Northern Thailand News
Northern Thailand news, Chiang Mai news, business, tourism, and culture—stay updated with breaking stories, local events, and travel insights from Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Pai, and beyond. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Northern Thailand news source.
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Khon Kaen teacher cuts pupil’s hair, then pays him to keep quiet
PHOTO: Thai Residents A teacher in Khon Kaen province in Issan is in hot water after she violated Ministry of Education guidelines by cutting a student’s hair. The Thai Residents website reports that the teacher allegedly gave the pupil 120 baht to not tell his parents what she’d done. And although other teachers at the school didn’t agree with the…
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Thai farm grows other crops to disguise marijuana farm
“Officials believe that the other crops were simply grown to disguise the 700 marijuana plants.” Police are trying to locate an enterprising Bangkok businessman who grew 700 marijuana plants in his plantation in Nakhon Ratchasima, north-east Thailand. Polcie discovered that the landed been purchased a number of years ago to establish an “integrated farm”. Police raided the man’s 20 rai plantation…
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Burmese drug smuggler shot in northern Thailand shootout
PHOTOS: Manager Online A Burmese drug suspect has been killed in a shootout with Thai police and soldiers while attempting to ship drugs across the border into Chiang Mai’s Mae Ai district early today. The man was believed to be a fighter with the Shan ethnic group in Myanmar and a part of a group of 30 drug smugglers. A…
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Light plane crash lands in Sukhothai
PHOTOS: ข่าวคนสุโขทัย A private light plane has been forced to make an emergency landing in a rice field in Sukhothai’s Sri Satchanalai district, central Thailand, this morning. The pilot and the passenger were unharmed in the incident. The incident happened at 9.32am in Moo 4 village in Tambon Haad Siew. The pilot managed to glide the plane down to land…
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Chiang Rai collision kills truck driver, injures several Chinese tourists
A tourist bus with 19 Chinese tourists on board was heading to the White Temple of Chiang Rai yesterday, when it was involved in a head-on collision with a pickup truck. The truck driver was killed instantly, and several bus passengers were rushed to hospital with injuries. It comes less than a week after 10 Italian tourists were injured, one…
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John Legend & Chrissy Teigen check out the tastes at a Korat Market
American music legend, John Legend, and his Thai-American wife Chrissy Teigen headed to a Nakhon Ratchasima food market only to be surrounded by locals trying to get a quick selfie. The army of fans surround the musician, his wife and daughter to follow them around the market in the 25 minute Facebook post. It was smiles all around but as…
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How to raise rats and other livestock: lessons from a north-eastern school
PHOTOS: The Nation A school in Surin province, north-east Thailand, is teaching students how to make a living raising small livestock such as wild rats and voles. Local farmers will often pay up to 1,000 baht for breeding rodents, with fully-grown ones sold for meat at 120 baht a kilo. Rodent meat remains a traditional food source in some parts…
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British man repays street vendor’s kindness by scamming him
PHOTO: Thai Residents and Sanook Surichat, a 50 year old BBQ food vendor in Khon Kaen province, north-eastern Thailand, became the victim of a shameless petty con-artist when he tried to help the man out of financial difficulty. The man introduced himself as ‘Stuart’ and claimed to be from England. He told Surichat he had a wife and child in Bangkok…
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Department warns of possible floods and landslides for 12 provinces
FILE PHOTO Officials and emergency responders in 12 provinces have been instructed to be prepared, and put equipment on standby, to cope with possible floods and landslides until August 20 (Tuesday). Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation director-general Chayaphol Thitisak says the alert was issued because of heavy downpours in the North, the Central and southeastern coastal areas. Officials were…
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Thai farmers reluctant to scale down use of ‘toxic’ herbicides
Thai farmers say they oppose the proposed bans on herbicides paraquat, glyphosate and chlorpyrifos. The Thai government plans to phase out three chemical weed killers, widely used by Thai farmers, by the end of this year. Farmers say they oppose the restrictions of use because the chemicals provide higher crop yields, according to Thai PBS who headed out into the…
