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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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?...
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Commitment keeps a restaurant alive
PHUKET: What makes a restaurant successful? Many will say it’s the location, but the owners of Rodizio Brazil restaurant add “commitment” to this list, as they prepare to let go of one of their Patong ventures. It’s been a year and a half since Rodizio opened in Patong, in a narrow lane off the beachfront road, near the Patong Tower.…
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Excuse Buster: Moringa – The tree of life
PHUKET: As we continue our superfood series, I should tell you about moringa – the tree of life. This is not a title to be taken lightly. This nutrient-dense plant is one of the most powerful natural multi-vitamins around. It’s a true superfood with a nutritional breakdown that includes: 92 nutrients, 46 antioxidants, 36 anti-inflammatories, 18 amino acids, 9 essential…
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Balance Matters: Coping with the teenage years
PHUKET: Kevin screamed, “I don’t care what you think!”, as he pushed his mother out of the doorway to his bedroom. His mother, Jit, was propelled into a wall head first and fell to her knees. She called after her son, but he was already gone. Jit pulled herself up, walked to the kitchen table, picked up her tea and…
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Gardening: Many layers of an onion
PHUKET: My good friend Sam Wilko, known to Gazette readers as resident gourmet, sent me a fascinating article about the onion and suggested I write about it. So, here are some appropriated facts about the humble onion – plus a few of my own. It is the world’s most widely grown vegetable. About 175 countries cultivate it – twice the…
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Property: Choose unique, not common
PHUKET: The clothes we wear, the cars we drive, even the food we eat are all, to a certain extent, a way in which we express ourselves. So are the houses we live in. Make it your own, says the developer of Andaburee Phuket, a new custom-built pool villa project. Unique and custom-made are the opposite of common and mass-produced.…
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Books: An awful waste of time
PHUKET: In 2002 Michel Faber published The Crimson Petal and the White, an extraordinary novel of shifting social strata set in a time and place when they were most rigid: the early Victorian Age in London. By dint of cunning and determination, Sugar, a prostitute from the age of 13, rises from brothel inmate to kept woman to household governess…
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History: Southern Thailand courts united Japan’s first Shogun
PHUKET: Tokugawa Ieyasu was the first Shogun of a united Japan. In the year 1600, after the bloody battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu managed to unite the warring clans of Japan under his sovereignty, ushering in a long era of peace under the Tokugawa Shogunate. A year earlier, in 1599, a visiting envoy from the Kingdom of Pattani presented Ieyasu with…
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Excuse Buster: Charging up your willpower
PHUKET: It’s a new year and a new opportunity for a new you, so let’s wipe that slate clean and start afresh. It’s just like we said to ourselves last year… and the year before that… and probably the one before that, too. For those of us who fall off the wagon: what is it that stops us from reaching…
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Island Fever: Life on the road
PHUKET: One thing about life that is great, is that there is no handbook for you when you enter this brave new world. Sure, eventually you learn there are rules and limitations, but as a youngster, the universe is your oyster. Growing up in a far different age than the kids of today, my perspective toward formal education, along with…
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Environment: Worrying island waste
PHUKET: Garbage disposal is a major issue for Phuket. Every day the island produces 800 tonnes of waste of which 60 per cent is wet waste. This issue must be solved, but merely increasing the capacity to dispose of it is not the answer. If the community is to have sustainable growth, then all that waste has to be managed.…
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Phuket’s NBC targets expat freehold condo market
PHUKET: High demand for condominiums coupled with an oversupply of new units has led the developers of Naiharn Beach Condominium (NBC) to turn their attention to the island’s south, where they say attractive locations for new developments are easier to come by. “The number of places left for freehold condominiums is very limited,” says Fredric Perrochon, NBC sales director. “Our…
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Diving: Where the wild things are
PHUKET: On land, wild animals are a rare sight, especially in their natural habitats – discounting monkeys attacking tourists for ice cream in Phuket, of course. In the United States, a unusual creature that isn’t a squirrel or a chipmunk will, at the very least, get a good pointing at; and the rare moments when a fox slips into view…
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Across the Land: Phuket as an island haven has room for improvement
PHUKET: Thailand recently made the top 10 list of The Retirement Havens for 2015 by International Living, coming in at 10th place. The only other Asean country that made the list was Malaysia, which is sitting pretty in third place. In Thailand, there are multiple locations for retirees to live, whether they prefer the hustle and bustle of a city…
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Phuket Aviation Club spreads its wings
PHUKET: There has been a great deal of activity at Phuket Airpark in Pa Khlok recently, as ever more private aircraft arrive there, adding to the small but impressively diverse and growing fleet of fixed-wing aircraft, gyrocopters, paramotors and ultralights. Pat James, who heads the Phuket Aviation Club (PAC) based at the airfield, said his growing association is seeking new…
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Thai oranges and lemons won’t leave you sour
PHUKET: “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of Saint Clement’s”, so goes the opening couplet of the children’s nursery rhyme about London’s church bells dating from 1744. But though the nursery rhyme remains unchanged by time, the real oranges and lemons we knew as kids are not the same as the varieties we now encounter in Phuket’s fresh markets. While…
