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 See the best of Northern Thailand this winter on a budget
The Thaiger key takeaways Peak season brings higher prices, but smart planning and local know-how can help you experience Northern Thailand affordably. Chiang Mai, Pai, and Chiang Rai offer plenty of free or low-cost attractions, from temples and canyons to...
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Hacking density laws with mixology
PHUKET: Tom Auttayatamavittaya, also known as Tom Funk, won first place in Thailand, top ten in Asia Pacific and 49th in a galaxy of 8,500 contenders at the bartending competition Bols Around the World 2015. He recently moved house, so to speak, from Yaowarat Road in Phuket Town to a bigger venue on Phang Nga Road, and is now defying…
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Going up: Baba’s five-bedroom villas
PHUKET: Kicking into gear on Na Tai Beach, across the bridge in Phang Nga, is Charn Issara Development PLC’s riveting joint-venture project Baba Beach Club. The sales gallery has now been built and construction crews are busy building five-bedroom villas. Vorasit ‘Wan’ Issara, managing director of Sri Panwa resort, said that Charn Issara, which is developing the 42-rai project with…
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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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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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On Deck: Tonnes of trash killing our future
PHUKET: The ‘crystal clear,’ ‘aqua blue’ sea off Phuket is a significant part of the island’s tourism offerings and attracts many visitors to this fair isle. Those iconic sea, island and beach snorkelling images from the Tourism Authority of Thailand [TAT] campaigns have been around the world more times than an inter-continental jet. Today’s reality, however, is somewhat different because…
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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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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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RPM awarded for excellence
PHUKET: Another much-welcomed boost for Phuket’s tourism industry has come with Royal Phuket Marina being the first marina in Thailand to receive the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for 2015. Aside from winning the certificate, Royal Phuket Marina is also the first and only 5 Gold Anchor-awarded marina in Thailand. “We’re very proud to receive the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence. Honoring…
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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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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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Excuse Buster: Shaping up gluteus maximus
PHUKET: I Swore I’d never write an article with topics as generic and common as ‘bigger biceps’, ‘five fat-burning secrets’ or ‘get quads of thunder’. I hate these types of articles. They are often 2,000 words and harp on about exercises that have been around for years, but are renamed and tweaked so that they are perceived as a brand…
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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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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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The Deck condo zooms ahead
PHUKET: Major property developer Sansiri Plc’s new condominium, The Deck, is attracting interest from both Thai and international buyers. The draw is likely a result of the condo’s prime location in the heart of Patong and the fact that construction is now 100 per cent complete, with just the final stages of architectural and interior work left to be done.…
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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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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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Health: Dodging bullets with agility
PHUKET: Agility ladders, a staple of sports training when victory can hang on the athlete’s ability to turn quickly, have moved into mainstream gyms where fitness experts say they are helping everyday exercisers be nimble and quick. Jumping, running, marching and hopscotching through the grids on the floor have become an added feature in personal training and group fitness classes.…
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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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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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Across the Land: Designing creative domiciles
PHUKET: It is interesting every year to see the new season’s designer-wear on the runways of Milan, New York, London and other haute couture centers. Creative designers show off their very latest fashions to the world on those runways and instantaneously these new designs are considered the hottest fashion trends. Designing clothes is of course very different from designing a…
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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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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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Property Watch: Tourism’s disruptive behavior
PHUKET: As the island rains have drenched the collective spiritual well-being of Phuket’s hotels and property people, a little step into the reality zone could be needed. There is little doubt that the months of May and June – well, throw in September – remain agonizing for those in the trade. I came to live here in 2000 and year…
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