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.
-
Books: Enjoying horrific greatness
PHUKET: For many years on Anzac Day, memorial services for the prisoners of war (POWs) killed on the Death Railway in Kanchanaburi would be presided over by Colonel Edward “Weary” Dunlop, a heroic surgeon and camp commander. Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2014, 334pp) is a highly fictionalized account of his…
-
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…
-
Thinking Green: Protecting our coastlines
PHUKET: “We love our coast and we love the water,” proclaim the founders of the charity organization Sustainable Coastlines, established in New Zealand. “We want to support, protect and be challenged by the sea.” In the past, Phuket’s coastline provided communities with a livelihood from fishing, but this has now moved on to tourism. As a result, today’s great challenge…
-
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…
-
Excuse Buster: Eat your mangosteens
PHUKET: Mangosteen is often considered the powerhouse of tropical fruits, and for good reason. According to an article in the March 2008 issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, “The mangosteen rind, leaves and bark have been used as folk medicine for thousands of years. The thick mangosteen rind has been and is used for treating catarrh, cystitis, diarrhea,…
-
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…
-
Books: David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks – Great, if taken seriously
PHUKET: David Mitchell’s third novel, Cloud Atlas, was an audacious break from traditional narrative form: six wildly different characters in divergent, stylistic voices and places ranging from the South Pacific in the 1850s and Los Angeles in the 1930s to the far-distant future in Korea and Hawaii. Surprisingly, Mitchell followed this with a traditional autobiographical novel of his English youth…
-
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…
-
Bohemian-style photography workshop in Phuket
PHUKET: There was a Bohemian, Rolling Stone Magazine flare to the atmosphere when I walked into the Chalong hillside villa. The small group of photographers, the playboy model, her male counterpart and friends, sat around a long table drinking wine and digging into a feast of farang food – clearly not your typical photographers’ workshop. They had finished the nude…
-
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.…
-
Balance Matters: Coping with the teenage years
PHUKET: Kevin screamed, “I don’t care what you think!”, as he pushed his mother out of the doorway to his bedroom. His mother, Jit, was propelled into a wall head first and fell to her knees. She called after her son, but he was already gone. Jit pulled herself up, walked to the kitchen table, picked up her tea and…
-
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.…
-
History: Southern Thailand courts united Japan’s first Shogun
PHUKET: Tokugawa Ieyasu was the first Shogun of a united Japan. In the year 1600, after the bloody battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu managed to unite the warring clans of Japan under his sovereignty, ushering in a long era of peace under the Tokugawa Shogunate. A year earlier, in 1599, a visiting envoy from the Kingdom of Pattani presented Ieyasu with…
-
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…
-
Island Fever: Life on the road
PHUKET: One thing about life that is great, is that there is no handbook for you when you enter this brave new world. Sure, eventually you learn there are rules and limitations, but as a youngster, the universe is your oyster. Growing up in a far different age than the kids of today, my perspective toward formal education, along with…
-
Phuket’s NBC targets expat freehold condo market
PHUKET: High demand for condominiums coupled with an oversupply of new units has led the developers of Naiharn Beach Condominium (NBC) to turn their attention to the island’s south, where they say attractive locations for new developments are easier to come by. “The number of places left for freehold condominiums is very limited,” says Fredric Perrochon, NBC sales director. “Our…
-
Diving: Where the wild things are
PHUKET: On land, wild animals are a rare sight, especially in their natural habitats – discounting monkeys attacking tourists for ice cream in Phuket, of course. In the United States, a unusual creature that isn’t a squirrel or a chipmunk will, at the very least, get a good pointing at; and the rare moments when a fox slips into view…
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.