At DUBAI 92, we love Tom & Dan. We like to wrap them up in cotton wool a little bit, take care of them and make them feel special.

Who are we kidding? Recently we threw them on Harleys for a 5 hour ride through the desert, had them out-danced by a gang of teenagers in a dance challenge, and they’ve been mobbed at Mirdiff City Centre when we sent them dressed up as Batman & Robin.

This time the boys are off to Thailand on what they THINK is a nice holiday. WRONG. You’ve been thinking of the wildest, weirdest challenges you can. And the pay off? 8 lucky winners are flying to Thailand courtesy of Thai Airways with Tom & Dan for an all expenses paid five-day trip!

Two days in Bangkok and three days in Chiang Mai at the Dusit Hotels and Resorts, pampered en route and back courtesy of Thai Airways.

Follow the progress of the Thailand-bound Dubai-ans in the blog below…

MONDAY, 6 September 2010

Day 4 was time for the gang to check out the world famous Tuk Tuk’s of Bangkok and then head off to fight each other/learn the art of Thai Boxing.

Sadly, after Tuk Tuk fun in a car park away from the Bangkok traffic, Dan and Jim fell ill. Was it like the superstars always seem to get, guys, ‘tiredness and exhaustion’? So we had to leave the Thai Boxing for another visit.

Relieved sighs all round.

Tom and Gareth are shown the Tuk Tuks…

Trust Tom & Dan to find a VIP one…

SUNDAY, 5 September 2010

Hiya Rachell blogger here again. Today is travel day. We are now at the airport waiting to board our flight back to BKK, where Dan is stocking up on a life-time Thai sweets and Tom is getting stuck into a nut-free Burger King.

Last night was another super night in Chang Mai but alas, our last. Before hitting the town with, Lek, our awesome guide from the Thailand Tourism Authority took us to see a Cultural Show that included dance and performance from the local region. We were treated like true kings and given the best seats in the house. Resting on silk cushions on the floor we were awed by the ‘array’ of delectable delights and stunning ‘long nail’ dancers and knife throwers. The show was then taken outside where there was an outdoor arena, lots more dance moves and an incredible fire show. Once we were satisfied with our quota of culture, we decided to once again explore the city life… by night.

For the remainder of the night, we struggled to get more gigs around the city as part of the ‘Debi and the Bongo’s’ Asia Tour (on my previous entry you’ll see that most of the gang fancy themselves as a bit of a band). Day two venues appeared more upmarket and despite Tom rolling his arms to the guitarist to suggest ‘now it is our turn’ while shouting the word ‘swapsies’ several times over the music to the guitarist, we didn’t get another gig for ‘Debi and the Bongos’ in Chang Mai. (the reply was simple and the English was unquestionably clear: “don’t annoy us”).

The boys lead the way with their musical prowess.. (they’re just show offs)

Initially with Gareth on the bongos, Tom on guitar, Rachel hidden on drums, Dan on vocals and Debi on the keys, ‘Debi & The Bongos’ was born…

So, rather than ‘annoy’ them anymore, we thought the best bet was a rehearsal and we headed off en masse to a karaoke bar where we stayed for 2 hours banging out the hits for the 80’s, 90’s and now. And once we had warmed our vocal cords, we took it upon ourselves to get involved in the city’s best night club where wall squats and burpies were the most fashionable moves in the house. Apparently wall squats have now become all the rage in Chang Mai and they have invited Tom and Dan to come by again with next seasons coolest dance floor moves, (the Urban Fitness ladies will be glad to hear!)

Last night in Chang Mai, last night in Chang Mai.

Our Thai Airways flight is now boarding! Catch up later.

After checking into the world famous Dusit Thani in Bangkok, (where we EACH had our own suite), Lek arranged dinner for us at the stunning, Cultural Village in Bangkok. More feasting was enjoyed by all although it has been an intense few days and it was all a little bit more of a struggle for everyone to keep up with the beat. However, we then moved on to Phat Pong where we seemed to get our second wind and ‘Debi and the Bongo’s’ get another live gig in a classy downtown bar. ‘La Isola Bonita’ could be heard in force through the narrow markets.

As for the rest of the night, you will just have to imagine… you know what they say: “when in Rome”.

In the wee hours of the morning the team/ gang/ posse/ group/ Dubai 92 winning team strolled back to their exclusive Dusit Thani suites for a night cap before falling into a deep but short sleep in our massive heavenly beds. Day 4 was upon us already… more challenges in store and the team are battling on with full eagerness.  Bring it on!! (but please can I have a nap before the Thai boxing???).

