Thai Life
Discover the latest regional stories and happenings in Thailand with The Thaiger, your source of credible, informative, and reliable updates. Stay informed about important local events, political happenings, social issues, cultural highlights, and entertainment stories, all curated to ensure you never miss out on what’s happening in the Land of Smiles. Our journalists will keep you informed with all the essential Thai life updates and allows you to connect with the community and experience Thailand like a local.
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The Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) is a great option for digital nomads, remote workers, and freelancers who want to stay in Thailand for a long time. This multiple-entry visa is valid for five years, allowing stays of up to 180...
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Avocado: Earth’s magical fruit
PHUKET: Returning back to the island from a holiday in Chiang Mai with five kilograms of Thai avocado is truly a nutritionist’s version of bringing souvenirs home. This fruit is without doubt at the top of my ‘favorite foods’ list for health and taste. Right now, all avocado fans in Thailand are blessed as the Thai avocado season is in…
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Penang, Phuket: islands of irony
PHUKET: Penang and Phuket share many historical and cultural similarities and recent similar events in their property markets show that the sister islands still have much in common. On a recent trip there, courtesy of Firefly Airlines, to join Penang’s heritage celebrations, I was introduced to a small Thai enclave in the northern quarter of Georgetown, not far from the…
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Royal Phuket Yacht Club to reopen
PHUKET: Excitement is building up across the island over the upcoming reentry of the iconic Royal Phuket Yacht Club in January. After an expansive 18-month upgrade, the Royal Phuket Yacht Club, which in 1986 was the island’s first luxury hotel, will now reopen under the name ‘The Nai Harn’ on January 16, 2016. Over the years, the 130-key luxury hotel…
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Fleming 58 added to Derani Yachts portfolio
PHUKET: Phuket-based Derani Yachts were appointed as sales agent and service center for Fleming Yachts in April this year, covering Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Fleming Yachts offer four models: the Fleming 55, 58, 65 and 78. These semi-displacement, raised-pilothouse motor yachts are considered to be ‘the ultimate cruising yachts’ by boating journalists and yachting enthusiasts throughout the world, the company…
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Prab Keesin – the family business
PHUKET: The Keesin clan and Pisona Groups is a household name throughout Phuket, as the political powerhouse family from Patong has a number of developments and interests in the island’s primary party town. Most recently they found themselves caught in the limelight with a host of mafia-style charges being levied against them. The founder of the clan was the recently-deceased…
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By the book: Not all doom and gloom on Phuket
PHUKET: People who spend time on Phuket or reside here will surely have heard expats grumbling about the island’s property market. Of course there are some nagging issues: there is a lack of easily accessible information for buyers, similarly and most certainly a lack of regulation and there is no Multiple Listing Service [MLS]. However, while the market here is…
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Keep it green: So much water, so little to drink
PHUKET: “And not a drop to drink”, bemoan the parched and stricken seaman drifting to oblivion on a windless sea in Coleridge’s ‘The Ancient Mariner.’ It is an irony not lost on any of us that, though most of the earth’s surface is covered by water, it is largely saline and undrinkable. However, even on so-called dry land, criss-crossed by…
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Diving: Enforcing professional diving ethics
PHUKET: Almost every diver remembers his or her first dive instructor, as well as probably every instructor or dive master trained under since. Learning underwater skills is a bonding process; it requires a great deal of trust – but what about trusting the dive professional’s environmental-impact philosophy? There is no doubt that diving puts stress on the marine environment through…
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Property Watch: New chapter for Vietnam property
PHUKET: A few weeks ago I found myself, once again, on the central coast of Vietnam in Danang. Over the past decade, the city has undergone a massive transformation and despite the old school charm of tree-lined avenues and the penultimate buzz of Asian-flavored street life, towering skyscrapers are starting to dot the horizon. My first journey to Vietnam was…
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Phuket Business: Old money with new visions
PHUKET: Born to one of Phuket’s wealthiest families, yet successfully cruising ahead in new business directions, is none other than Boon Yongsakul, the brains and muscle behind the success of the Boat Avenue Community Mall, along with some very well-received housing projects. His grandfather, a Hokkien Chinese migrant who came to Phuket, laid the foundation for the Yongsakul family’s business…
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Up in the air: Bangkok Airways flies to Hat Yai
PHUKET: Bangkok Airways will launch a new service between Phuket International Airport (HKT) and Hat Yai International Airport (HDY) starting in late October. Tasara Taksinapan, the carrier’s media relations manager, recently confirmed the new route with the Gazette’s ‘Up in the Air’, but said that the carrier had yet to issue an official press statement about the service, which will…
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Chinese funds trickle down to Phuket
PHUKET: The expected rush of Chinese money to overseas safe-haven properties after the recent crash of Shanghai’s stock market is an unlikely surge for this popular resort island, which will continue attracting some of the outflow, but less than what people might expect, Robert Collins, managing director of Savills (Thailand), says. It is clear that Thailand is not the preferred…
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On Deck: When only Thai quality will do
PHUKET: Back in the pre-iPhone days when you went shopping for clothes and the label said ‘Made in China’, you would have sighed and thought, ‘What is the world coming to?’ Fast forward to the era of the iPhone, iPod, iPad not to mention self-driving Google cars, and nobody blinks an eye at the ‘Made in China’ tag anymore. Hey,…
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Property watch: All about crunching numbers
PHUKET: Part of the buzz of the property market in Phuket is that Phuketians, foreign and Thai, have land and property in their blood and love discussing values. However, there are other numbers and number-crunching functions involved in the property game. The functions of property have transformed radically over the last few decades and the basis on which people invest…
