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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Managing medical expenses in Thailand is important as healthcare costs continue to rise. The country’s healthcare system includes both public and private options, but even with the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) for citizens, many still face high out-of-pocket medical expenses....
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How the west was won and where it got us – Phuket Books
PHUKET: Comanches and Texas Rangers feature prominently in Philip Meyer’s new novel The Son (Ecco, New York, 2013, 561pp) and its popular success undoubtedly springs from the buying power of a legion of fans of Larry McMurthy’s Lonesome Dove. This 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork centered on two ageing ex-Texas Rangers and the villainous Comanche renegade Blue Duck. The Son goes…
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Figs for all tastes – Phuket Gardening
PHUKET: One of the stranger aspects of attempting an alphabetical survey of plants is that you end up with some odd bedfellows. Take the letter “F” for example. It embraces the huge genus of figs or ficus to give the family its botanical appellation. In Plant Materials in Thailand, no fewer than 24 different varieties are listed; they dominate the…
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Hats off to the PIWC
PHUKET: While Australia’s Melbourne Cup is regarded as one of the great horse races of the world, equally important is what goes on off the track. And it’s all to do with fashion – or more particularly, the hats. The focus of this colorful extravaganza is known as Fashions on the Field, a tradition at every function that celebrates this…
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The evolution of Phuket’s MAMILS
PHUKET: One of the more amusing acronyms that the current boom in all things cycling related has spawned is “MAMILS”. MAMILS are of course “Middle Aged Men In Lycra” and if the tabloid media are to be believed, the Western world is awash with these rather dubious sounding creatures. Certainly Phuket has not been spared this plague, as a brief…
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Phuket Property Watch: Lost in Chiang Mai
PHUKET: I’ve always had an aversion to things that go bump in the night, but as our Thai Smile jet ramps up to 33,000 feet, an extended period of turbulence has left my forehead battered, but not bruised. Yes, the flight attendants shock orange uniforms put me into a Halloween mood, yet they move about the cabin like apparitions –…
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Royal Phuket Marina taps into rental market
PHUKET: Royal Phuket Marina (RPM) plunged into the island’s property rental market, releasing scores of luxury apartments for rent since the beginning of this year. There are almost 100 units in the RPM complex, and of these 40 units are available for rental, though currently only 20 per cent remain vacant. Formerly RPM was focused on property sales but since…
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Phuket’s ACE condo holds all the cards
PHUKET: ACE condominium, a nine storey building planned on Pang-meangsai Kor Road in Patong, on Phuket’s west coast, aims to attract people seeking an independent, fast-paced and fun, urban lifestyle. Deputy Managing Director of Patong Centre Co Ltd, Ms Alisa Likitittiruks,stated that the company expects to sell as much as 80-90 per cent of the project’s units this coming high…
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Phuket Events: Royal music concert
PHUKET: The King Rama IX and Princess Sirindhorn Music Library is organizing a mobile music exhibition entitled “The 8th King Rama IX Royal Compositions” which will be held from October 31 to November 2 at Saphan Hin Park in Phuket Town (click here for map). The highlight of the event will be an impressive musical fountain and traditional dancing. The…
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Phuket In Focus: The bug buffet
PHUKET: Thailand’s Department of Health has concurred with a recent United Nations study, confirming that edible insects are indeed a high-protein food source, and thus may be an ideal solution in tackling world hunger and malnutrition if not turning a considerable profit for the keen investor. Through its Asia and Pacific regional office in Bangkok, the UN’s Food and Agriculture…
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Phuket Property: A fine finish for your pool
PHUKET: Currently expanding their operation in Phuket, Pebble Pools is leading the charge to bring an innovative and superior swimming pool surfacing product to the Thailand Market. Trained and certified by market-leading American company Pebble Technology Inc, Pebble Pools’ staff are able to surface any pool in Thailand with a patented, fine aggregate pebble finish – which has been developed…
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Phuket Events: Filling the gap
PHUKET: One basic need we share as humans, besides the bare necessities of food and shelter, is to tell and to hear stories – we all need some culture, some entertainment and fun to make our lives complete. In Phuket the shelter and food part are well taken care of, but the culture part sometimes seems to be a bit…
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Phuket Property: Best of the best 2013
PHUKET: Thailand’s real estate industry came together on Thursday, September 19 to acknowledge the best of the best at the 2013 Thailand Property Awards tand awards presentation ceremony held at the Centara Grand & Bangkok Convention Center at CentralWorld. In total, 33 awards were on offer, including regional awards for best condominiums and villa developments in Phuket, Hua Hin, Samui,…
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Looking Back: The spirits that guard the city
PHUKET: When building towns and cities, ancient Thais adhered to several deeply rooted practices for hundreds of years. One such belief is the construction of shrines that would house the “city pillars”. Thais believed that the city pillars would be the resting place of spirits that would guard their city from natural disasters, diseases, enemies and any other malevolence that…
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A walk in the (bird) park
PHUKET: I’m by no means a bird aficionado. Sure, I enjoy the chirping of birds in the morning and I was pretty stunned to see a tiny, humming-bird-sized sun-bird feeding on some flowers in front of my house the other day, but you won’t find me crawling through a bush with a pair of binoculars in search of a Great-billed…
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Ma Song on their way for Phuket’s Vegetarian Festival
PHUKET: Final preparations are underway as the annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival draws closer. This year the festival will start on October 5. According to tradition, it will continue for nine days and draw to a close on October 13. Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand Phuket Office, Mr Chanchai Doungjit said: “This year we expect an influx of tourists…
