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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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...
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Phuket Gardening: Sol o sombra? A seat in the sun
PHUKET: If you go to the huge, intimidating amphitheater that is a Spanish bullring to witness a series of corridas, you may be asked at the ticket office if you want “sol” or “sombra?” And the reason? The seats in the shade (sombra) are more expensive, because there you are shielded from the fierce rays of the Iberian sun. “Sol…
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On the menu: Phuket’s Le Versace takes it to the next level
PHUKET: It is hot in Phuket at the moment, hot and dry, and the only relief comes when that scorching orb sinks below the horizon allowing for a slight drop in temperature. If you are fortunate, you may be able to enjoy that moment from a good vantage point. If you are very fortunate you will be watching the sunset…
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Phuket Property: Sansiri housing project targets hi-end segment
PHUKET: Relieving anticipation in the single-house property market to the north of Phuket Town, Sansiri Pcl finally lifted the curtain on ‘Burasiri Koh Kaew’, the developer’s first up-market resort-style, detached housing development in Phuket. Valued at about one billion baht, the new development is superbly located in the Koh Kaew sub district, just opposite the British International School. The project…
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Phuket Tech: How to change your address – Live Wire
PHUKET: Many of my friends here in Phuket are in the process of changing their email addresses from blahblah@phuket.ksc.co.th to blahblah@phuketemail.com. Some of them have written to me, asking why a disruptive change like that is necessary, and looking for recommendations. Can’t say I blame them: changing an email address is considerably more difficult, in this day and age, than…
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Phuket Property: Shivalai shimmers above Kamala
PHUKET: The Shivalai Resort Condominiums and Private Luxury Pool Villas will be a new boutique development perched on a hillside overlooking Kamala and out to the sea. The eight stylish three-storey low rise condominium buildings will have only two units per floor and five luxurious private pool villas when construction is completed in 2014. The Phuket Gazette spoke to Jakkrit…
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Phuket Tech: Lock down your mobile devices
PHUKET: In New York City, the crime rate has been slowly, steadily decreasing every year for the past 15 years. Until last year. In 2012, there were 3,484 more major crimes reported than in 2011 – and 3,890 more thefts of iPhones and iPads. Stolen iPhones and iPads are reversing a long-standing decline in major crimes. The situation in Phuket…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Wake up and drop in
PHUKET: As the final hours of daylight waned in the sky, I pulled my rusty old BMW up to the ridge of a tin mine-turned-lake, home to Anthem Wake Park, across from Wat Manik in Cherng Talay. Pausing but for a moment to study the deep blue water, the lake was both tranquil and alive. However, this tranquil introduction was…
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Phuket Arts: Diary of budding existentialists – part 2
PHUKET: Three more budding artists from a recent BIS Visual Arts class discuss their work, currently being exhibited at the school until Friday March 29 (click here for part 1). By Sariya Suwannakarn: The ‘Phuket Vegetarian Festival’, in which we pray for good fortune, and go through ten days of adhering to a strict vegetarian diet for the purposes of…
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Phuket Lifestyle: PIMEX is better than ever
PHUKET: The Phuket International Boat Show, fondly known by its acronym PIMEX, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with a lineup of exhibitors, brands and products that are second to none, and which have made it Asia’s favorite maritime and lifestyle show. Phuket Governor, Maitri Inthusut, opened the event at the Royal Phuket Marina at 10:30am yesterday, and it…
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Phuket Diving: The short tale of longtails
PHUKET: The roar of a well-oiled second-hand car motor destroys any hope of silence, despite there not being a road or traversable land for kilometers around us. Originating in and still dominating the waterways of Southeast Asia, longtail boats are the most unique way to reach a dive site from Phuket and other Andaman areas. However, diving from a traditional…
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Phuket Gardening: Doctor’s delight – more cover-ups
PHUKET: This week opens the ‘last chance saloon’ door to a few more multicolored foliage shrubs. And in fact, two or three are consistent performers and might rightly feel miffed if not given a mention. Indeed one, sanchezia nobile, prompted an enthusiastic Floridian to write on the web as follows: “Does anybody know about this plant? I saw it here…
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Krawling around Krabi
PHUKET: The island’s ever-expanding traffic makes cycling trips off Phuket all the more enticing. This week, we join Amazing Bike Tours for their three-day adventure to get away from it all by “Krawling Around Krabi”. Amazing Bike Tours is an innovative company that lives up to its inspirational name by providing exciting, well-managed and good value group cycling tours, not…
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Phuket Property Watch: Koh Samui puts on a game face
PHUKET: War is hell. While the opinion on developing tourism often ranges from heaven to hell or somewhere in-between those luxury hotel 400 thread count fine Egyptian bed sheets (as usual I can’t help but take a quick detour off into the realms of upscale bedding). Apparently there is an ongoing controversy over thread count linen and whether the claims…
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Princess Yachts prepare for Phuket’s international boat show
PHUKET: Boat Lagoon Yachting, the sole distributor of Princess Yachts SEA, is giving away a free yacht charter at the annual PIMEX boat show.Having served the boating community since 1995, the company is probably best known as the exclusive authorized dealer for prestigious Princess Yachts. Joining in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Phuket International Marine Exhibition (PIMEX),…
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Phuket Property: More than half of Laguna Shores already reserved
PHUKET: Laguna Property, Phuket’s largest developer of high-quality resort residences, has started selling units in the third wing of its landmark Laguna Shores holiday apartment development. Almost 120 Laguna Shores units – more than 50 per cent of the total 229-unit building – have been reserved since its market debut on December 15, 2012. The stylish one- and two-bedroom apartments,…
