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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  • Flight of the Little Bumble Bee: Gyrocopter update

    PHUKET: Flight training on the island’s one and only “gyrocopter” is going off without a hitch at Phuket AirPark in Pa Khlok. Phuket AirPark Flight Operations manager Pat James is among four trainees being instructed to operate the AutoGyro Cavalon by a factory-trained instructor from Sweden who is staying at Phuket AirPark for one month. “It’s looking really good. Everything…

  • Video report: BISP graduates ready to change the world

    PHUKET: Hope and nostalgia, vivid memories and plans for a bright future, words of inspiration and inside jokes, bright smiles and rivers of tears – all this was present in abundance during the British International School Phuket (BISP) Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2014 on Tuesday, May 27. Honored by the Governor of Phuket, Maitri Inthusut, British Honorary Consul…

  • Hold on to your skirt!

    PHUKET: Beware, fellow ladies of Phuket: skirts are not advised at the island’s newest tourist attraction, as you might feel compelled to strike some compromising poses once you walk into Baan Teelanka – otherwise known as the Upside Down House. So, be sure to plan ahead and throw on a pair of pants. Baan Teelanka is a place of dizzying…

  • Fostering local attitude for Phuket’s property development

    PHUKET: Phuket has seen many property developers go bust, some rise and fall and even fewer, rise, grow and keep growing. Attitude Club is a great example of the latter. Present on the island for 15 years, the company has undergone some major changes throughout its history, but always moving in one and only direction – forward. “When we started…

  • Phuket9’s tantalizing timeless style

    PHUKET: Chalong-based developers Phuket9 have been busy. Established in 2004, they began life as Phuket Nature Home and re-branded themselves as Phuket9 in 2011. Over the past 10 years they have created an entire community of private lagoon villas, built the Kata Dome Plaza and have now launched into their most recent project – Rawai VIP Villas. Located 300 meters…

  • Get married in the traditional Phuket Baba style (video)

    PHUKET: Every wedding day is something special, but now, thanks to the Thai Peranakan Association, you can make yours even more unique by having a traditional Baba wedding ceremony right here in Phuket. The two-day wedding festival is held each year to honor and ensure the continuance of Baba Pernankan (“Straits Chinese”) traditions on the island. This unique event will…

  • Dog of the week: 5-year-old Fluffy looking for love

    PHUKET: Fluffy is about five years old and was rescued from a local dog holding facility, where she might have ended up dying if she was left there any longer. Thank goodness the folks at Doggie Heaven rescue center, who saw the torment she was going through and rescued her. Since then, Fluffy has been recovering at Doggie Heaven and…

  • Fast and forgetful: speed reading apps driven by hype

    PHUKET: As readers plug into the insurmountable volume of information pouring in from the internet, the desire for knowledge consumption – though not new – abounds. We want to download expertise. (We’ve all seen the Matrix.) We want information; we want it all; and we want it fast. Enter: speed-reading applications. Now, the hype surrounding speed reading apps such as…

  • PREA auction of 500 properties starts today

    The Phuket Real Estate Association (PREA), in association with real estate agency Harrison, is set to hold a massive property auction in Phuket this weekend, May 17 and 18. The auction, to be held at the Boat Lagoon Hotel and Resort in Koh Kaew, will see 500 properties worth 10 billion baht go under the hammer, including condos, villas and…

  • The sky’s the limit at Phuket Airpark

    PHUKET: There has been a great deal of action recently at Phuket Airpark, Southern Thailand’s only privately-run airstrip, among a diverse group of aviation enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. The Airpark, which opened in Pa Khlok with a single ultralight six years ago, is now home to 11 light aircraft in a wide variety of designs. None are more eye-catching than the…

  • Dog of the Week: Chill

    PHUKET: Chill is a medium-sized male dog, about 4-5 years old who got his name from being one very chilled-out dude. He is a real love bug, who enjoys nothing more than being cuddled. About seven months ago, he was rescued from the horrific conditions of the local dog holding facility, where he was locked up for a couple of…

  • The Indian connection in your Phuket garden

    PHUKET: Of All the tropical plants beginning with the letter “I”, the ixora (khem in Thai) is probably the most ubiquitous. Yet another shrub with Indian origins, there are few cared-for public spaces in Phuket that do not have a bed or border of orange or dwarf pink and white ixoras. Small specimens are invariably available in plant nurseries, growing…

  • 14th Annual Superyacht Rendezvous to hit Kata [video] | Thaiger

    14th Annual Superyacht Rendezvous to hit Kata [video]

    PHUKET: The Asia Superyacht Rendezvous, which takes place in Phuket every December 16-18 is one of the most famous gatherings of motor and sailing superyachts in the world. This is the one hotspot event of the superyacht world where owners, captains and VIP guests can congregate around beautiful luxury superyachts, both sail and motor powered, for three days of fun…

  • Thai property portal goes mobile

    PHUKET: Thailand-Property.com, one of the biggest real estate portals in Thailand, has launched a new mobile site, shifting focus from growing on-site content to delivering more than 100,000 property listings to its user base in the palms of their hands. As the portal’s main site already receives nearly 50 per cent of its traffic through hand-held devices, the new mobile…

  • Connecting the Myanmar-Phuket tourism dots

    PHUKET: Myanmar is on my mind as I recall the famous line from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic poem Paul Revere’s Ride, “One if by land, and two if by sea”. The bard might very well have been speaking about Asia’s rising tourism dragon and Thailand’s neighbor Myanmar, though this slight annotation might also be apt: “Three if by low-cost airline…

