Search Results for: fall
- Thai Life
Uniforms: fashion or ‘fitting in’ around Phuket?
PHUKET: It’s not unusual to see people in starched uniforms all over Phuket or even Thailand – on the job, after work and during the weekend. For reasons of safety and convenience, certain professions or groups in every culture call for a uniform, whether it be police officers, fireman or school children. But in Thailand, it’s taken a step further,…
- Thai Life
Phuket’s “Tri Tim’ has already beaten the odds
PHUKET: Tim Haddon, Director of Golf at Laguna Phuket Golf Club, is on a mission – a mission that will change his life, and hopefully the lives of others as well. In the six months between May and November 27, Tim, under the guidance of his trainer Darren Hancock, Club Manager of Royal Phuket Marina Health Club, has set out…
- Phuket News
FC Phuket douse PTT Rayong
PHUKET: FC Phuket recorded their fourth consecutive league win last night, with a 3-0 drubbing of PTT Rayong in wet conditions at Surakul Stadium. Phuket went into the match without golden boy Sarach Yooyen, but Watcharapong “Paeh” Jan-ngam shouldered the goalscoring responsibilities dutifully. He got the Southern Sea Kirin on the board in the 7th minute when he powered down…
- Phuket News
More wet weather for Phuket: TMD
PHUKET: The Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) has issued a “heavy rain” warning for Phuket and almost all of Thailand. The warning, simply entitled “Heavy Rain over Thailand”, was issued at 5am today by the TMD’s Weather Forecast Bureau in Bangkok. The source of all the precipitation over the central plains region is a monsoon trough slowly moving across central Thailand,…
- Phuket News
Aussies, Chinese fuel Phuket’s “green season’: PTA
PHUKET: Tourist arrivals to Phuket during the current “low season” are up year-on-year thanks largely to the increased number of direct flights from Australia and China, according to the Phuket Tourist Association (PTA). PTA President Jirayus Somboon said current hotel occupancy rates in Phuket are higher than for the same period last year. The improved performance was in large part…
- Phuket News
Phuket Live Wire: Finding your “True’ internet speed
PHUKET: I’ve received email from all over the world as a result of the ‘Bang for the Baht’ chart that Khun Roger and I put together for the August 27 Live Wire in the Phuket Gazette. The emails I received fall into three broad categories. Some people expect to be in Phuket shortly – either moving here or taking an…
- Thai Life
Teaching 9/11 in Phuket schools
PHUKET: A decade on from that fateful day, what are Phuket schoolchildren learning about 9/11? Teaching children too young to remember the events of 9/11 is difficult to imagine for adults who can recall the carnage of that day as if it were yesterday. For us adults, 9/11 will be an event that defines our time, but for children it…
- Phuket News
Phuket weather report: wet and windy all week
PHUKET: The Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) has issued another weather advisory for Phuket, the second in as many days. Issued at 6am today by the Southern Meteorological Center at Phuket Airport, the advisory notes a “rather strong” southwest monsoon over the Andaman Sea and coastline. People living in windward coastal areas should be especially prepared for “abundant and heavy” rain…
- Phuket News
FC Phuket ready for Bangkok Utd
PHUKET: FC Phuket will be back in action on the friendly turf of Surakul Stadium tonight, when they will be gunning to snatch all three points from division 1 rivals Bangkok United and revive their dimming hopes for promotion to the elite Thai Premier League. FC Phuket go into the match in ninth place in the Thai Division 1 table,…
- Phuket News
Patong Hospital to fight Phuket floods
PHUKET: Patong Hospital faces a chronic flooding problem so bad that its administrators plan to construct an emergency dike and pedestrian footbridge to keep out flood water and allow patients to access the facility during periods of heavy rainfall. Phuket Public Health Office Director Sak Tanchaikul reported on short-term solutions to the hospital’s growing flood problem, which caused a shutdown…
- Phuket News
Patong Hill closed to traffic today
PHUKET: The road over Patong Hill, the only direct route from Phuket Town to Patong, will be closed today (Tuesday) from 9am to midday. The road closure is to allow electrical workers to cut down trees interfering with power lines, Surasak Jantharuek of Patong Municipality’s Engineering Division told the Phuket Gazette. “We need to cut down branches and reset power…
- Thailand News
The Curse of the Police Banyan Tree Shrine
NONTHANURI: A police investigation into the attempted murder-suicide by the wife of a police captain has taken a strange turn as a curse-cleansing ceremony was held at the police station’s banyan tree shrine. Last week, Siripat Kongkla, the wife of Nonthaburi city police officer Kongcham Kongkla, reportedly shot their five-year-old daughter using her husband’s police-issue 9mm handgun before turning the…
- Thai Life
Phuket Gardening: Delving into the Dragon
PHUKET: ONLY a select few members of the cactus family produce edible fruit. In Thailand, you will only regularly encounter one that does – the dragon fruit (hylocerus undatus), known locally as the pitaya. It is one of those tropical oddities that make your mind boggle in astonishment when you first encounter it at fresh markets – a unique rose-pink…
- Phuket News
Phuket forecast: heavy rain to continue through the weekend
PHUKET: Over the past 24 hours Phuket experienced the heaviest rains since the freak storms of last March, with reports all over the island of flooding and downed trees and power poles. One of the heaviest hit areas was Patong, where knee deep water caused traffic jams along parts of Phang Muang Sai Kor road, especially near Patong Hospital and…
- Thailand News
Golden oldie love triangle ends in shooting
LOEI: You’re never too old to fall in love – or to take violent revenge on your cheating wife and treacherous neighbor, as events in the northeastern province of Loei recently showed. On June 22, local police received reports that two people had been shot at a house in Thali subdistrict. At the scene, they found villagers gathered around Wan…
- Phuket News
Phuket hosts Indonesian tourism push to revive Aceh