Stunning views of Bangkok from our Dusit Thani suites…

SATURDAY, 4 September 2010

Day 2 in Thailand was all about the white water rafting challenge. So we got on the mini-buses again and headed an hour or so up into the jungle on a very bumpy road to the camp, had a safety briefing and then hit the water! For most of us it was the first time we’d ever done this and when we learned it was a grade 3 set of rapids we were all a little nervous. Once we’d got going and sorted out which end of the oar to use it was one of the most exciting things EVER.

Check out the action in the video above and all the pictures below.

Standing on this bridge was actually scarier than the rafting. A little rickety!…

The faces of the gang  say it all during the safety briefing…

Moments later, Tom &/or Dan were in the water…

The stunning scenery around Mae Tang river…

Gareth and Clayton up the front of the raft. And holding on!

No time to smile for the camera…

White water rafting challenge? Done it.

Hello! Official CHALLENGE TOM & DAN IN THAILAND blogger, Rachel here.

DAY 2 (AM – way too early!)

One night in Chang Mai…. One night on Chang Mai…

It is now day two and we are on a little shaky bus on route to the river for some white water rafting on only a couple of hours sleep. There must be something in the food as we were up dancing for most of the night… around poles.

One night in Chang Mai… One night in Chang Mai…

Attention span is quite short this morning for some reason. Also got one wrist longer than the other so typing is proving a little trickier than usual (just a beauty tip I picked up in Maesa Village) PLEASE INSERT IMAGE HERE. What a night! We got Debi on the bongos, Rachel on drums, Dan on the mic and Tom on guitar.

One night in Chang Mai… One night in Chang Mai…

We got Clayton chewing on crunchy frogs, Debs is back for some chewy mapani worms and Dan is all about the locus.

One night in Chang Mai… One night in Chang Mai…

Where is Jimbob?? He can nay be seen. One man down.

One night in Chang Mai… One night in Chang Mai…

We got Gareth breaking tables, Neil cracking cameras and Rachel cracking up. Debs, the nuts are gone from the mini bar!!

One night in Chang Mai… One night is Chang Mai…

Still waiting for Sarah to sing us her song. Louise is passed out and the day is but young and ‘Debi and the Bongos’ are live in Alpha next weekend.

One night in Chang Mai… One night in Chang Mai… J (Repeat).

DAY 2 PM

Wow. Wow.  And more wow. WOW! Officially the worlds most amount of fun in one day EVER! White water rafting is possibly one of the coolest things I have ever done in my lifetime… and I’ve done a lot of cool things! (I mean, even just yesterday I was trekking on an elephant).

Despite Dan thinking he was going to die at one point, and Tom falling out and causing himself injury, it was all fun fun fun. The thing about white water rafting is that you never knew what was coming next. So just as you are about the fall over laughing you have to get back ‘on the job’. And then just as you think you have got through the most dangerous part you get caught sideways on a rock and lose one of the team!! (INSERT PHOTO OF TOM FALLING OUT BACKWARDS WHILE TEAM KEEL OVER IN LAUGHTER AND CONTINUE TO SAIL DOWN RIVER ONE MAN LESS).

Quotes of the trip:

“This is just like England” – Miss. Simcox as we sat on an elephant over looking the Thailand’s most amount of Padi Fields and villages made of bamboo.

“I thought I was going to die” – Dan after swimming in the shallow river a meter away from our raft and surrounded by River Rescuers.

“Tackle it like a man” – Tom’s last words before falling over board. That is what you get for not paying attention Tom. The man said ‘stop’, not ‘forward’! Really, there were not many rules to adhere to. The least you could do was listen!

“That was amazing” – Louise who had been absolutely terrified to go white water rafting.

“We need to find a karaoke bar” – Sarah who is dying to get bang out a few tunes.

“I can’t believe it’s not Red Bull” – Gareth the Galiot, who was brave enough to sample some counterfeit beverage on route to the adventure centre.

“They should really have ski lifts and more rivers beside each other and call it White Water Rafting Land” – Dan who has been living in Dubai way too long!

“Diana is dead” – a total cracker of a story from Neil. (We know his wife is keeping up with the trip through the blog, so we hope this won’t upset you but really, this story gave us all endless amount of laughs, and I mean double over laughing with tears running down all our faces.

“Where is Jimbob??” – everyone on several occasions throughout the day.

