Opinion
The Thaiger Opinion Columns
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The Great American Smokeout, held this year on November 17, is a nationwide event that encourages smokers to take their first steps towards a smoke-free life. If you’re an expat in Thailand, this day could be a timely reminder to...
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Phuket Opinion: Finding a cure for overloaded courts
Parinya Chaowalittawin, 45, took up the position of Chief Judge at Phuket Provincial Court on April 1. Originally from Trang, Judge Parinya has Bachelor’s of Law, Barrister-at-law and Master of Law degree from Ramkhamhaeng University. He has served as a judge for 17 years. Here, he explains what needs to be done to help clear the backlog of cases at…
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Phuket Opinion: Keeping pace with disaster
PHUKET: The construction of a wall along Kamala Beach that could be a barrier during an emergency evacuation once again highlights the need for constant vigilance and above all, common sense in the never-ending preparation for a tsunami or other natural disaster. Few places on Phuket were hit harder than Kamala, where the bathymetry and onshore topography allowed the surging…
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Phuket Opinion: Tourist abduction, another sign of transport greed
PHUKET: The allegations of abduction of a female Chinese tourist by an illegal taxi driver operating out of Phuket International Airport once again highlight the need for a comprehensive overhaul of Phuket’s arcane, baroque and disreputable “public transport system” (story here). The shocking allegations against “independent” taxi driver Paitoon Kruain could not have come at a more conspicuous time: just…
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Phuket Opinion: Do you speak Zulu?
PHUKET: There are very few phone calls non-morning people like myself handle well before 7am. However, when the tour guide to a well-known adventure tour agency rang at 5am to pick up a friend staying at my place for her Similian tour, I was more than pleasant. Two hours of interrupted sleep and nine phone calls later, I wasn’t. In…
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Phuket Opinion: For the Love of Bob
PHUKET: Many years ago, backpacking through Malaysia, I found myself at a hostel one night swapping stories and listening to a fellow traveller playing guitar and singing.When the dreadlocked musician asked if any of us had any requests I jumped in with “play some Bob Marley” assuming that he would have at least a dozen Marley songs in his repertoire.His…
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Phuket Opinion: Meth-ods for drug abuse prevention
PHUKET: Dr Ruangsit Netnuanyai, the psychiatric social worker who runs the drug treatment center at Vachira Phuket Hospital, is absolutely right that more needs to be done to prevent youths from falling into the potentially fatal trap of drug abuse (story here). As he notes, this effort should start with the most commonly abused substance among young Thais: methamphetamine, known…
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Phuket Opinion: Looking for privacy for Phuket’s addicts
Psychiatric Social Worker Dr Ruangsit Netnuanyai, 36, is a Phuket native who has been working at Vachira Phuket Hospital for 13 years. He is the head of the drug-treatment program at Vachira and also does research on drug treatment for young addicts. Here, he talks about drug addiction in Phuket and calls for a new drug-treatment center and drug education…
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Phuket Opinion: Learning to drive
PHUKET: Every motorist I have ever met remembers the day he or she was issued a driver’s license and got behind the wheel… legally. My wife enjoyed that day only this week. The joyous occasion came after months of trying to teach her to drive on the streets of Phuket, where we were slowly denied the opportunity of practicing away…
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Phuket Opinion: Tourist Court, another pie in the sky
PHUKET: Recent talk of establishing a special court to fast-track legal cases involving foreign visitors raises some interesting issues, but at the end of the day is unlikely to result in little more than that: just talk. The reasons put forward to establish such a court are probably well-intended and certainly easy enough to understand. Thailand’s tourism industry is a…
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Phuket Opinion: Year-long road safety in Phuket
PHUKET: The nationwide Songkran Seven Days of Danger road-safety campaign was deemed to be a raging success on Phuket, with only one fatality on the island’s roads during that period. The strong police presence and abundance of police checkpoints definitely made a difference. But the checkpoints have vanished along with the police. Is that their work for the year done?…
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Phuket Opinion: Partners for life
Jeerattakarn Nuannum, 30, was born in Phuket and graduated from Phuket Rajabhat University. After joining Phuket’s renowned Simon Cabaret Show as a performer in 2002, the Phuket native became a fashion model at Phuket Pop Top Model in 2008. Here, Jeerattakarn explains what rights the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community expect to be granted if Thailand moves ahead…
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Phuket Opinion: Don’t ignore the signs of suicide
PHUKET: Mankind, the first of nature’s creations, has so “fully evolved” that some of our number willingly end their own lives. For those of us who have never had to battle depression, the very idea of committing suicide probably seems like the ultimate waste. After all, our time on this inexplicable stage called “life” is ephemeral enough indeed – why…
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Phuket Opinion: Plenty to do, if you can get there
PHUKET: Participants in popular online forums indicate that long-time expatriate residents of Phuket tend to decry the changes that have transformed the island over the past two decades, yet fail to appreciate many of the positive developments that have taken place over the same period. In this space since 1994, we have chronicled, criticized and editorialized – often in futility…
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Phuket Opinion: Paradise found
PHUKET: I lived on Racha Yai Island for five years, teaching English to the staff at the luxury resort there, and I support the local conservation group that wants to ensure that restaurants and hotels deal properly with their wastewater and garbage, and allow streams to flow freely to the sea.I love nature, but I’m no enviro-activist. I don’t have…
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Phuket Opinion: Taking responsibility for Phuket’s garbage