PHUKET: A delegation from the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism will host a reception for about 200 Phuket residents at Ao Chalong Yacht Club (ACYC) tomorrow. The event is part of the ministry’s strategy to revive and promote tourism to Aceh Province, the hardest hit landfall of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The ministry has identified yachting as a…
- Phuket News
Phuket tourist dies after Kata Beach rescue
PHUKET: A Swiss man died after falling unconscious while swimming at Kata Beach yesterday. Kathu Police confirmed that a Swiss man was pronounced dead at around 5pm at Patong Hospital following an incident at Kata Beach. Witnesses reported to lifeguards at about 4:30pm that they saw the man “swimming” about 150 meters from shore, Uten Singsom, head of the Kata-Karon…
- Phuket News
Phuket probe digs deep into ‘missing hill’ row
PHUKET: Land owners digging up and selling the earth on their plots in central Phuket has sparked a row from neighbors, who say the extensive excavation work is causing dangerous landslips, for which they are seeking 300,000 baht in compensation. An investigation headed by Vice Governor Somkiet Sangkhaosutthirak yesterday deemed much of the excavation work on the plot in Srisoonthorn,…
- Thai Life
Phuket Gardening: A lazy gardener’s delight
PHUKET: The crown of thorns, or euphorbia millii, is a succulent plant that doesn’t require much attention. When the word “succulent” is used, it is usually applied to juicy, delicious fruit such as ripe mangoes, oranges, or pineapples. But for horticulturists, the word has very different connotations: it refers to so-called “fat plants” that store water in their leaves, stems,…
- Phuket News
Phuket Live Wire: Surprise island internet speeds
PHUKET: A little less than two months ago we changed the method for measuring internet speeds, as reported on PhuketInternetSpeed.com. Before that point, we were measuring international download speeds using a technique that was prone to caching – Internet Service Providers, using tools that are actually beneficial to customers like us, automatically bypassed the speed testing regimen. So we switched…
- Phuket News
Weather warning for Phuket
PHUKET: The Thai Meteorological Department has this morning issued a wet weather warning covering much of Thailand due to Tropical Storm “Nock Ten” in the South China Sea. At 5am today, Nock Ten was centered over the west coast of Hainan Island, in China, with sustained winds of about 50 knots, about 90kmh, said the warning. The storm was moving…
- Thai Life
New zoning includes Phuket’s beaches and islands
PHUKET: THE chief of the Public Works and Town and Country Planning office in Phuket has called for all developers and local authorities issuing building permits to heed the new zoning regulations that came into force on July 7. “The application form for building permits remains the same and requires submission at local Administration Organizations for processing and issuing,” said…
- Phuket News
Phuket holiday: Dane found dead in Kamala
PHUKET: A 62-year-old Danish man was found dead in a resort garden near his Phuket hotel room this morning. Lt Col Anek Mongkol, duty officer at Kamala Police Station, told the Phuket Gazette that staff at the Print Kamala Resort discovered the man’s body at about 6:30am and called the police immediately. “His body was found in gardens beside a…
- Phuket News
Phuket downpours mark arrival of Khao Phansa
PHUKET: A deluge of scattered heavy showers ushered in Buddhist Lent (Khao Phansa) in Phuket today, with the Thai Meteorological Department (MET) forecasting more rain on the way. Khao Phansa is also called the “rains retreat”, when young men traditionally enter Buddhist temples to serve as novice monks for three months. True to the nickname, in the 24 hours preceding…
- Thai Life
Phuket’s peckish, so hop to it and make it snappy
PHUKET: Crocodile, frog, snake and warthog aren’t the first things that spring to mind when a westerner thinks “bar snack”. But in Thailand, these delicacies belong to the food group known as Gup Glam (snack food to be devoured with alcohol). And where better to sample these outlandish delights than in the jungle on the outskirts of Kathu waterfall, where…
- Phuket News
Phuket murder: victim’s lesbian lover sought for questioning
PHUKET: Police are investigating the apparent murder of a Phuket Town garment vendor whose body was discovered yesterday in her rented home in Chalong. Chalong Police identified the victim as 41-year-old Chamaiporn Chuaykham, originally from Trang Province. The gruesome discovery, at the victim’s home on Soi Kloom Yang Para, was made by Nattiporn Chuaykham, the 29-year-old brother of the victim.…
- Phuket News
SME reps raise alarm over minimum wage rise
PHUKET: The new government’s policy to instantly raise the national minimum wage to 300 baht per day will have dire implications for small businesses in Phuket and across the country, industry leaders warned today. “Wage rates in Phuket are already quite high. This is leading a lot of people to believe that raising the minimum wage to 300 baht across…
- Phuket News
Mother’s Phuket plea for help in finding son Michael Carlberg
PHUKET: A Swedish mother has appealed for help in finding her adult son, who has not been in contact since arriving in Thailand two months ago. Writing from Sweden, Lise-Lott Carlberg informed the Gazette she had not heard from her 24-year-old son Michael since he landed in Bangkok on May 5. “We know that he has been located in Bangkok,…
- Phuket News
Phuket braces for more heavy rain
PHUKET: June has started out as a very rainy month in Phuket, with sustained rainfall and thunderstorms covering the island. The Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) website reports rainfall reached a high of 100.2mm over the 24-hour period of June 1 with winds topping 64 kilometers per hour (kmh) at Phuket International Airport. Phuket’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation this…
- Phuket News
Phuket expats urged to ask visiting friends to insure themselves
PHUKET: The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has called on British expats on the island to remind their visitors to take out a comprehensive travel insurance policy before heading to Phuket. The request comes as new research reveals that young people are more likely to buy a present for their host than take out a travel insurance policy. The…