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Profile: Wild ride on hippocampus [video]
PHUKET: Etymological failures rarely re-direct a person’s life as drastically as a simple false assumption did for topflight seahorse expert and marine biologist Lindsay Aylesworth. Lindsay was ushered into the upper echelons of seahorse research while working on her doctorate with her adviser Amanda Vincent – recognized as the leading expert in the field – and Project Seahorse at the…
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Books: Falling in love with killer birds
PHUKET: Helen Macdonald writes prose of fearsome intensity. H is for Hawk (Grove Press, New York, 2015, 300pp) is her intimate account of training a goshawk named Mabel and then running after her through the hedges and fens of the British countryside to retrieve the many rabbits and pheasants she kills. Outwardly a mild-mannered academic from Cambridge University, the author…
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Keep It Green: Cup of gold trumps angel’s trumpet
PHUKET: One of my all-time favorites is the datura, now fashionably known as the brugmansia. Its common moniker is angel’s trumpet, but in Thailand it’s known as lam pong. Although very tempting to do so, it is not going on the ‘top twenty’ list for one simple reason – it does not relish the climate in Phuket. On the slopes…
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In Focus: Chalong art evolution
PHUKET: Believe it or not, chaotic Chalong is slowly evolving into a destination where people want to live and tourists want to visit. Thanks to entrepreneurs like Oliver Schibli, who has opened his own art gallery, Bubu Collection, next to Wine Connection, people now have somewhere to go to look at beautiful creations. Oliver first arrived in Phuket from his…
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Blazing Saddles: Cycling: Not just for a healthy body
PHUKET: As if burning calories and improving cardiovascular fitness and body strength weren’t enough, a new study shows the brain-boosting benefits of biking, which begs the question: does cycling improve your sanity? I was recently out cycling in the south of Phuket with my usual riding buddies: four enthusiasts who regularly pound the pedals together, followed by just the occasional…
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Phuket Pads: Nai Harn condo goes big
PHUKET: Nai Harn Beach, which some say is one of the most popular on the island with the nearby lake attracting many tourists and locals who regularly walk or exercise around it, is getting the biggest condo development in the south of the island, due for completion in 2017. This is a much welcomed addition to Nai Harn and the…
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Looking back: Gambling through the decades
PHUKET: Gambling, in all its forms, is illegal in Thailand. But despite the fact that it has been outlawed for several decades, it is still a popular ‘recreation’ for many Thais. Underground gambling dens throughout the country do very well, and casinos, located in towns like Poipet, just over the Cambodian border, are mainly Thai owned and often packed with…
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Property: Middlemen scuttle many large property deals
PHUKET: After 12 years in Thailand helping international investment funds and property groups to buy big-ticket real estate, particularly hotels and resorts, the founder of ThaiEstate Asia Group knows too well that it is the middlemen who have ruined many a good transaction. Lars Lang chose his words carefully in voicing his frustration with middlemen and the way the market…
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Tank Returns: Phuket’s beloved DJ back on the scene
PHUKET: One of the island’s most beloved residents, Tom Saharut Somsanuk, perhaps more well known as ‘DJ Tank’, has been taking it easy after a health scare in April, but now he is all juiced up, ready to rock and raring to come back – harder, better, faster, stronger – to the Phuket party scene. With a larger-than-life personality and…
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On Deck: Economic benefits of regattas
PHUKET: Sailing: the sport of Kings. Or is that Polo? This famous resort island is challenging that old perception…at least the sailing one anyway. Purchasing a boat can be pricey, sure, but you do not have to be a boat owner to enjoy sailing. There are plenty of chances for residents and visitors to enjoy sailing in Phuket. The same…
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Keep it Green: Haunted by silence of the leaves
PHUKET: Anyone who travels around Phuket will have witnessed the infiltration of the oil palm as the area devoted to this species has increased three-fold since 2000. Moreover, it is the avowed aim of the government to add 400,000 rai of oil palm plantations every year to our island landscape. By 2028, the authorities anticipate that 10 million rai of…
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Tread carefully in budget condo market
PHUKET: Regardless of whether the Thai gross domestic product expands at the lower target of 3 to 3.8 per cent, as earlier expected this year, it would not help the Phuket budget condominium market, or that of other major provincial cities, as they have already been affected, Phanom Kanjanathiemthao, managing director of Knight Frank Chartered Company, said in an exclusive…
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Phuket pads: Escape to Coconut Island paradise
PHUKET: A rare opportunity is presenting itself on Koh Maprao, or Coconut Island, in the form of a piece of private, pristine beach front featuring a luxury, tropical villa ready for the taking. The essence of Asian simplicity is captured by this Balinese style villa, isolated on the enchanting beach front on Coconut Island, which is off the east coast…
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Diving: Avoiding missed experiences
PHUKET: There is no substitute for the first time a diver sees – assuming they’re not having mask issues – the majestic wings of a giant manta ray as it sweeps in from the deep blue. A shadow at first that grows larger and larger until you realize that the manta has come to see what this funny bubble blower…
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Profile: Hearing lizard voices in Phuket
PHUKET: I always wonder what people are listening to through their earphones while driving their motorcycles or walking around Central Festival. Are they all listening to the same music or are they just listening to their friends talk? I think I may now have the answer. Silvano Stabile arrived in Phuket several years ago, and was contracted by the Twinpalms…
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Up in the air: Passion for aviation: Part I
This month, Up In The Air presents the first of a two-part series chronicling some of the aerial experiences of well-known Phuket-based aviator Pat James, an American who completed two tours as a combat helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. PHUKET: Most recreational flyers on the island know Pat James as the affable Texan in charge of flight and safety…
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