with different stations in society, be it actors, singers, directors, playwrights, politicians, ministers, Red Shirts, Yellow Shirts. Everybody plays their roles differently in different situations. From that I got the idea that one’s status confers a particular role to an individual. Our status makes us act in certain ways and makes other people expect us to be something. These things act like a mask that makes us who we are.

Tell us a bit about this photo, Man Khon The Queen. Why is it shot from the back?
This is after the quarrel over the khon has finished. The woman in the picture now has full possession of the mask and the queen’s crown, looking back at the moving people before stepping forward to her new status in which she has to rule with compassion and ethics. This picture illustrates the episode before she has real power, when she isn’t wearing the khon yet.

Were they performing when you took the pictures? Or were the pictures staged?
There wasn’t a real Khon performance. Of all the actors, some are khon players, but some are Thai traditional dancers and some are contemporary dancers. I had studied the various movements before actually taking the pictures. I would assign different movements in each photo, each with a hidden meaning. The preparation involved more than 40 sketches before the real photo session even happened. Interview by Vasachol Quadri and Natthanun Prasongchaikul

You’re on a hot streak right now.
Well, this year has been a really good year for me. I got signed with Billabong and Converse this year. They help me out a lot.

When did you first turn pro?
In 2005, I got my first pro model with Preduce at the same time their Siam Square shop opened. It was amazing. Preduce set up a party at a really good night club, and all the skaters from Thailand came over. [Lert Saeri] and [Tao Kitpullap] popped champagne and gave me my first pro model decks. It was such an honor. We were the first pros in Thailand.

What’s it like skateboarding in Bangkok?
It’s tough because there’s security everywhere, and the sidewalks are hard to walk on, let alone skate on. Plus there are barely any parks, but we know what we gotta do. We wanna learn new things everyday so we gotta skate. That’s the skater spirit. You skate the street and you make it happen.

What did your family think about you becoming a professional skateboarder?
When I told my mom that I really wanted to go for it and skate and go to contests, she didn’t understand. Back then, I had a sports scholarship playing basketball, and she wanted me to keep doing that so I could pay for school. It took a lot of explaining, but she let me do it. These days, she’s accepted it. She’s surprised that skateboarding has taken me so many places.

Have you ever broken any bones?
Yeah I popped out my elbow two months ago in Nay Pi Daw in Myanmar. It was really crazy. There’s nothing much there, not even a hospital. We called somebody and he drove me around for like two hours to meet a guy with a sarong, and no x-ray machine, nothing. He gave me an injection and scribbled out a map. He couldn’t speak English or Thai. I broke my elbow at 5pm and finally got to a hospital at 10pm.

What’s the best part of being sponsored?
I feel like I made it. I travel to see different parts of the world, meet different people all the time. What can I say? I make money to live and do what I love.

Would you have the same life if you didn’t skate?
I don’t think so. If I keep playing basketball, I don’t think I’d have a chance to see Myanmar and Vietnam the same way. There’s not going to be basketball tournaments there for sure. It’s something real. Skateboarders everywhere are like a big family. Wherever I go, I have a place to stay.

Maybe it’s my father’s blood [late actor-director Ruj Ronnapob] that made me want to be an actress since I was young.

I used to help our maid finish the dishes quicker so she could play acting with me. I would do it all, from crying, singing to being in love. My lead actor was the air.

I pursued my love of acting in drama class, when I was at high school in England.

My dad teased me that one day I could be his lead actress. But I didn’t wait for him. I introduced myself to director Paijit Supwaree who cast me in Kor Kae Kid Tueng.

I lied at first and said that my parents were traders, not people in the entertainment business. But the truth came out when the film became so successful.

I never really had a teenager’s life. I was a young girl who had to work hard to meet other people’s expectations. Jobs kept coming after my first successful film.

After winning awards, I had to improve myself and maintain my status for as long as possible. That’s the toughest part.

My life hasn’t been strewn with rose petals. I worked hard for everything I have.

Having watched me through the years, my mother now says, “You’re really like your father.”

The scandals I was involved in, they are lessons. Every sorrow is a lesson that’s not taught in a classroom. I learned to be strong, or else everything I had built—which wasn’t built in a day—would be gone.

I’m not the only one who was rumored to be Thaksin’s mistress. It’s natural that people would say that about me. When two famous figures, one of whom is the prime minister, are acquainted, there will be rumors.

I’ve tried to understand why the press writes this stuff. Really it was just a lot of false inference. Thaksin was close to my father; he paid for his movie. Thaksin hired me to sing for him at an event; he’s close to my boss. But if he wasn’t the prime minister, there wouldn’t have been these rumors.