  • Foreign directors: Not only power but also responsibility

    PHUKET: MANY foreigners have chosen Thailand not only as their preferred location for retirement but also for doing business. Usually, such businesses are operated under the umbrella of a Thai company due to legal restrictions regulating the conditions under which foreign persons are allowed to carry out business in Thailand. Such a Thai company is required to have at least…

  • BISP High Performance Swimmers learn and swim at the highest level

    PHUKET: Struggling with time management? Not enough space in your weekly agenda for all that’s on your “to do” list? Tell that to these kids. Not only do they study hard but practice swimming twice a day, five days a week, aiming at the highest Olympic goals. Their solution for lack of time? Do more. “I feel that swimming actually…

  • Cycling on coconuts

    PHUKET: I FIND myself writing increasingly about the concept of “escape” from Phuket these days. Talking to fellow cyclists and other residents alike, the need to find a sanctuary away from the everyday hassles, stress, traffic and urbanization of Phuket keeps coming up. It seems that the work week is taking its toll on people living in Phuket and so…

  • Gone in the blink of an eye

    PHUKET: Humans blink 10 to 15 times a minute. Start rolling out the time-line and you start edging up over 20,000 blinks a day or more harrowing yet, perhaps 40 million blinks in a lifetime. Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Proverbially, the things…

  • Moving away from the mass market

    PHUKET: Founding member of the Phuket Real Estate Association (PREA) and president of Phuket-based developers The Onella, Sam Sethi, is a Phuket native and part of a successful family-run business on the island with a strong record in residential and hospitality development. Over the past 20 years, Sam has focused on developing mixed-use commercial and residential properties that are a…

  • The Amazing Spider Man 2 left hanging in Columbia’s web of indifference

    PHUKET: Marvel took quite a lot of stick from reviewers over the movies that they released prior to The Avengers, with Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man 2 all being condemned by a certain element of the online whinge brigade as blatant prequels to the mega-success that was to become The Avengers. While there may be a…

  • Video Report: Fight for your rights – Don’t drink more, drink better

    PHUKET: Two critical issues plague the Phuket drinking scene: terrible drinks, and terrible service. The number of watered-down something-or-other and cokes served on this island that take 20 minutes to get, and are delivered with anything but a smile, is abysmal. “Just because you’re on a beach in Phuket doesn’t mean you should be satisfied with a [expletive] drink,” says…

  • H&M fashions arrive at Central Festival Phuket

    PHUKET: Hundreds of shoppers are expected to line up at Central Festival Phuket early this Saturday morning to be among the first to get their hands on the latest threads from global fashion house H&M as it launches its first store in southern Thailand on two floors of the shopping mall. H&M is giving away more than 80,000 baht worth…

  • Soap suds: A sidelong glance at Thai melodrama

    PHUKET: Any “farang” who lives with a Thai partner will be familiar, possibly all too familiar, with the rarefied world of television soap opera. As I watch, I wonder what impact these soaps are having on the Thai psyche. That they are amazingly popular is beyond doubt. Viewing figures are massive; they are watched religiously in most households, and especially…

  • Live simple, consume less

    PHUKET: Live simple, consume less. This philosophy is engrained in the business and life of custom surfboard maker David “Mousset” Sautebin. Originally from Bienne, Switzerland, the wiry 36-year-old stood in the entrance of his Nai Harn workshop clad only in Thai fisherman’s pants. A quiver of surfboards lined the doorway which emitted a tinny soundtrack of Bob Marley from within.…

  • Hoping to heal from Heartbleed

    PHUKET: On April 1, 2014 one of Google’s security team members reported a disturbing discovery. Don’t be misled, what was found to be a very serious security breach affecting half-a-million websites across cyberspace was, in fact, not a computer virus. It was a simple programming code mistake which turned out to have far-reaching implications for, what was thought to be,…

  • Feel-good football

    PHUKET: On April 24, about 40 students from the Good Shepherd Learning Center had the opportunity to visit Phuket FC’s recently completed Republic Phuket football training complex. The event was a cooperative effort between Phuket FC fan club the ‘Mushy Peas’, and the Grumpy Old Man’s Society (GOMS) in conjunction with the Good Shepherd Learning Center and Phuket FC. The…

  • All tied up: The art of cowboy rope tricks

    PHUKET: With more people on the planet, nearly infinite methods of communication and a travel culture that sees people from all walks of life turning up in the most unsuspecting places, there is no telling where you might find influences from foreign cultures. For example, if Phuket entertainer Manoo Suwanmaneesilp hadn’t somehow gotten the chance to see old black-and-white westerns…

  • Laguna Phuket to launch “Fully Booked!’ mobile learning center

    Laguna Phuket has announced that it will be launching a new community project, “Fully Booked!”, which will see the opening of a new mobile learning center for schoolchildren. The project is one of many initiatives set up by Laguna Phuket to support its wider strategic goal on social and educational development, which aims to build the capacities of local communities…

  • Emerald pools and more just across the bay from Phuket

    PHUKET: Typically, upon hearing any reference of Krabi, the first thing that springs to mind is the stalactite-studded Railay, party-island Phi Phi or any one of the other 154 awe-inspiring islands that draw millions of visitors a year to this quiet province on the Andaman Sea. Without a doubt, visitors who come to this little corner of the world would…