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.
-
Sponsored Do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?
Thailand’s healthcare system is well-regarded across Southeast Asia, with options ranging from public hospitals to world-class private facilities. But when it comes to foreign residents or tourists, healthcare access isn’t as straightforward. So, do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?...
-
On the menu: Trisara hosts Mozaic’s Chef James Ephraim
PHUKET: There have been some pretty spectacular sunsets in Phuket in recent weeks, or maybe I have just been fortunate enough to witness them from spectacular locations. The Trisara’s ‘Seafood’ restaurant is one of those places that reaffirm the reasons one has chosen to live on a tropical island. Another island that has glorious sunsets is Bali, and I am…
-
Phuket Gardening: From fetid to fragrant
PHUKET: Shakespeare’s father, John, was fined for digging a “midden” in front of his neighbor’s house. Very unneighborly. Today the word has almost vanished from the English language as modern sanitation systems have replaced the foul cesspits of yesteryear. But make no mistake, a “midden” is neither pleasant to behold nor smell. Originally a hole in the ground, a dump…
-
Looking Back: Thailand’s paradisal prison
PHUKET: Koh Tarutao, one of Thailand’s southern most islands, is located off the coast of Satun province. The island is situated close to the Adang-Rawi archipelago in the Andaman Sea, close to the famed Lipe Island and just a few kilometers north of Langkawi island, which is part of Malaysia. Koh Tarutao boasts some of the most secluded and pristine…
-
Phuket Health: When I’m 64
PHUKET: Early in the New Year I woke up to the stunning realization that “When I’m 64” wasn’t just the title of a Beatles hit, but in my case had become a statement of reality. In a lather of vitamin supplements and desperation I set out to discover whether there was in fact a Fountain of Youth in Phuket. In…
-
Phuket Tech: Measuring (actual) internet speed – Live Wire
PHUKET: Over the years we’ve had a lot of ups and downs with the Phuket Internet Speed reporting site, phuketinternetspeed.com. We’ve gathered 30,000 speed tests from around the island, from almost 900 computer users, covering nearly 100 different internet packages. That makes Phuket Internet Speed, by far, as best I know, the largest community-based independent speed reporting site on the…
-
Phuket Property: Resorts help water crisis
PHUKET: According to the World Travel and Tourism Council there are around 12.7 million hotel rooms around the world, and another 1.3 million are in development, half of them being built in the Middle East and Africa. Bottled water is as common a sight in hotel rooms as thin-screen televisions and mass-produced art. Given that hotels generally charge for bottled…
-
Phuket Property: Central bank fears bubble
PHUKET: The Bank of Thailand (BoT) might reel in the real estate market after detecting some hot spots, especially in the condominium segment for units priced under 3 million baht. “A restriction on banks for 0% interest rates is one of the measures to control the market. But the central bank will have other measures such as tightening the loan-to-value…
-
Phuket Property Watch: Live by the sword, die by the sword
PHUKET: They came, they spent, they left. That pretty much sums up the great Russian tropical cold war of this the high tourism season. Over the past month or so I embarked on a research project to try to learn more about the surge of visitors from the former USSR to the island of Phuket. Not content to simply put…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Phuket Property: CBRE achieves top-three ranking; In brief…
PHUKET: CBRE announced, on March 26, that the company has achieved top-three rankings in 25 categories across 13 countries in the Asia Pacific Property Awards in all real estate categories, in nearly every major market across the region from New Zealand to China. The Asia Pacific Property Awards are part of the long-established International Property Awards and its winners’ logo…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Phuket Lifestyle: Miss Thailand World 2013
PHUKET: Twenty Miss Thailand World 2013 finalists recently spent three days promoting local tourism and preparing for the next phase of their competition at the Cape Panwa Hotel, Phuket. Kasemkij Hotels, which owns Cape Panwa, released a statement saying it was an honor to host the event and its activities that are designed to promote philanthropic endeavors, tourism and culture…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Phuket Property: The Emerald Terrace stands out in Patong
PHUKET: The uniquely designed Emerald Terrace will cover 1.3 rai of land on a hillside in Patong. The 7-storey, low-rise condominium will have 133 units comprising 98 studios; 21 one-bedroom apartments – eight of which will have private rooftops – and six two-bedroom apartments with private roof tops. Owners can use the swimming pool or relax in the distinctive pod-shaped…
-
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),…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
Phuket Gardening: Camouflaging and covering up
PHUKET: If you strolled round the average Phuket garden with the proud owner, he might be forgiven for protesting: “What, do you want yet more foliage plants!?” But remember that at this time of year, apparently evergreen trees and shrubs start to drop leaves in an attempt to conserve energy, and prevent excessive water loss through transpiration. Others simply give…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Bamboozled by bamboo
PHUKET: A reader recently asked Normita Thongtham, who writes a Sunday gardening column for a national daily, if her earlier suggestion about making a living fence of bamboo “planted six to eight meters apart was a typographical error.” The writer’s answer was “no.” And the reason? Because bamboo (bambusa) grows very fast, and the space between the individual plants is…
-
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…
-
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…
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.