Thailand News
Thailand news, politics, business, crime, and lifestyle—get breaking updates from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond. Stay informed on Thai society, economy, tourism, and expat life with The Thaiger.
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See the best of Northern Thailand this winter on a budget
The Thaiger key takeaways Peak season brings higher prices, but smart planning and local know-how can help you experience Northern Thailand affordably. Chiang Mai, Pai, and Chiang Rai offer plenty of free or low-cost attractions, from temples and canyons to...
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American man dies after crashing Ducati into trailer truck
Tragedy struck in the southern province of Phang Nga yesterday when an American man died after crashing his Ducati motorcycle into a trailer truck at 5.30pm on Phetchakasem Road. Officers from Mueng Phan Nga Police Station investigated the scene of the accident and found the body of the foreign man on the road at the back of the trailer truck.…
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Thailand tourist fee: 300 baht via air, 150 baht via land/sea
Thailand plans to charge foreign arrivals arriving by air a tourist fee of 300 baht (US$9.11) and a fee of 150 baht (US$4.56) for tourists entering the kingdom via land/sea by mid-2023. The 300 baht tourist fee for air arrivals has been in the pipeline for a long time and is set to be enforced in June after facing several Covid-19-related…
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Activists pressure opposition to do away with royal defamation law
Thai activists are pressuring the opposition Pheu Thai Party to do away with the royal defamation law if elected to office this year. The requests come at a time when three demonstrators are seriously ill after going on a hunger strike over the royal defamation law. Two of the activists are currently in the hospital and listed in serious condition. Pheu…
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Prayut tells everyone to calm down over Thai-Cambodian Muay Thai drama
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is telling everyone to calm down regarding the row that was sparked last week between Thailand and Cambodia over the origin of Muay Thai. Cambodia, the host country of the 2023 SEA Games, changed the name of the kickboxing competition from Muay Thai to Kun Khmer and stated that the origin of Muay Thai is Cambodian.…
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Crazy Russian bites off British woman’s finger in Ko Pha Ngan bean bag row
A leisurely stroll on a Thai beach with two friends and a dog bizarrely evolved into a scene from a horror movie after a crazy Russian woman went berserk, chomped on a British woman’s finger and spat it out. The British woman was walking her dog with a German friend on a beach on Ko Pha Ngan Island when they…
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Grab Thailand reveals foreign tourist trends
Grab Thailand saw a 45% increase in foreign users between Q2 and Q3 in 2022, suggesting a positive outlook for the recovery of the tourism industry. The top five countries foreign Grab users came from are… Indonesia Malaysia Singapore United States Vietnam To meet the needs of foreign users, the ride-hailing super-app focussed on perfecting three key aspects of service:…
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Large waves wash away Burmese man in Koh Samui
A recent tragedy in Koh Samui is a reminder of how dangerous large waves can be in Thailand. Large waves washed away a Burmese man in Koh Samui on Monday. Witnesses said the man was a migrant worker travelling with two other male friends, and the three appeared to be drunk. The three men walked to a viewpoint near the sea.…
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Dusit Thani College lifts its service and tourism job fair to ASEAN level
Press Release It had been an annual practice for Dusit Thani College, a specialized educational institute in hotel management, tourism, and culinary arts under Dusit International, to organize Hospitality Career Day to give opportunities in hospitality industry to the college’s students before expanding the event into a national level last year. The fair, newly named Hospitality Talent Fair, attracted those…
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Chinese tourists wrongly fined 60,000 baht for carrying vapes, says law expert
A group of Thai tour guides revealed that a group of Chinese tourists were fined 60,000 baht for carrying vapes in Pattaya. The police also gave a 50% discount and let the tourists pay only 30,000 baht. According to Thai law, Thai police cannot arrest or fine foreigners with vapes. They have to report the issue to the court. The…
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Bangkok public bus condemned by Singaporean tourist