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Royal Phuket Marina brings luxury to central Phuket
PHUKET: Phuket is changing in front of our eyes. And where some see trouble, others see opportunity. One of the latter is Royal Phuket Marina (RPM), whose latest development, La Reserve, is a luxury condominium property for the new, changing Phuket. “Phuket is turning into a proper city, a proper town,” says Ian Spurdle, RPM’s director of sales and marketing…
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Island Fever: I Drove All Night
PHUKET: Here we go again, some 38,000 feet up in the heavens, headed for Seoul and beyond. My noise-canceling headphones are weathering sonic booms and the chainsaw buzz of Iggy Pop. The “Ig” has become a man for all ages. Instead of dying young in a pool of blood up there on stage, he’s made it through to the other…
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Phuket Pads: The island’s chalk and cheese
PHUKET: Phuket is, in many ways, becoming similar to Pattaya, with more and more cheap condos popping up in Patong, Kathu and other areas of the island. One-bedroom units from 1-3 million baht are becoming the norm to cater to the once-a-year tourist, and Thai investors are becoming eager to make an investment in Phuket’s booming property market. CHALK AND…
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Woolf in shepherd’s clothing: Renowned clairvoyant stops in Phuket for a “look’
PHUKET: Lynda Woolf is a celebrated seer, clairvoyant and mystic who is currently visiting the Atsumi Health and Wellness Center in Rawai to dispense wisdom to those in need of her extraordinary services. Hailing from a stunningly beautiful corner of the US, Lake Tahoe, Lynda has called Singapore home since 1996, largely to facilitate her work as a psychic practitioner…
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Phuket’s property of tomorrow
PHUKET: The year 2014 saw a number of new property developments – most noticeably condominiums – emerge on the Phuket map, fundamentally changing the Phuket landscape. To find out what tomorrow holds for the island’s property market, the Phuket Gazette‘s Maciek Klimowicz talked to Uthai Uthaisangsuk, senior executive vice president of Business Development and Project Development Division at Sansiri, one…
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Mind Matters: Solution to island woes – re-brand Phuket
PHUKET: Marlboro has been the world’s number one cigarette brand since 1972. It is larger than its next three competitors combined and, in the United States, it is the number one cigarette brand in every state and the number one cigarette brand for men and women across all adult age groups. In 2009, Marlboro’s share was larger than the next…
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Exciting new genre of art debuts in Phuket tomorrow night
PHUKET: Well known local artist Rose Maitland Smith will be on hand to open her new art exhibition tomorrow night, January 17. About 20 of her unique, striking and colorful paintings have arrived at the Boathouse by Montara on Kata Beach and will remain on show there until mid-March. Rose, who exudes in person the same energy and optimism that…
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Expats target market for Thalang residential housing project
PHUKET: Following the completion of phase one of 59 European-style tropical townhomes in Thalang under the banner “Baan Tak r Kard”, local developer Living Vis has launched the second phase of its residential development under the brand “r homes”, in a bid to attract more expat buyers. “More than 80 per cent of the two- and three-bedroom homes in phase…
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Boating: New E-Visa on arrival for superyachts to Andamans
PHUKET: The Indian government has launched e-visas to enter the country at any of nine airports, a move that has been welcomed for facilitating visitors wanting to join their superyachts at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. “Visa on Arrival Facility is now available at nine airports in India for those planning or those interested in cruising the highly intriguing superyacht…
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Looking back: Skulduggery in Ayutthaya
PHUKET: After Sukhothai, Ayutthaya was the second capital city of the Siamese Kingdom, founded in 1350. King Prasat Thong, who reigned from 1629 to 1656, was the founder of a new dynasty during the heydays of Ayutthaya. His father, Okya Sri Thammathirat, was King Songtham’s maternal uncle. King Prasat Thong himself held the title of Okya Sri Vorawong, a position…
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Excuse Buster: Man versus machine
PHUKET: Walk into any gym and you’ll find a mix of machine weights and free weights. Less than five years ago, the fitness industry was loving machine weights, boasting how good they were for building size and strength. This has its truths, but after a while people have started to realize the lack of movement and mobility they had with…
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Balance Matters: Counseling, a first encounter of the helpful kind
PHUKET: Roughly one out of 15 people are affected by poor mental health at least one time in their life, but many don’t realize that they need help, that help exists, how it works or indeed how to find it. Most of us have heard of counseling (also referred to as therapy or psychotherapy), but that doesn’t help people understand…
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Phuket Pads: A hint of Europe in the South
PHUKET: Most villas available on the island are either in Thai or Balinese style and as the Thais say, “Same, same!” But this unusual and well-designed property stands out from the crowd with its European design. One of the main attractions is that it is a perfect family home in which to entertain and comes with great amenities. The house…
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Island Fever: Hey you, get off my cloud
PHUKET: Over the years, old Mick and Keef have amazingly managed to somehow keep the rolling thunder of Rock ‘n’ Roll headed on the upward curve. Sure, it’s been a bit of a zig-zag at times, but still they remain intact. In a manner of speaking that is. I’d of course have a hard time naming a post-1990s Stones tune,…
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The Santa Clause: Many happy rental returns
PHUKET; What did Santa Claus bring you via your property investment this Christmas? Was it 5% guaranteed net rental return on your property investment? 6%? 7%? A 60:40 or a 50:50 split of all expenses and rental returns after expenses? Looking at the wide mix of so-called guaranteed returns promised in property ads, online and on billboards in Phuket, it…
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