Thai Life
Thailand guides, travel tips, cultural insights, and essential local information—discover everything you need to know about living, visiting, and experiencing the Land of Smiles. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted source for Thailand guides.
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Asia Superyacht Rendezvous prepares to sail in to Phuket
PHUKET: The Asia Superyacht Rendezvous will shine bright again in Phuket from December 16-18, when guests can enjoy the many facets of this invitation-only event. This is Asia’s largest rendezvous of superyacht owners, guests, VIPs and crew as they gather together to have fun just before the hectic Christmas season. Latest superyachts to confirm their participation are M/Y Samax, M/Y…
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Boat Pattana chases middle-class segment
PHUKET: Boat Pattana Co Ltd has announced a new 400-million-baht residential development in Chalong that aims to target middle-class families. “We don’t think any other properties are really targeting this segment with a project concept like ours; they seem to have forgotten the importance of family space,” said Panupong Kritchanarat, chief executive officer (CEO) of Boat Pattana. The daring move…
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Up in the Air: South sees new direct flights and developments
PHUKET: Thomson Airways, the world’s largest charter carrier, is planning to add direct flights to Phuket using its fleet of fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The twice-weekly flights from Manchester to Phuket are scheduled to begin soon and Thomson is already accepting bookings as part of its holiday package deals. Packages to Phuket currently on offer are typically about 1,500 GBP…
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Law and Order: Evicting a Tenant in Thailand
PHUKET: It’s a goal for many people to become a landlord. They purchase property for the purpose of renting it out for passive income. The property owner interviews prospective tenants and ensures that they sign a lease agreement and put down a deposit. However, all of this does not prevent bad tenants from revealing themselves after they have moved into…
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Sansiri Plc’s ‘The Deck’ said to be selling hot
PHUKET: Mega property developer Sansiri Plc’s latest project in Phuket, The Deck, is now 100 per cent complete, with only 30 per cent of the units still available for purchase. Of the 270 units in two seven-storey buildings, 60 per cent were sold by July, with 35 per cent taken by Thais and the remainder going to foreigners, including many…
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Blazing Saddles: Cycling to great heights
PHUKET: Since the Mingmongkol Buddha was completed on top of Phuket’s Nakkerd Hills in 2010, I’ve felt the spiritual presence of the Gautama watching over me. That may sound rather outlandish, but as I can look westward and see the Buddha from my back bedroom window, it also has some rational underpinning. I particularly feel the Buddha watching whenever I…
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Property Watch: Phuket reality versus hype
PHUKET: Phuketians and long-term expatriates will recall the days when moving between beaches and Phuket Town required a scrambler bike due to the lack of roads. Umbrellas were occasionally sighted in Patong near the sandy Bangla Road track. The property market in Phuket and the reasons for Thais and foreigners to invest in Phuket have radically changed, as has the…
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Marriott to buy Starwood to create world’s biggest hotel chain
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communityMarriott to buy Starwood to create world’s biggest hotel chainPhuket Gazette / ReutersPHUKET: Marriott International Inc (MAR.O) will buy Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc (HOT.N) for $12.2 billion to create the world’s largest hotel chain with top brands including Sheraton, Ritz Carlton and the Autograph Collection. The…
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Books: Sally Mann’s treasure trove of memorabilia
PHUKET: Eloquent, exasperating, pretentious, earthy, fustian, laugh-out-loud funny, Sally Mann’s Hold Still (Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2015, 482pp) – billed as ‘A Memoir with Photographs’ – is very much a mixed bag. Unlike other photographers who roam the world, Sally Mann found her material at home in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Lugging around a 100-year-old rosewood box-camera mounted on…
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Looking Back: Understanding Bangkok blast point
PHUKET: The Erawan Shrine is a revered place of worship located in the heart of Bangkok. Flanked by some of the capital’s best malls and five-star hotels, the shrine is frequented by hundreds of Thai and foreign devotees every day. On a typical day, the shrine is crowded with people who come to offer their prayers. There is a thin…
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Gardening: Slippery slopes of landscaping
PHUKET: I was recently consulted about changes to a large, established garden of some four rai in Laguna. Nothing unusual about that, but here’s the catch. The villa, itself in the throes of major renovation at the behest of a new owner, is sited on a steep hillside and the front garden – mostly Malaysia grass – slopes steeply down…
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Excuse Buster: Treating sickness with water
PHUKET: “You’re not sick; you’re thirsty. Don’t treat thirst with medication,” says Dr. F. Batmanghelidj, author of the acclaimed book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water. We all know that water is essential to life and that in fact it makes up more than 70 per cent of most living things. We also know that although we can survive weeks…
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Expansion helps Amari Phuket bags “Best Beach Resort in Asia-Pacific’
PHUKET: Taking home the ‘Best Beach Resort in Asia-Pacific’ at the 26th annual Travel Trade Gazette (TTG) Awards 2015 in Bangkok was a clear sign to Pierre-Andre Pelletier, Onyx vice-president and south Thailand general manager, that the Amari Phuket was on the right path as it goes toe-to-toe with other high-end developments on the island. “This is an amazing recognition…
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Aussie navigates through haze to paddle against child abuse
PHUKET: As part of his battle against child abuse, Damien Rider successfully circumnavigated Phuket on his standup paddle board (SUP), despite the dense Indonesian haze leaving him lost at sea earlier this month. Mr Rider, a victim of child abuse, first caught the media’s attention with Paddle Against Child Abuse (PACA) when he completed an 800 kilometer prone paddle through…
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Across the Land: Going big while away from home
PHUKET: Recently we were invited to view a brand new luxury eight-bedroom villa solely for holiday rentals. I was thinking to myself before the viewing, now who would want to rent such a big villa and what purpose would it serve. Isn’t a villa with eight bedrooms just a little decadent? Well apparently I was mistaken and that villa is…
