- Phuket News
Phuket road victim identified as Aussie model
PHUKET: The young woman who died in a motorbike accident in Phuket early on Saturday morning has been identified as Lana O’Connell, a successful young model from the Gold Coast, Australia. Miss O’Connell was riding a motorbike along Patak Road toward Chalong Circle with her long-term partner Kenneth Trivett at about 3:30am when they struck a motorbike with sidecar. Mr…
- Phuket News
Jet-skis, rip-offs and noise pollution: Phuket’s honorary consuls go through the motions
PHUKET: Jet-ski scams, noise pollution in Patong and real estate rip-offs were among the issues raised by honorary consuls during their quarterly meeting with Phuket government officers yesterday. The meeting, held in the main meeting room of Phuket Provincial Hall, was chaired by Phuket Vice Governor Sommai Prijasilpa. Dr Sommai, the first-ever person to chair the meeting in English, was…
- Phuket News
Two baby elephants seized in Phuket
PHUKET: Two baby elephants seized in Phuket today will be sent to an elephant reserve in the Northern Thailand province of Lampang. Meanwhile, investigators are continuing their probe into whether three elephant camps near Phuket’s Big Buddha image are encroaching on protected forest land. The transfer of the two baby male elephants – Popeye and Joey – follows officials from…
- Cannabis News
Phuket books: Battle of the Eco-Warriors
PHUKET: T.C. Boyle is the hardest working man in the literary business. Like the late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he writes seven days a week, and it shows. He has written 13 novels and nine collections of short stories. His first two novels – Water Music and Budding Prospects – are about the 18th century African explorations of Mungo Park and contemporary…
- Property
Phuket property: New residential market demand is generated by wealthy Asians
PHUKET: Demand in Phuket’s residential and property markets is growing among wealthy Asian “tourists”, leading property consultancy Knight Frank Thailand has reported. Knight Frank’s latest research was conducted following the Airport Authority of Thailand report that Phuket International Airport had welcomed 20% more passengers in 2011.Statistics showed that 4.2 million arrivals had been counted at the airport last year, compared…
- Thai Life
Phuket gardening: Brimming with bromeliads
PHUKET: Most people in Europe encounter their first bromeliad, without ever realizing its collective name as a fruit that tastes deliciously different, and can be eaten fresh or canned. But the pineapple is only one member, and indeed the only edible member, of a family of plants that comprises more than 3,000 varieties. Among bromeliads grown solely for their good…
- Phuket News
Phuket sports: Golf guru weekly round-up
PHUKET: THE media hype around the USPGA tour this week wasn’t enough to get Phil Mickelson into the winner’s circle two weeks in a row. The Riviera Country Club, Pacific Palisades, California was the venue for the Northern Trust Open, formally known as the Los Angles Open, less than a block away from Sunset Boulevard. The Riviera C.C. is a…
- Phuket News
Thanachart close in on Portrait FC
PHUKET: THE Adult Futsal League (AFL) season nine presented by Thanachart Bank entered week five at Thanyapura Sports and Leisure Club (TSLC) last Thursday with a full compliment of games played in both divisions. Jitjongrut took on a struggling Honda in the evening’s first Premier Division fixture, well aware that the game was a good opportunity for them to climb…
- Phuket News
Underpass plans start driving forward
Phuket: Highways Department officials last week presented to local residents their preferred option for a two-lane underpass at the Bang Khu Intersection, north of Phuket Town. The news received mixed reviews, as the initial proposal was to build a flyover at the busy junction, which handles nearly all traffic to and from the airport. Krabi Office of Highways Deputy Director…
- Phuket News
Prompong pushes for 10bn baht rail link
PHUKET: Government spokesman Prompong Nopparit has voiced his support for a 10-billion-baht extension of train lines from Surat Thani to just north of Phuket. Currently, rail passengers and freight bound for Phuket can travel only as far south as Surat Thani. The extension would be about 160 kilometers long, stretching from Keereerat District in Surat Thani province to Baan Thanoon…
- Thai Life
Phuket Lifestyle: Go with the flow
PHUKET: One of the many perks of dressing in a sheer fabric, like silk chiffon, is the versatility of the material. This free-flowing style is destined to become a staple for every fashion-forward female in Phuket this year, as it can be dressed up or down depending on your wants and taste. Don a short version as a cover-up at…
- Thai Life
Phuket comedy: Whose line is it, Steve?