I am normally OK with rumors but the mistress allegation was too much. I can live on my own. I wouldn’t be in the industry for so long if I was waiting for someone to support me.

The press has to understand where the limit is. You’re the press, I’m an actress, we have to rely on each other. But why don’t you talk about something more creative?

I believe in karma. If the press doesn’t have morals, they’ll have to pay some day.

I’ve played serious characters in Suriyothai, Rak Lorn and Chuerd Kon Chim, and I wanted to change that. So now, I’m starring in a comedy.
Comedy is harder than drama. I’ve done drama all my life.

I used to feel disheartened thinking how life is this endless cycle: eat, go to the toilet, dress, undress, sleep. But life is just this. I realize that certainty is uncertain.

I practice meditation to calm my mind. No one can bring you out of sorrow except yourself. Think positive and be your own encouragement.

I am single now. I think I am meant to be alone so I try to think that I can live alone. You were born alone and you die alone.

My dream dinner date would be with Brad Pitt. He seems so gentle, warm and nice. No matter how strong men are, if they also have a sensitive side, that’s really cute. Yes, it was awful how he left his wife and went with Angelina Jolie, but we’re not them. Let them make their own life decisions.

My mom always says that we all have good and bad sides but we must give children guidance to be good people. We have to let children explore the world, but you have to tell them to preserve what our ancestors left us.

We have to do good for others. There are no words in English for nam jai, boon khun or katanyoo [to do good]. Why are these ideas disappearing?

Bangkok is a really hectic city but it has its own character. It’s good to be a more modern city. But can’t we live with both the new and the old? Can’t we preserve the tradition of smiling or living along the canals?

Foreigners really love our culture, so why do we throw it away?

I would make the river and canals cleaner, if I were governor. I love river life. I also want to take all the elephants out of the city. They don’t belong here. I ache for them every time I see them begging for food or money on the street. Interview by Monruedee Jansuttipan

What inspires you to travel?
Experiencing foreign cultures, food and music

What are some of your favorite destinations?
Ibiza, Bangkok, Tokyo

What are your travel essentials?
Music, RCA cable, melatonin

Favorite travel tips?
Don't forget the toothbrush

What do you miss about Singapore while you are away?
Makan, basketball and Zouk

What aspect of traveling do you find the most difficult to do?
Filling up immigration forms

How do you maintain health and fitness when you are away?
Walk to every destination possible

What can’t you leave home without?
My lucky seeds

What is your most treasured possession you have picked up while traveling?
Some rare records

What has been your most memorable holiday?
My first trip to Ibiza a very long time ago

What is the best restaurant, café, bar that you have visited while traveling?
Cafe Mambo in Ibiza

What are the top holiday destinations that you are yet to visit?
Berlin

Who is your favorite traveling companion?
Mrs. Hong

What is your ideal holiday?
Great food, parties, clubs, people, weather and experiences.

What inspires you to travel?


Travel to me is like a leap into the unknown. An experience that breaks the monotony of everyday life.
Traveling totally tickles all my senses and heightens my awareness of varying cultural perspectives
Around every corner is bound to be a surprise.

What are some of your favorite destinations?

Berlin, Barcelona, Mumbai, London, Varanasi, Stockholm, Oslo.

What are your travel essentials?

My passport, everything else I don't really need and I usually end up buying so much in a city that i don't bother bringing much.



Favorite travel tips?

Get lost in a city. One of my favorite things to do in a foreign land is to walk from one street to the next without any specific plan or destination. I try and let my instincts guide me and take me in all kinds of directions. Usually I make more startling discoveries this way as opposed to having a fixed agenda.

What do you miss about Singapore while you are away?
What I miss most are the scents of food; the comfort and familiarity of our Singaporean cuisine always make me homesick.


What aspect of traveling do you find the most difficult to do?

Jet lag and having to waste a couple of days in bed sometimes dampens my mood. I usually try and overcome this by spending more time in the sun to get acclimatized.



How do you maintain health and fitness when you are away?

Yoga, I practice Ashtanga Yoga on a regular basis and when I'm away I always have my magic mat to put a little spring in my step.


What can’t you leave home without?

My yoga mat.


What is your most treasured possession you have picked up while traveling?

Great friendship. I love meeting and speaking to people while traveling.



What has been your most memorable holiday?
In Varanasi, one of India's most holiest cities that sits on the Ganges River. It’s a breathtaking place seeped with so much of history and culture. There is an air of mysticism to the city and its inhabitants.



What is your ideal holiday?

One that involves a good dose of soaking in of a foreign culture, but also the space to unwind and to take it slow.