Environmental specialist Nutthakrit Polpetch, 45, is the director of the Phuket office of Natural Resources and Environment. He has a bachelor’s degree in Forestry from Kasetsart University. A native of Phattalung, he has lived in Phuket for 20 years. Here he talks about how managing organic garbage in Phuket can reduce garbage and also create useful products. PHUKET: I am…
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Phuket Opinion: Seeing through the muck
PHUKET: Pollution levels in the Bang Yai Canal strong enough to make residents of Phuket Town’s Samkong area physically ill should spur authorities in all relevant jurisdictions to work together to pinpoint the source of the contaminants and punish any violators. Unfortunately, the official response on all sides has been the opposite. Some local officials are firing off knee-jerk denials,…
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Phuket Opinion: Solving water problems with rain, prisoners, and solar
PHUKET: Many places on this planet, including Phuket, are going through one of the driest spells of the last decade. My home state of Colorado is no exception. Denver, the state’s capital, only two weeks ago declared a stage-two drought, based on a scale on which four is an emergency.With its two prime reservoirs at 59% and 73% capacity (sound…
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Phuket Opinion: Forever at the mafia’s mercy
PHUKET: The proposal by the chief of the Phuket Marine Office to launch a “sea taxi” to ferry passengers between Patong and Phuket International Airport deserves credit for innovation, but appears somewhat impractical. There can be no doubt that visiting tourists need – and fully deserve – better public transport options between Phuket Airport and west coast resort destinations. The…
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Phuket Opinion: Toothless, but no fairy
PHUKET: The other day I had the unpleasant middle-aged experience of breaking a tooth. Not just any tooth, but the right incisor tooth. Alfred E Neuman, eat your heart out. By some amazing stroke of luck, the tooth had broken off but the root stayed intact, which made my experience relatively painless and gave me the chance to consider my…
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Phuket Opinion: Expats in need – who you gonna call?
Bruce Stanley is an American who has been helping foreigners in Phuket for over 20 years. For the past 10 years he has been a warden with the American Embassy, fulfilling a similar function. Here, he talks about resources available to expats in need of assistance. PHUKET: For most foreigners who live on Phuket or those who choose a visit…
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Phuket Opinion: Semi-naked is not an option
PHUKET: We’ve all been there – standing in front of the refrigerated dairy section in a local supermarket, wondering if the locally-made unsalted butter tastes anything like the imported variety when suddenly a mountain of skin reaches up for yogurt, displaying a dark bush of underarm hair and way too many freckles. “Hey mister, this is my local supermarket! If…
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Phuket Opinion: Stray dog ‘final solution’ should take a pounding
John Dalley is Phuket’s well-known founder of the Soi Dog Foundation, a not-for-profit, legally registered charitable organization in Thailand, the United States, Australia, the UK, France and Holland. Here, Mr Dalley replies to Phuket Livestock Chief Weerasit Putthipairoj’s public policy that strays should be rounded up from Phuket’s streets and impounded. PHUKET: In response to the comments made by Weerasit…
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Phuket Opinion: Draining Phuket turtle power
PHUKET: It would be difficult to find a more depressing issue than the plight of the various sea turtle species that face extinction in local waters, some of which are also at risk of disappearing from the planet completely (story here). Sea turtles are an integral, but fast disappearing, part of Phuket’s natural heritage. Older generations of Thais will remember…
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Phuket Opinion: Hi-so holidays harder for tourists to afford
PHUKET: Over the years, a number of my friends have made the journey from England to visit Phuket and enjoy a well-earned holiday. The recurring theme of their time here used to be how cheap the island was compared to the UK, but that has now changed. When I first moved to Phuket, years ago, the exchange rate from baht…
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Phuket Opinion: Awesome Phuket
PHUKET: As I’m sitting with friends on the way to see James Bond Island and Koh Panyee (the floating sea gypsy village), bouncing to and fro in our wave-battered dinghy, a thought occurs to me: living here ain’t half bad.In order to bring our focus back to why we came here in the first place, I offer you just a…
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Phuket Opinion: Get on the bus
PHUKET: There is only one way that breakthrough projects such as Phuket’s first airport-to-beaches bus service get up and running, and that is if everyone in the community gets behind it and supports it. That means: use it. Get on the bus and go to work, to the beach, to see a friend, a movie or even spend a night…
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Phuket Opinion: Tough love for Phuket stray dogs
PHUKET: For the past 10 months, Weerasit Puthipairoj, 58, has been the chief of the Phuket Provincial Livestock Office. Originally from Narathiwat, Mr Weerasit has a master’s degree in Agricultural Development from the Prince of Songkla University Haad Yai campus in Songkhla. Here, he talks about stray dogs in Phuket, the best way to deal with them and what to…
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Phuket Opinion: Drivers – Charming, to the last
PHUKET: At first I was charmed by Thai driving idiosyncrasies, like motorcycles puttering along on the wrong side of the road. To all those who said “There are no rules”, I said “But there are!” For example, that wrong-way driving motorcyclist knows he had better stay well to the side and go slowly.When someone said, “Drivers in Phuket don’t get…
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Phuket Opinion: Fluctuating prices hard to swallow
PHUKET: No one likes being ripped off. Phuket, like many popular tourist destinations, has its fair share of scams, so living here year-round can be frustrating unless you have mastered the language. During my daily lunch break I often drive to a nearby shopping center to order a quick and filling meal at the food court there. I usually order…
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Phuket Opinion: Playing by all the rules
PHUKET: Saphan Hin’s 4,000-seat Indoor Sports Complex is where Phuket United play their Thai Futsal Premier league home games in front of a vocal crowd of around 1,000 supporters. In addition to being the home of the Andaman Pearl, the stadium was also used for several different sporting events over the past few months, including Thailand’s most significant international basketball…
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