PHUKET: In the run up to The Phuket Punchline Comedy Club’s February 29 ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ show, the Gazette asks each of the comedians about themselves. Phuket Gazette: Where and when were you born? Stephen Frost: Leeds, Yorkshire in 1955. Steve Steen: I was born at home, but I don’t remember too much about it, I was pretty…
- Phuket News
Phuket Police round up Rohingya refugees in Nai Harn
PHUKET: Chalong Police have rounded up 90 starving Rohingya boat people who came ashore in the south of Phuket this morning, but 12 more remain unaccounted for. The Rohingya, all males, were on their way to Malaysia when they ran out of food and their wooden boat began to fall apart at sea, forcing them to come ashore at Nai…
- Phuket News
Phuket beer garden fire not arson: owners
PHUKET: The owners of a beer garden that went up in flames in Phuket early this morning are denying rumors that the blaze was set by a disgruntled former employee. It took six fire engines about an hour to extinguish the fire that gutted the Kamala Beer Garden on the main road through Kamala before dawn today. Owners Chollada Nakballang,…
- Phuket News
Phuket Boat Lagoon to launch weekend market
PHUKET: Phuket Boat Lagoon will launch a new weekend market catering to boat owners on the weekend starting Saturday, March 10. The Weekend Boat Market is the brainchild of Boon Yongsakul, a member of the Phuket Boat Lagoon management team and a descendant of Phuket Boat Lagoon founder Kanit Yongsakul. The main concept of the market is a new shopping…
- Opinion
Phuket Opinion: Truth not optional in the media or in public relations
PHUKET: Since Phuket’s emergence as a tourist destination in the 1980s, the island has maintained a remarkable ability to attract foreign visitors, through good times and bad. Apart from the 2004 tsunami disaster, few events – locally, nationally or globally – have been able to buck the trend in any appreciable way. Despite a seemingly endless series of ‘tourism threatening’…
- Phuket News
Groundbreaking movement on Phuket Bus Terminal impasse
PHUKET: Construction workers this morning began work to remove the median strip in front of Phuket Bus Terminal 2 on Thepkrasattri Road in Rassada, raising hopes the long-dormant facility might go into operation soon. Workers were at the site at 8am, putting up warning signs to alert motorists of the work, which will close two lanes to traffic during work…
- Phuket News
Phuket Blues and Rock fest feasts on talent
PHUKET: Friday nights don’t get much better. A superb venue and organization matched with a range of music that voiced soulful lyrics and pumped out thumping rock rifts helped kickstart the 2012 Phuket International Blues Rock festival at Laguna Beach Resort last night. A slightly later than scheduled opening allowed visitors to drift in to the Festival Marquee having not…
- Phuket News
Another Phuket student dies in motorbike crash
PHUKET: A Phuket teenager returning from school was killed yesterday when he lost control of his motorbike and hit the back of a pickup truck parked by the side of the road in Srisoonthorn.Thalang Police were notified of the accident at 5:20pm. At the scene, on Srisoonthorn Road westbound in front of The Valley 2 residential estate, they found the…
- Phuket News
Phuket Rotary Club rolls out high-tech devices for the disabled
PHUKET: The lives of nine disabled people from Phuket and Phang Nga took a turn for the better on Thursday when they took possession of high-tech wheelchair “pullers” donated by local and international chapters of Rotary International. The handover ceremony, at Queen Sirkit Park on Thalang Road, was presided over by Sanguan Kunaporn, head of the Rotary Club of Tongkah…
- Phuket News
Bangers bring home the bacon to Phuket
PHUKET: They’re here! The ‘Bangers on Bikes’ Bangkok to Phuket charity bike riders crossed the Sarasin Bridge just after 11am and a Gazette photographer was on hand to witness their arrival on the island. After losing four riders to exhaustion by the end of day four, the group had recouped one determined pedalist for the home leg between Takuapa and…