“I have a bag of frogs and a bag of crickets in my rooms Debs if you’re hungry” – Gareth to Debi in the lift over heard by me while I retched in the corner…

“The worst part about the cricets though were the wings. Nothing more annoying than wing getting caught in your teeth” – Dan (Rachel is still retching.)

FRIDAY, 3 September 2010

After arriving in Bangkok and then catching a connecting flight up to Chiang Mai (we lost Jim somewhere in the airport and found him just in time to get on the flight!) we hopped in mini-buses and headed straight to Maesa Elephant Camp to see if we could attempt Gareth’s challenge of racing elephants.

Even though we’re all a little jaded from the travelling it has dampened our enthusiasm and seeing all the vibrant colours and sights and lush greenery of Chiang Mai has got us all raring to go.

A quick group shot outside the elephant camp…

Tom & Dan have a ‘moment’ with two elephants they named ‘Tom & Dan’. Good one guys…

Before we got to the challenge, we watched the elephants having a bit of a bath and scrub up…

Elephant trekking in the jungle. Go to Thailand. Do it. Just amazing. This is just before our ‘race’ began…

THURSDAY, 2 September 2010

Hiya. Rachel here. I’ve been given the job of chief blogger. So here goes. Sarah got ‘Twitterer’, Neil got ‘cameraman’ and Gareth got ‘photographer’.

So it is now one hour in the flight and most of the gang are down. Winners must sleep! The Thai Airways flight is super with lots of space and the crew have been awesome so no fear of dehydration!

All 10 of us lucky holiday goers (probably not the coolest term for us lot –I may later refer to us as ‘the gang’, ‘the group’, the posee’, ‘the Thailand tigers’, but for now we are ‘Dubai 92 Holiday Goers’) met at the Thai Airways check in counter just 4 hours ago now… actually, let me rephrase that. 9 of us met at the Thai Airways counter 4 hours ago… Miss. Debi Simcox however rocked up a casual 45 minutes later blaming Dubai traffic!! Anyway, we have moved on from that and are all one big happy bunch of friends now.  (Although I did get a good kick out of accidently boarding the plane with Debi’s boarding pass in my back pocket. There had been a few signals in my direction from random passers by traveling on the same flight trying to give me some kind of message but I just assumed they has seen/ heard me on Dubai 92 and were now avid fans of mine. It was only when I copped that we were one man down that I cracked up laughing and made my way back to the gate the pick up our Debs.) To be honest she was tucking into her plum nuts ice-cream coated in caramel sauce and Smarties and didn’t seem to bothered to be left at the gate. Let’s just say she was otherwise engaged.  So we take it was good Debs??

Jimbob is sat just behind me reading his book. We may need a translator for Jimmy. People say the Irish accent is hard to understand. Good luck to the Thai people getting what Scottish Jimbob is trying to say! I am guessing he is saying funny things so for now I am just laughing along. Hopefully after a good spicy meal everything will make sense. (Even my blog!)

Tom and Dan boarded first as they are big airplane geeks and wanted to get photos taken in the cockpit…

I was put in charge of keeping Neil and Jimmy on reigns. Somehow we have already sussed that they are wanderers.

Clayton (who has just done a Tom Hanks and hung around DXB for the past 17 hours) and Gareth are playing tetris on their tv screens… really, was it something we said??

The meal service is over now and the lights are out. Poor Tom had to have a special meal. Can you believe he is allergic to nuts?? That is going to be a big challenge! 5 days in Thailand with no nuts! Anyway, I am sure he will survive. We will look after him and be sure to feed him nothing but bananas.

So this is just the start of our super adventure thanks to Billabong!! I am so excited that all my photos are blurred.

The Panadol nights are kicking in and I need my beauty sleep. Panda eye in Chang Mai just wouldn’t be cool.

Until the morning Dubai 92ers. Over and out. ZZZzzzzzz.

Here we all are waiting for our connecting flight in Bangkok airport…

Tom has just awoken from the dead to see how I was getting on in the blog. Can you believe he just told me to lie and say that Gareth missed the fight?? Really Tom, your audience would expect… nothing less from you!

Right, it is definitely my turn to get some wink-eye. I may soon regret taking up the responsibility for blogging this trip!! Here is to the start of an amazing adventure!!! Thailand here we come!!!!

