Thai Life
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Fresh food, antique decor at Phuket’s Chicroom Cafe
PHUKET: As you are driving down Phuket Road toward the Surin Circle clock tower in town, you may have noticed on the right-hand side a beautiful, modern looking building called the Chicroom Cafe. This cafe doubles as a gallery of all things eccentric and antique. The decor resembles a fancy secondhand store with all the treasures that you always wanted…
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Phuket’s secondary property sector drifts into autopilot mode
PHUKET: A familiar term for anyone with children is, ‘Where do we go from here?’ Those inquisitive, blank, questioning looks that penetrate deep into the heart of the seemingly innocent question about what’s next? Lately, the topic seems to have shifted to adults in the island’s real-estate trade. It’s been nearly a decade since the dining tables shifted from a…
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Books: At Last – Melrose finds his place
PHUKET: Edward St Aubyn’s At Last (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2012, 266pp) is the highly satisfying finale to his Patrick Melrose series of five novels. This is a towering achievement in fiction, psychologically intense, philosophically deep, screamingly funny. Introduced at the age of five in the first novel, Patrick Melrose grows up to be a highly educated heroin-and-cocaine…
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Phuket Boating: A Haven in bloom
PHUKET: The recent completion of the new dedicated superyacht pier at Phuket’s Yacht Haven Marina in Mai Khao has delivered the region its first 100-meter superyacht berths marina-side. Yacht Haven welcomes boats of all sizes, but is widely regarded as a first port of choice for superyachts. With deep-water access and sited 15-minutes’ drive to the airport, it has become…
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Up in the air: DCA woes continue
PHUKET: Fallout from the miserable results of the recent audit of Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is having direct effects both on Phuket’s tourism and general aviation industries. Well-publicized action to ban any new Thai flights imposed by the governments of Japan, South Korea and China have already affected several Thai…
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By the book: Demand for Phuket rentals outpaces supply
PHUKET: The rental market in Phuket in recent years has been very strong, with rental prices increasing across the island, giving owners very attractive returns on their investment. This surge in strength in the rental market has coincided with increasing tourist arrivals, which has led to demand for rental properties outpacing supply. Good rental properties have become more scarce as…
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Gardening: A garden “full of beans’
PHUKET: Language is chameleon-like. Expressions frequently change their meanings according to time or context. Take the phrase ‘full of beans’. I have always assumed it means full of energy and enthusiasm, but Americans use it as a derogatory term to signify full of hot air – or something less printable. Personally, I prefer the older connotation (I would, wouldn’t I?).…
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Excuse Buster: Sip the prized elixir – coconut water
PHUKET: In the past few columns, I have discussed one of my favorite fats, coconut oil, and its many benefits according to the most up-to-date research. This week, I want to share some information about my favorite elixir: coconut water. More than five years ago, when I first visited Phuket, an older Thai waiter at our hotel saw how much…
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Sansiri says “Now or Never’ with latest Phuket campaign
PHUKET: Sansiri has launched a “Now or Never” sales campaign, which will see some of the best units available in six Phuket developments up for grabs at special prices through June. The property development company held an event launching the campaign at Central Festival Phuket that concluded on April 1. “We have a limited number of units available for the…
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Three cheers for Phuket’s Artsketeers
PHUKET: An art show displaying the talents of three British International School Phuket (BISP) students drew to a close last week, with the young artists feeling acceptance of their works and an urge to develop their art further. IB Visual Arts students Mimi Siriwangsanti, Jaratchai “JJ” Chongjaroenjai and Boram Lee, also known as the ‘Three Artsketeers’, debuted their works at…
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Books: The Johnson factor
PHUKET: On the eve of the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death appears The Churchill Factor (Johnson, Riverhead Books, New York, 2014, 390pp). I picked it not for the subject matter, having read William Manchester’s trilogy, one of several multi-volume biographies of the great man, but for the author, Boris Johnson. Someday it is conceivable that two roommates at Eton,…
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Phuket Boating: Excellence is served
PHUKET has much to be proud of in terms of excellence provided in the island’s marine and yachting industry, but taking excellence to the personal service level is the Galileo Yachting Superyacht Training Academy in Thalang. At a secluded high-end villa hidden among rubber trees near Thanyapura Sports and Leisure Club, trainees undergo courses specifically tailored for careers onboard superyachts,…
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Property Watch: Evolution of property – Multi-pronged approach to cashing in on Phuket market