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Relatives of ‘slapped’ student say they will file complaint
Relatives of a Mathayom 2 schoolboy, who was slapped in the face by his teacher at the Sa Kaew’s Aranyaprathet district school, say they will still take action against the teacher. Sa Kaew is to the east of Bangkok on the Cambodian border. They have told local police that they, and the boy, have allegedly been harassed and threatened by…
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Korean auntie arrested in Chiang Rai and deported over company theft
PHOTO: INN News The Thai Immigration Policein Chiang Rai have reported the arrest of a Korean woman, Kyoungnam known as ‘Park’. She was prosecuted by the South Korean authorities on fraud charges and had an arrest warrant issued in her name by a court in South Korea. So Miss Park attempted to hide in Thailand and evade her arrest warrant…
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Electronic cigarettes valued at 11.25 million baht seized in Mukdahan province
PHOTOS: Workpoint News Electronic cigarettes valued at 12.25 million baht, plus various vaping paraphernalia, has been seized in Mukdahan, in far north-east Thailand. E-cigarettes and vaping products are prohibited to import into and use in Thailand. The Mukdahan Provincial Customs Department report that they received information from related officials and planned a raid of an import shipment for a company called…
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Convicted US pedophile caught teaching children at his home in northern Thailand
Immigration police have nabbed a convicted American pedophile in Phayao in the north of Thailand. 66 year old “Mr Eric” had a language school set up at his own home in the main city district of Phayao and was allegedly teaching children English without a work permit. The man’s full name was not provided in the Siam Rath story. Siam Rath…
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Farmers fall for fake fertiliser in Kalasin
PHOTOS: INN News A gang selling fake fertiliser had been travelling around Kalasin in Thailand’s north-east selling their products to unsuspecting farmers. Kalasin Police arrested 5 suspects that were selling the unregistered fertilisers to farmers in the area. All of the suspects are originally from Roi Et Province, also in the north-east. They were delivering large bags of fertilisers to…
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Illegal forest poachers resorting to landmines to scare off rangers in Thailand’s east
PHOTO: Thai PBS Illegal loggers in Si Sa Ket, in eastern Thailand on the Cambodian border, have resorted to planting landmines to kill or maim forest rangers who try to interfere with their pursuit of the highly-prized Payoong, or Siamese Redwood trees in Thailand’s forest reserves. Other ordnance was found when rangers went to investigate the area. According to the…
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Japanese man arrested by Thai Immigration police for alleged sex with underage girls
FILE PHOTO A 69 year old Japanese businessman has been arrested by police in Khon Kaen for allegedly having sex with at least three teenagers, multiple times. The teenagers were aged under 18 years of age. The Khon Kaen Immigration Bureau reported that that “Kazuo” (full name withheld) was arrested at a hotel in the province on Tuesday. The Nation…
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Fishermen stranded at sea off Somalia returning to Thailand
PHOTO: mcot.com Some of the Thai fishermen, that have been stranded on two foreign fishing trawlers off the coast of Somalia over the past two weeks, have now returned to Thailand. The rest are expected arrive in the next few days, thanks to work by the Labour and Foreign Affairs ministries. Thai Labour Minister Chatumongol Sonakul and Chatree Athananan, director-general…
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Three Thai airports being renovated to double passenger volumes
PHOTO: Surat Thani Airport will be doubled in capacity Krabi, Buriram and Surat Thani provincial airports are getting a makeover to double their capacities in 2020, with a combined budget of 11.3 billion baht. Krabi airport will be renovated and expanded to handle double its capacity. The new terminal will be able to handle 8 million passengers a year. A…
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Two Burmese migrants killed in Lampang van crash, 7 others injured
PHOTOS: Lampang13.com Two Burmese migrants have been killed and seven others injured when a passenger van crashed on the road from Tak to Chiang Rai. The van transporting them from Tak to Chiang Rai hit a tree on a Lampang road early today (Tuesday) around 3.40am in Lampang province. The van fell into the ditch in the middle of the divided…
