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 Could bitcoin serve as a hedge against US Tariffs?
If you hold a certain amount of bitcoin or whether you’re planning to buy some soon, you must be wondering what impact the US tariffs have on the coveted crypto’s price. A market analysis by Inky Cho, Financial Markets Strategist...
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Phuket Health and Fitness: Learn to feel good
PHUKET: Recently the island hosted the second Rawai-Nai Harn Health and Wellness Festival during which a gathering of highly qualified practitioners led various sessions designed to help us all lead healthier, happier, more well-balanced lives. Phuket is certainly privileged in having so many of these heath practitioners living and working here, but their presence begs the question: “Why choose Phuket…
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Phuket Gardening: ABC of plants – “A’ is also for almond
PHUKET: A couple of recent inquiries reminded me of another omission in my opening sorties on the subject of ‘A’ plants. Chris Sieber wrote to ask how he could find a source book where he could “find plant names in English, Latin and Thai.” And on the subject of almonds, he added: “About three years ago I brought three green…
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Phuket Books: An education of life in the East
PHUKET: Jerry Hopkins was present at the creation of Rolling Stone magazine and the early hippie days of West Coast rock. After penning the definitive biography of Jim Morrison – No One Here Gets Out Alive – he took off for a long sojourn in Hawaii. He’s been in Thailand now for 20 years, still writing books, three dozen of…
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Fearless forecast for Phuket hotels; Branded residences capture investors’ interest
PHUKET: We are still less than five months into the Year of the Water Snake and as I sit at my desk on a rainy Sunday, my mood turns aquatic. I grind out any thoughts of the past, like stubbing out a spent cigarette with a worn heel of a scuffed pair of working shoes. Not content with only a…
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Collaboration key element for Phuket’s Design and Decoration Exhibition
PHUKET: AAA Exhibition & Training Co Ltd, in collaboration with the Phuket Chamber of Commerce and Thailand Variety Construction Magazine, are ready to stage the inaugural Phuket Design and Decoration Exhibition. The event will take place in the Grand Ballroom on the 2nd floor of the Royal Phuket City Hotel (click here for map), from May 30 to June 2,…
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GiVE back!
PHUKET: IT’S not only about rapid off-plan sell-outs for Sansiri Pcl; the real estate market leader is also known for setting the bar high in the realm of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Complementing the success of its Iodine Please and Sansiri Academy projects over the past few years, the property firm has raised the CSR standard yet again, setting a…
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Service-minded sailors to shore up
PHUKET: As the end of May draws near, the crews of the USS Nimitz, a prominent American Navy supercarrier, along with the USS Princeton, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, are set to moor off Phuket for three days of shore leave – but it’s not just leisurely R&R that the crews have their sights on. Faithful crew, male and female,…
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Phuket Food: Discover the delights of durian
PHUKET: The ineffable flavor of the durian has been a source of intense debate among locals and visitors to Southeast Asia for centuries. There have been countless attempts at describing the fruit’s pungent smell and unique taste; it has been likened to roast almonds, rotten onions, old gym socks and even turpentine. While everyone has a different way of describing…
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A meal among Phuket’s mangroves
PHUKET: THE location of Chaiyo Seafood Riverside Restaurant is simply breathtaking. Situated in Bor Rae district of Phuket, beside Mudong Canal at the point where it meets the sea of Ao Yon Bay, Chaiyo is where diners come to enjoy local dishes and fresh seafood while watching the water ebb and flow. On the other side of the canal, the…
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Phuket Gardening: Alpha shrubs start with ‘A’
PHUKET: Last week we considered annuals, but today it is the turn of their big brothers – the shrubs and ornamental trees that form the backbone of any tropical garden (click here for last week’s article). Acalypha hispida, also known as the chenille plant or red cat’s tail, is alphabetically the first to come under scrutiny. Unlike its cousin, A.…
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Phuket Cinema: Funny ghost love story breaks Thai box office records
PHUKET: Thailand’s top grossing movie of all time, ‘Pee Mak Phrakanong’, stars five war buddies with black teeth and silly hairstyles. One still wears a toddler’s topknot of the Rattanakosin period, explaining, “I got sick when I was a kid and mom vowed that if I recovered I’d keep this hairstyle forever.”They face a fierce enemy together, suffer terribly, and…
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Phuket Diving: Seahorse lovers asked to saddle up
PHUKET: Project Seahorse calls on all divers and marine enthusiasts to help with the recently launched three-year project aimed at studying the seahorses of Thailand. Seahorses were one of the first fish species to be added, in 2004, to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which demands that countries…
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The future of Phuket’s residential market
PHUKET: According to leading real estate consultant, CBRE Thailand, Phuket’s residential market is experiencing a significant change in direction, which started late last year. The change is likely to be the most significant since the Asian crisis in 1997 and is driven by a number of factors – the entry of Bangkok-based and Thai public listed developers; the move towards…
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Phuket Property Watch: How same-same drove me insane
PHUKET: It was a rainy Tuesday night, just last week, when I rolled over in bed and casually glanced at my wife, enveloped in the dark shadows of sleep. Suddenly, my heartbeat turned staccato, as it dawned on me that the woman next to me had not the familiar face of my wife, but, shockingly, turned out to be my…
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New “pads’ for Phuket’s students