- Thailand News
Weird World News: Weather warnings of Europeans acting strange due to cold
PHUKET: While bitter weather blots Europe, the heat wave continues to stifle here in Phuket. This week’s Weird World News round-up is homage to those suffering the onslaught of the cold-snap in Europe, and ways weather can make people muddle words. Swede survives two months in a snowed-in car A SWEDISH man was found alive after being trapped in his…
- Thai Life
Phuket Blues Festival and Blue Sky Air Show set to play to large crowds this weekend
PHUKET: Only hours away, this year’s Phuket International Blues Rock Festival is set to bring the canvas roof down at its new venue in the Festival Marquee at the Laguna Beach Resort’s Y-Junction. It is the place to be today and tomorrow for a sublime celebration of blues rock music with some of the finest musicians ever to appear on…
- Phuket News
Phuket sports: MCC deliver Phuket a cricket masterclass
PHUKET: Cricket’s bible, the Wisden Almanac, may not record the result of Marylebone Cricket Club’s (MCC) match against the Phuket Cricket Group (PCG) select XI, but February 16 will long live in the memory of those who were at the ACG that day.Despite arriving the previous night from the cold conditions in Old Blighty, the MCC team showed no signs…
- Phuket News
Red light confusion ends in Phuket pickup sideswipe
PHUKET: A two-vehicle collision in Thalang last night was likely the result of one pickup braking for a red light, only to be slammed from behind by a second pickup whose driver expected him to run through it, Phuket Police said. Each of the vehicles had two passengers, none of whom were injured in the crash. Thalang Police were notified…
- Phuket News
Bangers bike riders hightail it to Phuket
PHUKET: Four days of hard pedaling has taken its toll, but the 2012 Bangers on Bikes Bangkok to Phuket Charity Bike Ride is nearing the final leg while the hardy cyclists are on their last legs with only 140km to go. On Monday, 11 riders and five support crew left Bangkok on a 916km saddle mission to raise 500,000 baht…
- Phuket News
DAM! Taxi driver forgets handbrake, plunges car into Phuket reservoir
PHUKET: A taxi driver from Khao Lak, the coastal tourist town in Phang Nga to the north of Phuket, this morning found his chicken and sticky rice too tasty to remember to put his handbrake on.The result being his Honda Civic plunging into the reservoir behind Phuket Rajabhat University.“I often come to Phuket to visit my brother, who lives here,”…
- Business News
Tourists from Taiwan to Phuket to double in 2012: PTA
PHUKET: The number of Taiwanese tourist arrivals in Phuket this year is expected double last year’s figure, a senior government official has announced.Paiboon Upatising, currently caretaker president of the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor), said that the island can expect up to 100,000 Taiwanese arrivals in 2012 – compared with 50,000 last year.The projections were announced following the “Phuket Road…
- Phuket News
Phuket Thai Navy base joins anti-pirate joint patrol
PHUKET: The Royal Thai Navy Third Naval Area, based at Cape Panwa on the east coast of Phuket, is coordinating with other armed forces from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in a joint exercise to combat pirates in the Strait of Malacca. Under the “Eye in the Sky” program, representatives from each country will join forces in patrolling the strait in…
- Phuket News
Phuket Court launches night, weekend hearings
PHUKET: Faced with thousands of unresolved cases, Phuket Provincial Court on Tuesday launched a “night court” service in an effort to reduce the backlog. Phuket Court Acting Chief Justice Audthakarn Foojaroen and fellow justices yesterday held a press conference at the courthouse to announce the night court hours, which run Monday to Friday from 4:30pm to 8:30pm. The night court…
