Opinion
The Thaiger Opinion Columns
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Fishy business in Phuket
Kiettikun Charoensawan, 57, is chief of the Phuket Provincial Fisheries Office. He has a bachelor’s degree in Aquaculture from the Faculty of Fisheries at Kasetsart University and has served as director of several offices of the Inland Fisheries Research and Development Bureau. He most recently worked for two years as director of the bureau in Suphan Buri. Here, he talks…
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Facing up to the brutal reality of Phuket’s missing children
PHUKET: The welcome news that the Royal Thai Police no longer need to wait 24 hours before launching a search for a missing child is one of the greatest leaps forward in policing policy in years (story here). A regular reader would not have to flip through a pile of back issues of the Phuket Gazette to know of the…
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The morality of surrogacy
PHUKET: The recent case of baby Gammy has highlighted the ethical and legal minefield embedded in commercial gestational surrogacy arrangements (story here). Gammy, who suffers from Down syndrome and other medical complications, is one of the twins born to Thai national Pattaramon Chanbua, after she was paid 300,000 baht to be implanted with the fertilized eggs of an Australian couple…
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Why Phuket needs a new beach safety education program (video)
Robert Brander is a coastal geomorphologist and senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Dr Brander completed a master’s degree at the University of Toronto and a PhD on the morpho-dynamics of rip currents at the University of Sydney. He has been studying beaches and surf science since 1986. Here, he talks about what can…
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Playing the role of manager and mum in Phuket
Sumontha Urvois, 37, from Suphan Buri, is the Executive Assistant Manager of the Grand Mercure Phuket Patong. She has a master’s degree in hospitality management and more than 14 years’ experience in the industry with the Accor Group. Before coming to Phuket, she worked for two years as Rooms Division Manager at the Novotel Bangkok on Siam Square. Here, she…
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Feelin’ fat like a Phuket expat
PHUKET: Living in Phuket as a Western-born woman could prove dicey for the faint of heart, even more so for those who suffer from the occasional lack of self-confidence. Once you settle into life on the island, it doesn’t take long to tune in to the stark differences in cultural norms, especially when it comes to discussing body weight. Making…
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Braving the Phuket land encroachment backlash
PHUKET: The island should applaud the courage and dedication of Sirinath National Park Chief Kitiphat Taraphiban for continuing the campaign to rid the park of all encroachment – even in the face of recent death threats (story here). The state of many national parks and protected conservation areas is an embarrassment, with many beautiful locations degraded by corruption-fuelled, unregulated development.…
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How to survive a plane crash
PHUKET: “I’m flying high over Tupelo, Mississippi, with America’s hottest band, and we’re all about to die”, is one of those great movie lines, in this case from the film Almost Famous. In the end, they didn’t soar straight into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as Lynyrd Skynyrd did, but the scene tapped into the darkest nightmare of…
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The future of the resident farang lingers in limbo
PHUKET: Visa runners are now being relegated to history; with no more back-to-backs, it’s the end of an era. This will have a marked impact on the demographics of the island and Thailand as a whole. All those working on a wing and a prayer will now be shown the exit door once and for all, and potentially blacklisted. All…
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Opinion: Horrible history of dolphins in Thailand continues in Phuket
PHUKET: Thailand is witnessing an ever-increasing legal and illegal exploitation of local wildlife and marine life. Dolphins have been kept in captivity in Thailand since 1986. The first wild pink dolphin was caught and kept at Laem Singh in Chanthaburi by Vichai Wattanapong at a venue that later became the Oasis Sea World. But it wasn’t until recent years that…
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Phuket Opinion: Going with the flow
PHUKET: When riding my motorbike home yesterday, I found myself lost in thought. With my mind wandering off I’m not sure where (dinner? the weekend?) I missed my turn. Seconds later, without even a moment of hesitation, I turned the bike around, drove 100 meters back, against the traffic, took the missed turn and headed straight for home. The realization…
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Phuket Opinion: Spending a lifetime teaching simplicity
Phra Visutthi Thamma-kanee, 64, is the head of Phuket’s monks and the abbot of Tah Rua Temple in Thalang. He has been in the monkhood since he was 17 years old. He took up the position of acting head of the island’s monks in 2006 and has been their leader since 2008. Here, he talks about what men can gain…
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Phuket progress backslides with Dolphinarium
PHUKET: The fact that a dolphinarium is set to become one of Phuket’s newest tourist attractions (story here) comes as terrible news for the island’s reputation abroad, running counter to all of the positive changes we have witnessed in recent months. Our position on the ethics of keeping sentient creatures like dolphins and other marine mammals in captivity for amusement…
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Phuket Opinion: It’s up to all of us to save the foolish from Phuket’s rips
PHUKET: A friend and I who were surfing in Kata last year came across two young Phuket natives who had gotten into trouble when they were pulled into deep water. We put them on our boards and swam them in to shore, only to watch one of them fade away in front of our eyes. The sight of the 20-year-old’s…
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Phuket Opinion: Taxing alcohol – a taxing issue
Sean Gabb is Director of the Libertarian Alliance in London and has written on subjects as diverse as gay marriage, handicapped parking and second-hand smoke. From 1991 to 1992, he served as Economic and Political Adviser to the Prime Minister of Slovakia. He is the author of 20 books, including novels and poetry. His new novel, The Break, has been…
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Ban monkey business