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Phuket Property: Local retail sector booming
PHUKET: Our paradise island has been famed (and defamed) the world over for its many “s” attractions (and distractions) – sea, sun, sand, surf, sailing and sport… among others. Nowadays, the island is increasingly associated with one more “s”: shopping. Although residential projects – condos, housing subdivisions, hotels and luxury villas – continue to make up most of the island’s…
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A village on the edge: San Tin
PHUKET: In the bad old days of the Cold War and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, this part of Hong Kong, San Tin, used to be called the “Bamboo Curtain” – the 30-kilometer border, and a few kilometers either side, between what was a British Crown colony and the People’s Republic of China.Just to the southwest of the Lo Wu border-crossing between…
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Venturing into the unknown: reflections by Don Battles
PHUKET: NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft recently became the first human-made object to venture beyond the boundaries of our solar system and into what is known as interstellar space, a part of space that our sun has little to no influence on. The 36-year-old probe is now about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data…
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Think globally, act locally – Environment
PHUKET: Let’s draw attention to some local happenings. First some negative ones. “Tainted Tide”, a recent Phuket Gazette front page article, revealed that Patong’s already polluted beaches had suffered yet another setback – a patch of brown, unwholesome water in the bay, perhaps a mindless discharge of sewage from local hotels, or a build-up of plankton, courtesy of contaminants in…
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Fruit: Food of the gods – Phuket Gardening
PHUKET: As any journalist worth his salt will tell you, it is always easier to amplify or pad out a piece than to abridge it. Unless you are very careful, condensing a piece can result in a lack of clarity, in stylistic obfuscation or worse, some painful wrenching of the sense. When, in response to a reader’s question last week,…
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New hotel chain born in Phuket
PHUKET: A new globally focused hotel chain, Bugatti, is using Phuket as a platform for widespread expansion. While here in Phuket development is already underway on the east coast of the island, and on nearby Phi Phi Island, overseas plans call for branded properties in Bali, Myanmar and the Bahamas. By no means is this the first time the island…
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Laguna Park project unveiled
PHUKET: Project plans and fully-furnished show units of the island’s latest middle-upper income residential project, Laguna Park, were previewed this morning at the project’s sales office. Developed by Laguna Property, part of the Laguna Resorts and Hotels and the Banyan Tree Group, the project will be the island’s largest residential community, comprising up to 2,000 homes when fully completed. Located…
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Hurry up to register for Turtle Fun Run
PHUKET: Mai Khao Marine Turtle Foundation and JW Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa are pleased to extend an invitation to the general public to participate in the Turtle Fun Run and Mini Marathon 2013, which takes place on Sunday September 15 at Pru Jeh San Lake on Phuket’s beautiful Mai Khao Beach. You can register for the 9th edition of…
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Enjoy the fruits of your labor – Phuket Gardening
PHUKET: Sepp writes to say that he owns three villas in Phuket and “would like to change the gardens to [include] more fruit trees, fruit bushes and nice flowers”. He adds: “Can you help me to find the right ones?” and asks “which books could I buy?” Well, Sepp, even to attempt an answer all your wide-ranging queries would take…
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It’s all in the game – Phuket TECH
PHUKET: Teachers and students of the Prince of Songkla University, Phuket College joined by representatives of the US Embassy, recently welcomed Erin Hoffman, an American video game designer and book author who came to Phuket to conduct a workshop on game designing. Erin Hoffman is a lead game designer at the Institute of Play’s Glasslab project –which is focused on…
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Snot squeezes and secrets – Phuket Diving
PHUKET: There was an issue before we even boarded the boat. We had been waiting all weekend to photograph the artificial reef at Viking Cave off of Phi Phi Island and weather delays had pushed us back to our last day on the island, and now, looking at the pile of green mucus in my tissue, it was clear there…
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A worthy initiative – Phuket Gardening
PHUKET: Any initiative which includes the planting of new trees is to be welcomed. There is a plan afoot, initiated by Mr Songjit Suppakit of Phisut Technology and supported by Phuket’s Governor Maitri Inthusut, to connect Sirirat Road (near Le Meridian Beach Resort) to remote and spectacular Tri Trang and Freedom beaches. The most ecologically sensitive proposal is to replace…
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Yet more dark despair – Phuket Books
PHUKET: After aspiring journalist Howard W French graduated college in 1980 he joined his parents, American medical doctors, in Ivory Coast. His romance with Africa begins with a girl from Mali whom he meets in a nightclub. Intrigued by her tales of Mali’s history, he sets off on an epic overland trip to Mali to see for himself. This journey…
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Skeletons from Phuket’s past
PHUKET: In 1992, a peculiar discovery was made in a village on Phuket Island. Baan Khok-Tanod, situated in Chalong sub-district in the south of Phuket, was the site of the strange discovery when a local company that owned a piece of land in the village decided to dig up the area in order to build a wall around the land.…
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Phuket Retirement: The ‘Use it or lose it’ hypothesis
PHUKET: New findings suggest that retiring later in life can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Studies by French public research institute INSERM, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference last month, suggested that for each year after 60 that a person is retired, the risk of subsequently developing the disease is lowered by 3.2%. The research included analysis…
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