WEDNESDAY, 1 September 2010

Hiya! One day to go until we head of to Thailand. So we thought we’d throw a bit of a party in the DUBAI 92 studio to meet our winners and the friends they are bringing with them. What a great bunch! We surprised them by revealing that all those challenges they’ve been giving to us…THEY will be doing too! Hahahahaha.

And BILLABONG have very kindly given each winner AED500 to go and get some great gear for the trip.

Here is the scene just before eight o’clock…

And just a few minutes later, here’s Tom playing ‘host’ very well.  He hand-ordered that pizza himself! Dan went to Spinneys for the water and muffins…

Left to Right: Gareth, Neil, Sarah, Sarah’s friend Louise and Rachel, tucking into the pizza.

The party’s in full swing with Caroline from Thai Airways talking us all through what we can expect in Thailand and giving us t-shirts and DUBAI 92 goodie bags…

So there we are. We’ve all met. Just three more to meet too. Everyone’s friends now. Except Dan and Neil, whose friendship has already got off to a frosty start with Neil insisting he has Dan as his partner for the Thai boxing challenge!

Check out the video of the boys throwing the pre-trip party in the DUBAI 92 studio to meet the winners going to Thailand…

Tomorrow we fly!

TUESDAY, 31 August 2010

So, we have all our winners, Tom has his bags packed, Dan still needs to buy uhmmm, a bag and tomorrow is party time!

Everyone invovled in the Thailand trip, winners, sponsors, important people and of course Tom & Dan will be having a bit of a get together in the studio from 8. We’re talking party hats, poppers, Murrey Head’s ‘One Night In Bangkok’ (a song Tom is determined to be the song of the trip) and one BIG secret will be revealed to the studio guests….For now though, Tom & Dan have their party planning hats on and are setting up what could quite easily be the biggest party since the Atlantis opening……..As you can see above..they are pretty busy!

SUNDAY, 29 August 2010

Hello there.  We finally have all our winners!  Sarah Line was the winner we chose from the messages left on DUBAI92.com who challenged us to Thai boxing!

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BUT she did it in a very creative way! She re-wrote the lyrics to Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out For a Hero’ with us as the heroes!

Check out the picture below (and we’ve put all the lyrics underneath too!)…

Roshan who won on Thursday had to pull out cos he couldn’t get the time off work! Poor guy. He challenged us to Tuk Tuk race in Bangkok. So we replaced him with Neil Mclean.

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THURSDAY, 26 August 2010

Hiya! We went to BILLABONG in Dubai Mall this morning to pick up a few more cool things for the trip and ended up having an impromptu surfing lesson in the middle of the store.

As you can see from the picture, our technique was very good…

Well done to Roshan who’s our latest winner! He and a friend will be coming with us to Thailand. He challenged us to drive Tuk Tuks in the busy Bangkok traffic! Erm Roshan!!

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And also well done to Rachel Barrett who replaces Ian who can’t make it. Rachel and a friend will be joining us too. She was picked at random out of the thousands of SMS entries.

Here’s a very excited Rachel winning…

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MONDAY, 23 August 2010

Manan Boonyachai, General Manager of THAI AIRWAYS in the UAE and Middle East came in to teach us how to speak some Thai! Seeing as we didn’t know ANY before we met Manan, I think you’ll agree we did quite well…

Hear Manan talking us through some basics in Thai on the show here…

Part 1 – Tom has a little trouble with some of the pronunciation…

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Part 2 – Tom gets Dan to ask how to order a Big Mac Meal in Thai…

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Part 3 – The boys learn the importance of pronouncing the Thai word ‘banana’ correctly…

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SUNDAY, 22 August 2010

Shock news from the offices of DUBAI 92. Thursday’s winner IAN WEST has been in touch to say he can’t go on the trip! We thought we should give him a call and find out what’s going on…

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THURSDAY, 19 August 2010

Well done to IAN WEST who is the second winner to bring a friend and head to Thailand with Tom & Dan! He has challenged the boys to take to the water and see if they can handle white water rafting!

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WEDNESDAY, 18 August 2010

Last night on the show, Tom decided he’d be handling any hotel bookings for the guys in Thailand. He reckons THIS is what it’s like when Dan does…

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THURSDAY, 12 August 2010

Welcome to our CHALLENGE TOM & DAN IN THAILAND BLOG!

The boys hit up BILLABONG at Dubai Mall to get some much needed holiday gear for the Thailand trip.

And well done to GARETH SPRING who is our first winner! He & a friend will be joining us on that aeroplane!! Here’s the moment he won…

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