A Singaporean tourist condemned Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) public buses after the driver of a bus in the capital closed its door and drove off as she was about to climb onboard. A Singaporean woman posted a video on her TikTok account, njwah, complaining about the service of a public bus in Bangkok. She wrote captions in Thai and…
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Koh Samui booms as over 200,000 tourists visit the popular island in January
The picturesque island of Koh Samui in Surat Thani province, Thailand, has seen a remarkable turnaround to its economy in the first month of 2023 with over 200,000 tourists visiting in January alone. After a year of uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the arrival of over 200,000 tourists has been a welcome sight for the island’s local economy. The…
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Rolling Loud Thailand 2023 is coming to Songkran Festival in Pattaya
Musical heavyweights Cardi B, Chris Brown, and Travis Scott will join more than 80 other international artists at the Rolling Loud Thailand 2023 jamboree in Pattaya during Songkran Festival from Thursday, April 13 to Saturday, April 15. Pattaya is to welcome some of the world’s leading artists for the three-day music festival on the beach at Legend Siam Theme Park…
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Three foreign tourists rescued from Thai jungle
National park officials rescued three foreign tourists who got lost in the jungle in Koh Pha Ngan, Surat Thani province, southern Thailand, yesterday. All three are reportedly safe. At 5.30pm, the Chief of Than Sadet National Park, Tikamporn Phenchom, received a call that three foreign tourists were lost in the jungle on the Khao Ra mountain and needed help. Chief…
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Government of Thailand give green light for Eastern Aviation City takeoff
Construction on the Eastern Aviation City is ready for takeoff this year after the Government of Thailand gave the green light for work to start on the 290 billion baht (US$8.8bn) project. No official date has been confirmed but work is scheduled to start before June. The original project was officially signed in June 2020. An agreement was made between…
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Google tapped as Election Commission denies helping PM
The Office of the Election Commission (EC) reached out to Google Thailand for support in the upcoming General Election, while they deny accusations of favouring Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. They asked the search engine tech giant to help raise awareness about the election and assist in cracking down on fake news. On Monday, EC Secretary-General Sawaeng Boonmee met with a…
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Birmingham to Bangkok: British poker player wins big and moves to Thailand
A Brummie lad won £3.6 million (145.5 million baht) playing online poker and is now “having the time of his life” in Thailand. An Englishman, 31 year old Richard Sheils, swapped Birmingham for Bangkok after becoming a professional poker player from his bedroom. Now, Sheils is living a life of partying and trips to the beach. Sheils revealed that he…
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Pirate ship restaurant capsizes in Pattaya
A pirate-ship-themed bar and restaurant capsized off the coast of Pattaya in eastern Thailand yesterday. Luckily, the restaurant was not open for business due to bad weather. At 4.30pm, the Sawang Boriboon Rescue Foundation was informed that the “Krakenian Private of Pattaya” was floating down the coast of Pattaya Beach from Bali Hai Pier, not far from Central Pattaya, slowly…
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4 Chinese tourists & Thai tour guide injured in Chiang Mai crash
Four Chinese tourists and a Thai tour guide were injured after a minibus crashed into an electric pole on a road in the northern province of Chiang Mai. The minivan driver was unharmed and is being questioned to find the cause of the accident. Three rescue teams and officers from Doi Saket Police Station rushed to the scene on the…
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American fitness YouTuber found dead in Pattaya
American fitness YouTuber Leo and Longevity was found dead at a house in Pattaya, eastern Thailand, last night. Officers from Pattaya City Police Station were called to a house in Pattaya Lagoon Village in Bang Lamung district at 8pm, where they found the body of 34 year old Laith Abdullah Algaz – also known as Leo Rex – in the…
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Remorseful husband says wife can burn ‘penis’ with ‘hot iron’ if she catches him gambling again
A remorseful husband said his wife could burn his “penis” with a “hot iron” if she catches him gambling again. The wife of the apologetic hubby, from the central province of Samut Prakarn, shared pictures and a video of her husband tied up on social media to shame him for his online gambling addiction. Local news page Khon Khao Ton…
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Woman climbs onto car to stop husband and ‘whore’ mistress
