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.
-
Sponsored 5 ways retirees in Thailand lose money (and how to stop it)
Retiring in Thailand can be affordable and enjoyable, but many retirees lose money due to common mistakes. High living costs, scams, and unexpected expenses can quickly drain savings. There are five ways that retirees in Thailand can lose money and...
-
Excuse Buster: Don’t turn your back on coconuts
PHUKET: This week, I read an article in the Bangkok Post that caught my attention. It was called “Coconut oil, the hype is not healthy: It is apparently the latest wonder food, but medical evidence does not back up the wild claims” (story here). I agree with the featured dietician when she says: “It takes diversity and balance to ensure…
-
Property Watch: Battle of the properties
PHUKET: I was a big fan of the ideas behind Planet of the Apes and the subsequent movies, even the remakes. “Don’t touch the filthy humans!” had a good ring to it and penetrated straight through our general human – though often misplaced – feeling of superiority. In Phuket, I have witnessed a battle between warring factions of owners within…
-
Property: Working a wider Angle
PHUKET: One picture is worth a thousand words. Make it a panoramic picture or a virtual tour, and it becomes even more valuable, especially in the competitive world of property sales. Geoff Whitlie of Panoramas Thailand has proved this formula successful in Koh Samui – now he is expanding to Phuket. Before the internet, the real estate business involved a…
-
Gardening: Dealing with dry spells
PHUKET: While we are used to the onset of the dry season in Phuket every November, this year has been a bit different, as the monsoon was more prolonged and the drought, once it did arrive, has been more extreme. Not a drop of rain since New Year’s Day in my bit of the island means that we are having…
-
Excuse Buster: Six common mistakes keeping you from a killer body
PHUKET: For those who are trying to get back into the fitness game, or who are just stepping up to the plate for the first time, it is essential that good habits are formed right from the get go. Too many people start a fitness regime and fail to see it through. There are many reasons that people fall off…
-
Booming business of silicone mermaid tails
PHUKET: She might have been Melanie Long’s role model growing up, but the one thing the Little Mermaid got wrong was that a woman can’t get too far by flipping her fins. Melanie, also known as Mermaid Melanie, recently completed an enormous one-year undertaking – designing and constructing her own silicone mermaid tail. In the mer-world, tails are a big…
-
Blazing Saddles: How to stay young for longer
PHUKET: Phuket is one of the globe’s most desirable retirement havens, drawing thousands of retirees to its sandy shores. In addition, the demographics of the local Thai populace indicate that Thailand is a rapidly aging society, with 21 per cent of the population already over the age of 55. While many of us think that the effects of aging are…
-
Phuket Pads: Luxury villa shortage in south
PHUKET: The south of the island is facing a shortage of new upmarket villa developments. There are two main reasons for this: higher land and material costs, and more buyer demand for two-bedroom to three-bedroom villas on smaller plot sizes. However, a home is up for grabs in one of the first upmarket luxury villa developments in the south, Rawai…
-
Gardening: Dealing with pesky pests
PHUKET: In the natural world, things lurch from hero to zero or rescuer to rogue in no time at all. Only last week, I was singing the praises of a crafty coucal, which had rid my tabernaemontanas of a plague of caterpillars. In fact, most birds are superstars, consuming aphids, grasshoppers and scale insects, as well as caterpillars. But in…
-
Sri Panwa reveals modern tropical life in Phuket, Phang Nga
PHUKET: The family powerhouse behind Charn Issara Development Public Co Ltd is launching new developments at Phuket’s breathtaking Cape Panwa and another just over the bridge on Natai Beach in Phang Nga. The two projects are part of a series of 11 new developments throughout Thailand, announced CEO Songkran Issara, along with his sons Vorasit and Ditawat, on February 7…
-
Balance Matters: Cure for expat homesickness
PHUKET: When I first arrived in Thailand more than 20 years ago, I was filled with excitement and a sense of adventure. I was eager to learn the language and immerse myself in a new culture. I did just that. I explored every crevice of this amazing country and its dramatic landscapes by train, bus and motorbike. I filled myself…
-
Island Fever: Breath of fresh air needed for Asia’s boutique hotels
PHUKET: Here in Asia, which continues to often live in the shadows of big brother western-hotel design, hotel owners and designers continue to create derivative products. The East is often transfixed on Western products, in the case of luxury concepts, not so much, but certainly in the boutique spaces. When you look outside the “sandbox”, the new buzz-word in the…
-
The birds and the bugs
PHUKET: When I rise early – which is not often these days – the calling of early birds fills the air. Not the blended dawn chorus of an English spring, but a number of separate and distinctive sounds: the musical “sui su” of the magpie robin, the bubbly “chic chic chic” of the yellow-vented bulbul, the soft “woo-croo” of spotted…
-
Expectations high at the Phuket Real Estate Show
PHUKET: Expectations are high among the property developers promoting the latest condos and houses for sale in Phuket at the Phuket Real Estate Show at Central Festival Phuket Visitors at the show, which got underway on Thursday, can expect to find some excellent deals and promotions at the fair from the variety of properties on offer at the 50-plus display…
-
Phuket Boating: Ready to launch a well-earned Siesta
PHUKET: WHEN well-known Phuket yachtie Bob Mott settled on the design for his new 55-foot alloy Catamaran Siesta, little did he know that the project would be more than two years in the making. Now, with the launch slated to be held in Phuket in September this year, Bob relates how his experience offers a great deal of good advice…