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Phuket Classic building recognition
PHUKET: The annual Phuket Classic Bodybuilding event is ready to begin on Sunday, November 8 at Central Festival Phuket, with popular former governor Maitri Inthusut set to open the proceedings. It will be conducted under the watchful eye of the World Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Federation. “It is a competition that aims to promote a healthy lifestyle amongst participants and…
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Property Watch: Branding unlocks potential of hotel property
PHUKET: Thailand, and more specifically Phuket, is leading a strong Southeast Asia trend in hotel residences to the tune of US$3.5 billion in properties currently up for sale. Overall the SEA regional market inventory is valued at a whopping US$16 billion. Recently, we conducted research throughout the Southeast Asia markets and identified nearly 120 developments with over 28,000 units. Thailand…
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Up in the Air: Bangkok Airways spreads its wings
PHUKET: Bangkok Airways finally launched a daily flight service connecting Phuket and Hat Yai with an inaugural launch ceremony after touchdown at Hat Yai Airport on October 11. As previously reported by Up in the Air, the link between south Thailand’s two busiest airports is long overdue. There are thousands of people from Songkhla and surrounding provinces who have been…
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Up in the air: Strong demand anticipated for Phuket – Hat Yai flights
PHUKET: Bangkok Airways finally launched a daily flight service connecting Phuket and Hat Yai with an inaugural launch ceremony after touchdown at Hat Yai Airport on October 11. As previously reported by Up in the Air, the link between south Thailand’s two busiest airports is long overdue. There are thousands of people from Songkhla and surrounding provinces who have been…
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Andaman “Sax Idol’ returns
PHUKET: Dutch-born, multi-talented saxophone player, singer, DJ and performer Gerard Cornielje made his debut in Thailand in 1995. Back then, Gerard performed as a live act at the island’s ‘hottest’ nightlife venues: Timber Hut, Titanic and the Safari Pub. Crowds went crazy as the ‘Singing Dutchie with a Backpack full of Sex Appeal’ took the stage. Given his immediate success,…
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Property Watch: Avoiding property fraud
PHUKET: Recently a video produced by a global news outlet about property and fraud in Phuket went ‘viral’. The video covered serious subject matter, involving people who had been injured and who had their rights violated. However, what many people I spoke to found, was that the presentation of the video and representation of Phuket was fundamentally unfair. It is…
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Gardening: Answer lies in top soil
PHUKET: When steam radio was in its heyday, an English comedy show called ‘Beyond Our Ken’ had a ‘joke’ gardening expert called Arthur Fallowfield. His answer to every query, couched in a ripe west country accent, was: “The answer lies in the soil.” Hardly earth-shattering (if you’ll pardon the pun), but true as well as trite. After all, soil is…
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Books: New Western novel a Wild West of cliches
PHUKET: There was a time, for about three decades in the middle of the last century, when Westerns were the predominant form of American entertainment. Books, magazines, movies and television shows were all devoted to tales of the Old West. Cowboy writer Louis L’Amour was the country’s bestselling author, and even the great Elmore Leonard got his start writing pulp…
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Blazing Saddles: Combining passion of rugby and cycling
PHUKET: My passion for the game of rugby union blossomed about the same time as my passion for cycling and both were formed in the crucible of early boyhood experience. At age eleven I was sent to one of those all-male schools that believes the formation of character and excellence in young men is greatly enhanced by a regimen of…
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Life of a ma song
PHUKET: One of the most famous ceremonies that is synonymous with Phuket’s Vegetarian Festival, or Jia Chai, is the soul-stirring parade of ‘ma song’ (‘spirit mediums), who are often seen stabbing objects through their cheeks or slashing their tongues with knives, as they believe this sacrifice will take away bad fortune, sickness and danger from those who take part in…
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Phuket real estate shrugs off Bangkok slowdown
PHUKET: In terms of property, Phuket seems to be worlds away from Bangkok, where the market has experienced a slowdown, mostly because the island is more affected by events outside of Thailand than inside the Kingdom, Robert Collins, managing director of Savills (Thailand), said earlier this week. Because the Bangkok market has dipped, three real-estate associations recently urged the government…
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Castlewood Group to open Phuket flagship, luxury hotel
PHUKET: Singapore commercial real estate developer Castlewood Group has announced the launch of their flagship luxury hotel development in Phuket, the Dream Phuket Hotel & Spa. This is the first project cementing the recently established strategic partnership with Début Hotel Group – a part of the New York-based Hampshire Brand, Hotel and Asset Management – for the development and operation…
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Looking Back: Turmoil in the Rakhine State part II
PHUKET: Let’s pick up the story of the Rohingya were we left off last month In year 1826, the British invaded and took control of Arakan after the first Anglo-Burmese War. By this time the Arakan region, plagued by war, was critically depopulated. Farms had been left untended for many years. The British encouraged native Bengali farmers as well as…
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Temptations galore at Baba Iki
PHUKET: Iki is best described as an expression of simplicity, sophistication, spontaneity, and originality. The phrase iki is generally used in Japanese culture to describe qualities that are aesthetically appealing, and when applied to a person, what they do or have, constitutes a high compliment. It is a broad term that encompasses various characteristics related to refinement with flair. The…
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Video Report: Amazing fun at food festival
PHUKET: Food was aplenty when the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s (TAT) ‘Amazing Tastes of Thailand’ rolled through Phuket and onto Thalang Road in Phuket Town late last month. The fair, part of the TAT’s ‘Discover Thainess 2015’ campaign and an effort to bring locals and tourists together, panned out well as the streets were packed full of excited and hungry…
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