PHUKET: With land prices surging and many new condominium projects sprouting up across the island, competition to penetrate new market segments is heating up. Up to this point, much of the focus has been on Phuket’s working and high-end groups. Meanwhile, lingering demand among other niche segments has been largely overlooked, if not ignored by developers. Seeing and seizing an…
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Phuket Pets: As sweet as sugar
PHUKET: When browsing through markets in Thailand, it is always fascinating to come across a pet store and see which exotic animals they have on offer. Snakes, lizards, turtles, hedgehogs and even African cennec foxes can be found among the more usual cats and dogs. Walking through the Phuket Town weekend market recently, I discovered a pet shop selling sugar…
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Phuket On The Menu: The Art of food
PHUKET: When checking in on Facebook one often comes across photographs of food; meals about to be consumed at restaurants and in homes. With the advent of ‘smart phones’ it seems everyone now has a camera ready to snap a shot of their dinner or their cat, or even their cat’s dinner. Among my Facebook friends is local artist Jayda…
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Phuket Gardening: Running the gamut from A to A
PHUKET: When I hit upon the not so original idea of listing an ABC of tropical plants suitable for Phuket’s gardens, I accepted the fact that there would inevitably be some overlap with previous articles. Just a different kind of taxonomy. But what I hadn’t bargained for was the sheer volume of relevant plants. Uamporn Veesommia’s cryptically named “Plant Materials…
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Phuket Books: Madness in Miami
PHUKET: After a career of nearly 20 years as a demented humor columnist for the Miami Herald, Dave Barry has turned to writing comic novels. Insane City (CP Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2013, 341pp) is his third. He dedicates it to “the people of this truly insane city of Miami, for making this book easy. Without you, this book wouldn’t…
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Blazing Saddles: Pedaling with pasta
PHUKET: Silvano Amolini of the Dusit Thani Laguna Resort is one of Phuket’s preeminent chefs and is also a keen cyclist. Baz Daniel recently caught up with him for a ride around his Bang Tao Beach backyard, followed by some serious pasta-loading at La Trattoria Restaurant. One of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe is the seemingly irrevocable link…
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Pirates of the Andaman
PHUKET: In the 1930s, the Thai government used the Andaman island of Tarutao as a prison to incarcerate the country’s most undesirable criminals. When the Japanese Imperial Army brought the Second World War to the footsteps of the kingdom in December of 1941, the Thai government under Field Marshall Phibun Songkram sided with the invaders against the allied forces (click…
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All systems go, Phuket
PHUKET: The Navy League Phuket (NLP) is pulling out all the stops in preparation for this year’s American Independence Day weekend celebrations, with a family picnic, live music and the grandest of air-shows on the cards. To celebrate the USA’s 237th birthday, the NLP will stage an unprecedented extravaganza in a carnival-like format on July 6 and 7 at the…
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Phuket Movies: Star Trek II – Into Kirk-ness
PHUKET: This week sees the release of the latest Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, the sequel to JJ Abrams reboot of the original TV series. Mr Abrams came in for an awful amount of stick for taking on the Trekkies golden calf, particularly after he admitted to not being a fan of The Original Series (TOS). Despite a few exceptionally…
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Tune Hotel rocks Patong
PHUKET: THE Tune Hotel Patong has taken the main stage of one the world’s most renowned resort islands by storm, with a new focus on real value and more choices for savvy travellers. Tune Hotel Patong is perfectly situated for guests to kick off their stay in the heart of Phuket’s vibrant local dining and shopping precinct. It is located…
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Khao Lak finds its way forward
PHUKET: These days, everywhere you turn, the news is focused on Phuket fever. From soaring airport arrival numbers and surging hotel occupancy rates to, of course, the sordid underbelly of mass tourism. But the resort destination known as ‘Greater Phuket’ is no ‘one trick pony’. Nearby Khao Lak has certainly been kicking up its heels lately as Fortuna’s wheel of…
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Brave diving leads to wondrous discoveries in sands off Phuket
PHUKET: Turn your back on the reef. This isn’t an orientation dive to test your ability to get back to the corals. Turn your back on the safety of the gorgonian sea fans, staghorn corals and saffron-colored clam, and start kicking – be brave. Following the lead of Vince Moy from Kiwidiver, we stomp across the sand of Kata Beach…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Let’s lunch at La Moon
PHUKET: On the way to Surin Beach, as you pass through Cherng Talay, if you’re feeling a bit hungry you should make a stop at La Moon restaurant. La Moon’s owner ‘Khun Ging’ is sitting with some local Thai families, sharing a communal meal and exchanging the latest family news when we arrive. Ever the perfect hostess, Khun Ging soon…
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Phuket Gardening: Nursery education
PHUKET: With the wet season looming, now is a good time to put the spotlight on Phuket’s plant nurseries, or what North Americans refer to as garden centers. After all, we will doubtless be paying them a visit or two in the near future, so let’s suspend our A to Z of plants for a moment. First the good points:…
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The stork and the snail
PHUKET: As we all know to our cost, snails are the gardener’s bane. Today’s subject, however, is not about the common or garden variety creature that hides in the day and slides and slithers around at night to devour your seedlings, but another, more exotic species. Perhaps it merits a less disparaging mention in dispatches. The species in question is…
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Phuket Property: Asking for a second opinion
PHUKET: Many times prospective buyers of property in Thailand search online for legal information in regards to their purchase. They soon discover that online legal advice varies depending on the law office, lawyer or advisor providing the information. In some cases advice is given which recommends that to secure an investment in property a Thai company should be incorporated to…
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