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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Excuse Busters: Busting cholesterol myths
PHUKET: In my previous column, I explained how a published dietician missed the mark when it comes to the potential benefits of consuming coconut oil. This week, I want to focus on the following comment made by the same expert: “Speaking from a medical point of view, coconut oil contains over 90 per cent saturated fatty acids, which are likely…
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Pricing Phuket Plots: The attractive north
PHUKET: If one single fact has become evident in Siam Real Estate’s Residential Market Report 2014, it is that since the tragic tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, land prices in Phuket have tripled in value. The surge in prices has been led by land prices on the west coast, most notably in the traditional and well-established tourist destinations of Patong,…
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Across the land: Harvesting monsoon bounty
PHUKET: Those of us who have lived in a tropical country nearly all our lives tend to take rain for granted. We regularly forget that it’s the rain that keeps the plants a lush green, while also providing for our everyday water-usage needs. My grandmother used to collect rainwater in big Chinese urns in the garden. She would use the…
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Excuse Buster: Overtraining and the stress bucket
PHUKET: Believe it or not, training can increase the amount of stress in your life, and stress accumulates over time. I work closely with many Thai boxing gyms in Phuket and I get asked a lot about overtraining. These guys punish their bodies for six to eight hours every day – that is a ton of stress on the body.…
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Island Fever: Life after nut rage
PHUKET: We live in a complicated day and age. With our lives revolving around “selfies”, our very existence is punctuated by snapshots expressing extreme delight. Sadly, most of these moments seem to occur only in cyberspace. One recent event that is testament to how quickly our world can about-face is the Korean Air “nut rage” incident involving Heather Cho, a…
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BISP’s “Three Artsketeers’ put artwork on display
PHUKET: For most, art is just a break, a temporary escape from the daily routine, but three British International School Phuket (BISP) IB Visual Arts students want to make it the theme of their lives. In fact, thanks to their own determination and the support of their school, they are already on the right path with the upcoming BISP 2015…
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Phuket Pads: Kathu – A golfer’s paradise
PHUKET: Kathu, in the center of Phuket, has a number of advantages over other locations on the island when it comes to residential property. Its central location means that it’s as easy to get to Patong on the west coast, as it is to visit Central Festival shopping mall, or Phuket Town on the east side. It’s also within easy…
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Thinking Green: Striking a beach balance
PHUKET: “We need chairs,” are the plaintive cries in the press, demanding a return to the old model of endless rows of deck chairs and umbrellas. Meanwhile, the vendors are crying, “Our businesses have been hit badly.” And at the same time, environmentalists are claiming, “Our natural treasures are being directly influenced by coastal law enforcement, pollution, construction, density of…
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Gardening: A shrub with no enemies – allamandas
PHUKET: It’s astonishing what one can learn by watching Mother Nature at work. As readers know, my garden has long been plagued by hawk moth caterpillars, but what is fascinating is that these voracious munchers have a distinct pecking (or should I say munching) order. Their diet, in strict order of preference, is tabernaemontas, then periwinkles, next adeniums and then…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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