PHUKET: There is nothing wrong with short-term goals, striking while the iron is hot and being commercially opportunistic for a profit, if this is all balanced with a long- term view. This principle also applies to the property market in Phuket. I recently saw an adviser inform a client interested in property in Thailand, that the only investment a foreigner…
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Phuket’s re-sale market shows value
PHUKET: Most re-sale properties in Phuket are priced lower than comparable new developments, a trend clearly highlighted in the data accumulated in Siam Real Estate’s 2014 Phuket Residential Market Report. In Phuket and the rest of Thailand, most buyers prefer brand-new properties. There are many reasons for this: new properties have never been lived in; they offer the latest in…
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Gardening: Horses for water courses
PHUKET: Each and every landscaper worth his salt should incorporate a water feature – if only a modest fish pond – in his garden designs. And even apartment dwellers, with only a concrete balcony to link them to the open air, can think of focal points such as waterproof ceramic pots on plinths, decorated with water lilies or lotuses. Such…
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Excuse Busters: Fight age with exercise
PHUKET: The female beauty industry in 2010, in America alone, was worth US$7 billion (227bn baht), with a further US$10bn (324bn baht) spent on cosmetic surgery. The desire to stay forever young dates at least as far back as the ancient Egyptians, many of whom used an ointment made from myrtle plants to avoid getting wrinkles, while Cleopatra bathed in…
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Environment: Dealing with DDT – Nature’s greatest enemy
PHUKET: Almost all of us can point to what James Joyce called ” epiphanies”, moments or experiences in our lives that ineradicably changed us or our world view for ever. Such events may have been seared in our memories by pain or fear, others may have been moments of insight or ecstasy. One such experience for me came from reading…
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Property: Self-centered Patong lures seven new hotels
PHUKET: Patong remains Phuket’s epicenter of development, as it attracts seven new hotels to its shores. Hoteliers investing in Patong see the non-seasonal beach as establishing a stable market, while some believe that other beaches such as Kata and Nai Thon are perceived by visitors as being more seasonal, explained Bill Barnett, managing director of C9 Hotelworks and Gazette columnist.…
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Balance Matters: Autism isn’t misbehaving
PHUKET: Robert, a 7-year-old boy, had been anxious about his upcoming trip for weeks. His mother’s job involved an overseas relocation and the family had to take both him and his older sister on a plane journey to visit new potential schools and houses, check out locations and all the usual rigmarole involved in moving countries. Robert’s family had prepared…
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Boating: Slinging for Singapore
PHUKET: A host of Phuket’s leading brokerages and charter companies are preparing to hoist anchor to join the Singapore Yacht Show (SYS) at the ONEº 15 Marina Club at Sentosa from April 23-26. Phuket-based companies alone will have hundreds of millions of baht worth of boats on display at the show. The key attraction for joining the event is the…
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Phuket Pads: Take to the hills for stunning views
PHUKET: Aside from the wishful thinkers who request beachfront properties, the majority of inquiries for properties in Phuket are for those with a sea view. Thankfully, as the island boasts 70 per cent hillside coverage, there are many properties on the island that fit this criteria. It all really depends on how close of a view you wish to have.…
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Diving: All aglow down below
PHUKET: Most divers remember taking a crash course in the color spectrum and light waves from their advanced diving course. Notably, that we see short wavelength colors, such as red, yellow and orange, quickly disappear as we descend on a dive. The lesson is usually combined with a color-comparisons activity on our first deep dive to about 30* meters. There…
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Video Report: Phuket Airpark event a flying success
PHUKET: THE successful Phuket Air Show & Fly’n event at the Phuket Airpark on February 28 is just the first in a number of similar activities planned at Phuket’s only private airfield, with another fun event scheduled to take place in mid-May. Pat James, head of the Phuket Aviation Club, told Up In The Air: “The airshow on March 28…
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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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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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Books: Scoring big in Africa
PHUKET: Denis Johnson published his first of three books of poetry at the age of 19. His meticulous attention to words is evident in his 11 books of fiction, which tend to be slim and terse, but intensely descriptive. I’ve read his second novel, Fiskadoro, a post-nuclear apocalypse set in Key West, and his eighth, The Tree of Smoke, an…
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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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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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