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Phuket youth sailing center officially open
PHUKET: The President of the Yacht Racing Association of Thailand, Admiral Kamthorn Poomhiran, was in Phuket today to officially open the youth sailing center at the Royal Thai Navy’s Third Naval Area Command at Cape Panwa. The sailing center is the brainchild of Vice Admiral Tarathorn Kajitsuwan, the incumbent Commander in Chief of the Third Area Command, to provide an…
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Phuket International Boat Show to celebrate 10th Anniversary
PHUKET: Asia’s favorite boat show, the Phuket International Boat Show (PIMEX), celebrates its 10th Anniversary this year from 21 to 24 March at Royal Phuket Marina with a line-up of marine and lifestyle products second to none. Having grown from humble beginnings, PIMEX will host the region’s largest in-water display with a range of luxury power and sail boats ranging…
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Phuket Environment: The rime of the ancient mariner
PHUKET: At the end of the 18th Century, and just after the bloodbath of the French Revolution, Coleridge wrote a narrative poem called “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” A wonderful poem in its own right, it contains a pertinent lesson for our time. It chronicles how a sailor shot an albatross, a pervasive harbinger of good luck, thereby shattering…
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Phuket’s Sunday drivers
PHUKET: While many were having a Sunday lie-in on March 10, dozens of drivers, navigators and their families headed to Chalong for the Phuket Invitational Car Rally 2013. More a treasure hunt than a race, the annual rally took 45 cars over 153 kilometers of some of Phuket’s lesser known roads, sois and tracks including some secluded scenic routes seldom…
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Phuket hotels sign up for new online scheme
PHUKET: Phuket-based hoteliers are breaking into emerging travel markets around the world with new channel management technology recently made available in the region. Local members of the Thai Hotel Association (THA) are expected to be some of the first to benefit from the new channel management solutions following a deal inked in February between Phuket-based hospitality solution service provider Wide…
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Phuket Health: Learning to love your body
PHUKET: This week we are diving straight into what most people often need to hear when they come and ask how to improve their lives – health and fitness. Your body is constantly in flux (just like life) and your health will always be subject to your lifestyle choices. Healthy, happy people do not necessarily have to be fit people…
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Phuket Diving: Sidemounting a revolution
PHUKET: “CLICK, click”… with both tanks unclipped and held in front of us it is possible to make our way through the small window of the little dive-boat wreck sitting at a depth of about 18 meters off the coast of Racha Yai, Phuket. Tanks still stretched out in front of him, Kevin from Kiwidiver pushes through the small window…
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Phuket Food: FroYo – The cool new trend in healthy snacks
PHUKET: The latest Korean craze to hit Thailand, after TV dramas and the Gangnam-style dance, is soft-serve frozen yoghurt, also known as “FroYo”. Opened recently in The 6th shopping mall in Patong (just across the road from Jungceylon and next to the White Tiger Bar), Bang Frozen Yoghurt offers a healthy alternative to traditional full-fat and sugared ice cream. “Although…
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Phuket Reminder: AMCHAM meeting to shed light on Phuket history
PHUKET: This evening the Phuket Chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) is proud to promote the island’s heritage through the launch of Colin Mackay’s new book, A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region, one of the first publications of record to so thoroughly examine the little-known history of the island and its neighboring provinces in the Andaman…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Saddle sore; Meditate for charity
Saddle sore but satisfiedPHUKET: On January 28 local expat James Mason left Tiger Muay Thai camp in Chalong (one of his main sponsors) to cycle 890 kilometers to Rainbow House, a home for disabled or abandoned children, in Bangkok. James, who used to weigh 235 kilos, was given five years to live by a doctor in the UK until joining…
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Escape from Boracay
PHUKET: Timing is everything, and my recent sortie to the Philippines for island hopping was ill advised. I’m stuck in the middle of what they are politely calling a ‘tropical depression’, or what could eventually become a typhoon. The depression thing reminds me of Tony Soprano and his psychiatrist: “So how are you feeling today Tony?” Yesterday’s highlight was a…
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Phuket Legal: Property purchase in the name of a Thai company
PHUKET: In many cases, foreign investors wish to register a company in Thailand with an eye toward purchasing property in the name of that company to use for business purposes, or simply to use as the company’s registered office. Although it is commonly believed that a Thai company with foreign shareholders cannot purchase and own land, or that it’s very…
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A classic urban legend
PHUKET: This is quite an old story, reckoned by folklorists to date back at least 70 years. It’s a comedy staple, in fact, having turned up in numerous recordings, radio shows, movies and novels since the 1930s. It was published as a “True Fact” by National Lampoon in 1986, when it also happened to be circulating as “office faxlore”. More…
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Phuket Entertainment: Stumble into the Walking Dead
PHUKET: If you haven’t seen the Walking Dead, let’s have a short recap – for you ‘dead heads’ out there – sit tight, we’ll be with you in a minute. Based on a comic book series of the same name, the Walking Dead is an American television drama about a small group of survivors searching for shelter in an inhospitable…
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Phuket Books: So it is with San Miguel
PHUKET: Anything by T Corahessan Boyle is worth reading. His first two novels – Water Music, about two African expeditions up the Niger by 18th century Scottish explorer Mungo Park, and Budding Prospects, about modern day marijuana growers in northern California – rank among the two funniest novels ever written in English – are wildly exuberant dances of demonic prose.…
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