PHUKET: The recent introduction of two gibbons rescued in Phuket into the wilds of Northern Thailand is a landmark achievement for the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand (WARF) and the many affiliated groups and volunteers who played roles in making it happen. We join the rest of the island in thanking them all and wishing them the best of…
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Upgrade service to lure quality Phuket tourists
Anoma Wongyai, 44, a Phuket native, has been the Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Phuket and Phang Nga Office since March. She has a master’s degree in Tourism from the James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and has been working for the TAT since she was 21 years old. Here, she talks about how quality service must…
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Changes in Phuket: Make them last
PHUKET: Even as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) continues to roll on with its unprecedented and long overdue law-enforcement campaign, pressure inevitably continues to rise – both within the country and internationally – over when new elections will be held and democracy restored. “Branding” a military coup is never an easy task, but images of a pristine…
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Keep the Phuket cleanup ball rolling, take down jet-skis next
PHUKET: As the rains of the southwest monsoon fall and low-season tourism arrival figures plummet, there could not be a better time for the National Council for Peace and Order to be carrying out the long-overdue crackdown on the many illegal businesses that have tarnished the island’s reputation for too many years. The removal of illegal taxi stands along the…
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Phuket driving test: forget about the parking
PHUKET: Someone I know recently applied for a driver’s license and failed the parallel-parking test. “You hit the pole,” announced the proctor from her little booth. And I began to wonder: in the nation which has the third-highest road fatality rate in the world, does it really matter how well you parallel park? Being third globally (according to the World…
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Phuket rainy day must-do: people watching
PHUKET: Let me set the scene for you: it is Sunday afternoon and a sizable rainstorm has just swooped in and killed the power at Central Festival. The only sources of light are provided by the gray sky and the fluorescent glow emanating from laptop screens, tablets and smartphones. I am sitting in front of my Mac at a table…
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Saving Phuket park is more than battling land encroachers
Kitiphat Taraphiban, 53, a native of Bangkok, is the new Chief of Sirinath National Park. He has a bachelor’s degree in Forest Management from Kasetsart University, and before coming to Phuket, served as chief of Mae Ping National Park in Chiang Mai for one year. Here, he talks about his plans to clean, protect and upgrade the beach, forest and…
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Phuket benefits from NCPO’s no-nonsense measures
PHUKET: Following the unprecedented crackdown on the island’s notorious transport syndicates in recent weeks, it is becoming clear that few provinces in Thailand are benefitting more from the no-nonsense measures ordered by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) than Phuket. Now the cleanup, aimed at ending illegal businesses in Phuket, has targeted another scourge that has increasingly tarnished…
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Military Rule in Phuket: I’m thinking Maldives
PHUKET: Ask anyone, and their first impression of the Maldives is the iconic Indian Ocean archipelago with possibly the most beautiful beaches in the world. Everyone has heard of them, and most have wanted to visit them. What most people do not know about this collection of 1,192 islands is that it has developed its reputation as one of the…
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Relative psychology in Phuket: coup, curfew, news
Patrick Mattimore, now retired, was an Adjunct Professor of Legal Reasoning and Case Briefing: Tsinghua/Temple Law School LLM Program in Beijing, teaching psychology to students there. He has also been an online columnist for Gazette partner newspaper the China Daily, covering a variety of topics from why rumors spread panic to selfies among the tuhao. Here, he takes a look…
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Beach club blues
PHUKET: I’ve heard it many times from long-term Phuket expats – over the years the island has changed for the worse. But it doesn’t take decades to notice the decline. For me it took just one year. Take what used to be my favorite Phuket beach – Layan. A half-moon of sand on the border of a national park, edged…
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Turning others’ bad reputations into profit
Manop Pukpaya, 46, has been working as a Phuket taxi driver since 1997. He has a certificate in sales marketing from Dusit Commercial College Bangkok and for the past three years has run his own taxi service.Here, he talks about how the bad reputation of taxi drivers in Phuket and a good online review helped him expand his business, and…
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Crying out for a fair shakedown
PHUKET: Few Phuket Gazette news reports have generated more comment and debate in the social media than our recent article about vendors of pirated goods in Patong banding together to stage a protest against alleged extortion by government officials (story here). Scores of officers from a variety of government agencies, the protesters claimed, had been demanding too much in bribes…
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Kamnan Winai fighting for a clean Karon
Winai Chidchiew, 40, is the Subdistrict chief, or Kamnan, of Karon. He has a master’s degree in political science of local development and a bachelor’s in law from Ramkhamhaeng University. He also has a bachelor’s degree in community development from Rajabhat University. Here, he talks about why he does his job despite assassination attempts, and how he thinks Karon’s problems…
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On the run: Visa runs to stay a part of life despite crackdowns
PHUKET: Recent reports quoting Thai Immigration officials as saying that “visa runs” were a thing of the past have generated a great deal of interest and confusion in Thailand’s expat community. Yet this crackdown is little more than the latest in a long series of tweaks to Immigration policy that is unlikely to have any real impact on foreigners staying…
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