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‘Wipha’ whips up some storms and floods around Chiang Mai
PHOTOS: Entry to a local school turns into a river – The Nation Flooded roads are slowing down traffic and movement around the Chiang Mai area as a result of the fallout from tropical depression ‘Wipha’ which crossed the North Vietnam coast, heading westward towards Thailand, over the weekend. Om Koi district saw flooded road sections, while a large tree…
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Thai man sets fire to his Mercedes Benz because Daddy won’t pay bar tab
PHOTOS: Thai Rath What do you do if you run up a 5,000 baht bar tab and Daddy won’t pick up the cost? Incinerate the Mercedes Benz that Daddy had gone guarantor. That’s precisely what Kittisak Kritklao, the son of a property developer in Udon Thani, did after running up a bill of 5,000 baht at the Tawan Daeng Pub. He told…
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Department ramps up cloud-seeding to ease drought in the Thailand’s northeast
“…he noted that drought in the middle of a wet season is very unusual.” The Department of Rain-making and Agricultural Aviation is stepping up cloud-seeding efforts to help generate much-needed rain for drought areas in the central-north and north-east regions of the country. Some areas need urgent rains to replenish the region’s eight major and 11 medium-sized reservoirs, where water…
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Si Sa Ket province declares dengue emergency
The northeastern province of Si Sa Ket, on the Cambodian border, has declared that the prevention and control of dengue fever required urgent attention throughout its area. Local health officials say they are now especially concerned about what will happen during the last three months of the annual wet season. Governor Weerasak Wichitsaengsi signed a Memorandum of Understanding for dengue…
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“No water crisis in the Chao Phraya basin” – Irrigation Department
PHOTO: Bhumibol Dam in Tak when full, now holding only 4% of capacity The Royal Irrigation Department is assuring farmers and residents in the central and north-east that there is no risk of Thailand of severe water shortages. This is despite little rain in some areas during the annual wet season and the low levels of the Chao Phraya River…
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More rain on the way for the north and north-east
The Thai Meteorological Department has issued a weather warning that on July 29 and 30 a monsoonal trough will lie across Myanmar, Laos and upper Vietnam, while the moderate southwest monsoon prevails over the Andaman Sea, Thailand and the Gulf. In other words, more rain on the way. They forecast that this will lead to more rain in the North and…
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Resort used by Palang Pracharat over weekend may be on encroached land
PHOTO: 88 Garmonte Resort, Nakhon Ratchasima – Foursquare Thailand’s Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation is mulling the demolition of a venue where Palang Pracharat held a seminar at the weekend. The party has come under fire from opposition MPs about using the forest resort which has allegedly encroached on forest land. Located in Wang Nam Khieo district in…
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No rain in sight, eight Thai provinces on verge of water crisis
Thailand’s water situation is becoming critical with eight provinces now listed as critical. Officials are now describing the situation as the worst drought in 50 years. PM General Prayut Chan-o-cha has allocated 1 billion baht to finance the expansion of local water bodies in drought-hit provinces. The lack of rain has left as many as 17 major dams in the…
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North-central Thailand’s Yom River in Phichit runs low
Stories keep emerging about river systems, the lifeblood of agriculture in northern and north-eastern Thailand, drying out or dropping dramatically in level. A section of the Yom River that runs through the Sam Ngam in district in Pichit, north-central Thailand, has almost run dry following months without rain. The river was already reported as unseasonally low during April this year.…
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“Worst drought in living memory”, Thai farmers in the north
Parts of Thailand are facing their worst drought in 50 years. Farmers in some parts of the north and north east say that the situation is the “worst in living memory”, as reported in Sanook. Meanwhile, The Meteorological Department says Thailand will experience the worst drought in at least a decade, with average precipitation across large regions of the country falling…
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