-
Diamond Condominium: building on strong foundations
PHUKET: All good projects begin with strong foundations. To make theirs even stronger, the developer of Diamond Condominium in Cherng Talay inaugurated an environmentally friendly piling system called “Hydraulic Static Pile Driver” at the initial stage of the project’s construction. Following the official land blessing ceremony in mid January, the first of 768 piles was laid using the “Hydraulic Static…
-
Video Report: BISP student paints his path to recovery
PHUKET: Strikingly colorful works of art currently lining the hallways of the British International School Phuket (BISP) map the road to recovery for one very happy student who nearly lost his life in a motorbike accident in March 2013. Sevastan Lukashov was left in a month-long coma after a horrific accident on the bypass road, and had to undergo extensive…
-
Phuket Pads: Next stop – Layan Beach
PHUKET: It is common knowledge that land prices on Phuket have multiplied several times over in the past 10 years, and land prices on the west coast have become out of reach for most buyers, except for large developers, hotels and resorts. The future for smaller developers and individual private buyers is inland and north of Laguna as land prices…
-
Up in the air: DCA rule changes cause turbulence
PHUKET: Ongoing regulatory changes made by the Thai Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) headquarters in Bangkok have left recreational flying enthusiasts throughout the Kingdom scrambling to remain in compliance, Up In The Air has learned. Pat James of AeroPro Management, based at Phuket AirPark in Pa Khlok, said that the administrative adjustments followed a change at the top of the…
-
Excuse Buster: Strong is the new skinny – why women should lift like men
PHUKET: The myth that claims women who lift weights will become bulky has wreaked havoc for decades, and the fear it provokes still continues today. I’m here to tell you: It’s just a myth. Strength training is probably one of the best body-shaping exercises women can do. Here’s my guess as to how this myth came about, and why it…
-
Mind Matters: Providing a safety net for Patong workers
PHUKET: When I moved into the condo I rented last year, I paid a security deposit in addition to the first month’s rent. The purpose of a security deposit is twofold. If a renter damages the dwelling, money paid from the deposit covers the costs of repair. Second, if a renter breaks the lease and the landlord is forced to…
-
Boating: Dodging pirates for Phuket yachting lifestyle
PHUKET: With a handful of girls dancing in bikinis on the deck as Jimmy Rougerie wails on the tenor saxophone and the sounds of the modern meringue tipico music roll off the wooden deck of the sailing yacht Capricorn, it is difficult to imagine Somali pirates laying siege to the vessel just a handful of years ago – but every…
-
Commitment keeps a restaurant alive
PHUKET: What makes a restaurant successful? Many will say it’s the location, but the owners of Rodizio Brazil restaurant add “commitment” to this list, as they prepare to let go of one of their Patong ventures. It’s been a year and a half since Rodizio opened in Patong, in a narrow lane off the beachfront road, near the Patong Tower.…
-
Excuse Buster: Moringa – The tree of life
PHUKET: As we continue our superfood series, I should tell you about moringa – the tree of life. This is not a title to be taken lightly. This nutrient-dense plant is one of the most powerful natural multi-vitamins around. It’s a true superfood with a nutritional breakdown that includes: 92 nutrients, 46 antioxidants, 36 anti-inflammatories, 18 amino acids, 9 essential…
-
Gardening: Many layers of an onion
PHUKET: My good friend Sam Wilko, known to Gazette readers as resident gourmet, sent me a fascinating article about the onion and suggested I write about it. So, here are some appropriated facts about the humble onion – plus a few of my own. It is the world’s most widely grown vegetable. About 175 countries cultivate it – twice the…
-
Property Watch: Community lifestyles and property value
PHUKET: At this time of year when we are all thinking about our objectives for 2015, it is also time to reflect on the direct and indirect influences that affect the value of our properties in Phuket. How can you take affirmative action to maximize any possible appreciation of your Phuket property investment?COMMUNITY CREATION My friends and acquaintances in Phuket…
-
Property: Choose unique, not common
PHUKET: The clothes we wear, the cars we drive, even the food we eat are all, to a certain extent, a way in which we express ourselves. So are the houses we live in. Make it your own, says the developer of Andaburee Phuket, a new custom-built pool villa project. Unique and custom-made are the opposite of common and mass-produced.…
-
Books: An awful waste of time
PHUKET: In 2002 Michel Faber published The Crimson Petal and the White, an extraordinary novel of shifting social strata set in a time and place when they were most rigid: the early Victorian Age in London. By dint of cunning and determination, Sugar, a prostitute from the age of 13, rises from brothel inmate to kept woman to household governess…
-
Excuse Buster: Charging up your willpower
PHUKET: It’s a new year and a new opportunity for a new you, so let’s wipe that slate clean and start afresh. It’s just like we said to ourselves last year… and the year before that… and probably the one before that, too. For those of us who fall off the wagon: what is it that stops us from reaching…
-
Phuket Pads: Smaller villas all the rage
PHUKET: The Phuket property market has remained fluid over the past 10 years. Crises have come and gone, yet the property market has remained surprisingly resilient. Buyers have benefited during this time period, as developers have adapted their offerings and prices to meet the budgets of overseas clients. Five years ago there were few off-plan projects under 20 million baht…
Don't forget to check out some other things to do in Thailand - get help starting a business or finding a job in Thailand, buy Thailand property, rent a yacht or book a medical procedure worldwide.