A video showing an emotional woman climbing onto a car to prevent her husband from driving away with his “whore” mistress has gone viral. The viral video circulating on Thai social media shows a distressed woman climbing onto the bonnet of an orange sedan that was travelling down a road in the Tak province. In the video, several people are…
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Bail applications denied for detained protestors
Bail applications by ten detainees have been denied because most of them were charged with serious offences during protests last year, ranging from possession of explosives and arson to inciting unrest. Protesters gathered in front of the Criminal Court on Sunday morning, where a man who had been there for several days collapsed and died. According to Thai PBS World,…
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United States launches SERVIR-Southeast Asia, a USAID-NASA initiative to fight climate change
Press Release Chonburi, 24 January 2023 : The U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Robert F. Godec and Dr. Karen M. St. Germain, Earth Science Division Director at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), launched the SERVIR-Southeast Asia program – a collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and NASA – to help communities across Southeast Asia adapt…
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Fierce blaze destroys 14 houseboats in western Thailand
A fierce blaze at Saiyok Mantra Resort in Kaeng Pralom village caused 10 million baht worth of damage and destroyed 14 of the 16 houseboats on the Khwae Noi River in western Thailand yesterday afternoon. There were no casualties reported. Police Captain Kasan Para, a duty investigator in Sai Yok district, revealed the fire started at around 3.45pm. Firefighters from…
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Revenue Department warns of tax filing scams
The Thai government has taken steps to protect the public from potential scams during tax filing season. They warn that, during this time, scammers posing as Revenue Department officials may attempt to obtain sensitive personal information from taxpayers. Deputy Government Spokesperson Ratchada Thanadirek warned that imposters claiming to be from the Revenue Department will contact potential victims and insist that…
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Thailand’s ‘new’ Airbus A350 spotted with Thai Airways livery
Thailand’s “new” Airbus A350 was spotted with Thai Airways livery last week in France. At the end of October, Thai Airways announced an agreement to lease two Airbus A350-900s to enter service this month. We’re almost in February, and while it doesn’t appear that the aircraft will be in service on schedule, plans are being made, albeit a bit late.…
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Teenage tennis prodigy who killed biker in BMW quits national team
A teenage tennis prodigy, who was involved in a fatal car accident at the age of 16, has resigned from the national team following a backlash from the public over his promotion to the Lawn Tennis Association of Thailand (LTAT) squad. The unnamed 16 year old boy crashed his BMW car into a red motorcycle at the intersection near Suranaree…
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Something fishy about Thailand’s rising prices?
The Internal Trade Department stopped greedy manufacturers from increasing the prices of baby milk formula and canned fish products, amid fears that Thailand’s rising prices are more about reduced profits for shareholders than increased production costs. Government Spokesperson Rachada Dhnadirek said yesterday that the department told manufacturers that both are controlled products – though they must have already known this…
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Harley-Davidson celebrates 120th birthday with new bikes
Iconic US motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson plans to enjoy the ride and celebrate its 120-year birthday in style with a range of new motorbikes for 2023. The Milwaukee-based luxury motorcycle manufacturer is celebrating its 120th anniversary by releasing six limited-edition bikes, including the CVO Road Glide Limited Anniversary, which features exclusive commemorative paint, finishes, and details. The company also announced updates…
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The best International Schools of Northern Thailand come together for the Annual Chiang Mai Education Fair
Press Release Connect with Northern Thailand’s best international and bilingual schools and discover great opportunities for your children offered nowhere else at the TASA Chiang Mai Education Fair on 18th February 2023. The Annual Chiang Mai Education Fair, organized by Thailand Academic Study Associates, brings together over 20 international and bilingual schools for the largest international education fair of the…
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