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 A healthy tomorrow starts today: Celebrate the great American Smokeout day
The Great American Smokeout, held this year on November 17, is a nationwide event that encourages smokers to take their first steps towards a smoke-free life. If you’re an expat in Thailand, this day could be a timely reminder to...
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Phuket Diving: Sidemounting a revolution
PHUKET: “CLICK, click”… with both tanks unclipped and held in front of us it is possible to make our way through the small window of the little dive-boat wreck sitting at a depth of about 18 meters off the coast of Racha Yai, Phuket. Tanks still stretched out in front of him, Kevin from Kiwidiver pushes through the small window…
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Phuket Food: FroYo – The cool new trend in healthy snacks
PHUKET: The latest Korean craze to hit Thailand, after TV dramas and the Gangnam-style dance, is soft-serve frozen yoghurt, also known as “FroYo”. Opened recently in The 6th shopping mall in Patong (just across the road from Jungceylon and next to the White Tiger Bar), Bang Frozen Yoghurt offers a healthy alternative to traditional full-fat and sugared ice cream. “Although…
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Phuket Reminder: AMCHAM meeting to shed light on Phuket history
PHUKET: This evening the Phuket Chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) is proud to promote the island’s heritage through the launch of Colin Mackay’s new book, A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region, one of the first publications of record to so thoroughly examine the little-known history of the island and its neighboring provinces in the Andaman…
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Phuket People: Chanchai Doungjit
PHUKET: As the director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) office in Phuket, Chanchai Doungjit needs no introduction. In a province where tourism is the main livelihood for most of the population and the industry’s marketing needs to be robust, the director is always in the media.Just before our interview, Chanchai had been in a weekly meeting with the…
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Escape from Boracay
PHUKET: Timing is everything, and my recent sortie to the Philippines for island hopping was ill advised. I’m stuck in the middle of what they are politely calling a ‘tropical depression’, or what could eventually become a typhoon. The depression thing reminds me of Tony Soprano and his psychiatrist: “So how are you feeling today Tony?” Yesterday’s highlight was a…
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Phuket Legal: Property purchase in the name of a Thai company
PHUKET: In many cases, foreign investors wish to register a company in Thailand with an eye toward purchasing property in the name of that company to use for business purposes, or simply to use as the company’s registered office. Although it is commonly believed that a Thai company with foreign shareholders cannot purchase and own land, or that it’s very…
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A classic urban legend
PHUKET: This is quite an old story, reckoned by folklorists to date back at least 70 years. It’s a comedy staple, in fact, having turned up in numerous recordings, radio shows, movies and novels since the 1930s. It was published as a “True Fact” by National Lampoon in 1986, when it also happened to be circulating as “office faxlore”. More…
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Phuket Property: Centrio condominium to be launched in town
PHUKET: Property developer, Able Asset Co Ltd are excited about their upcoming development in Phuket Town, Centrio, a condominium to be built on 2,100 square meters of land close to Central Festival, comprising three eight-storey buildings with a total of 504 units. Kasidit Manopinives, managing director of Able Asset Co Ltd, spoke to the Phuket Gazette about Centrio and his…
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Phuket Books: So it is with San Miguel
PHUKET: Anything by T Corahessan Boyle is worth reading. His first two novels – Water Music, about two African expeditions up the Niger by 18th century Scottish explorer Mungo Park, and Budding Prospects, about modern day marijuana growers in northern California – rank among the two funniest novels ever written in English – are wildly exuberant dances of demonic prose.…
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Phuket History: A journey from Aceh to Lipe
PHUKET: The Adang-Rawi archipelago is situated in the Andaman Sea, just 50 kilometers from mainland Satun province. The archipelago consists of more than sixty islands, of which Adang, Rawi, Lipe and Tarutao are the largest. The group of islands was designated as a marine national park in 1974. Today the pristine islands offer some of the finest beaches and dive…
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Phuket Gardening: A motley crew of variegated plants
PHUKET: When Shakespeare used the expression “motley”, he meant the multi-colored garb of the court jester, also known as the harlequin or fool. His role was to crack jokes, behave foolishly and thereby divert and amuse the King. In the nineteenth century, the Italian composer Leoncavallo told one of his characters in Il Pagliaggi to press “on with the motley”,…
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Phuket Property: Como at Yamu
PHUKET: COMO Hotels and Resorts, the award-winning five-star hotel group based in Singapore, is to develop and manage a new property on the Yamu peninsula of Phuket. This property is the tenth member of the COMO family of unique destinations and is scheduled to open in November this year. Point Yamu offers 109 rooms, including 30 private villas, with panoramic…
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Phuket Property Watch: And then came Layan
PHUKET: Thinking of owning property in an island paradise? Swaying coconut trees, tropical drinks in day-glow colors and of course the ultimate deal closer – the beach. Let’s take an example, someone named Dieter, snowbound in Bavaria, with subzero weather, a veritable glacier outside the front door and packs of wolves howling at the moon. Maybe the wolf thing is…
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Phuket Property: Tourism by the numbers
PHUKET: A dynamic shift in Phuket’s tourism market is pushing demand away from the beaches. Overseas tourists are pushing up numbers at the large malls, such as Central Festival and Jungceylon, where the top three nationalities of customers are Chinese, Russian and Australian. Last month, retail giant Central Retail Corporation announced a US$332 million expansion project in Phuket to include…
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Phuket Books: A life of crime
PHUKET: Dennis Lehane has written ten crime novels and the best of them – Mystic River, Shutter Island, Gone, Baby, Gone – have been made into superlative movies. His turf is Boston, specifically its tough Irish neighborhoods. His new novel, Live by Night (Little, Brown, New York, 2012, 403pp), opens brilliantly: “Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf…
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Phuket Gardening: The ‘who’s hue’ of ornamental leaves
PHUKET: Foliage plants, as we noted last week, are cultivated mainly for their ornamental leaves. But such a bald statement requires qualification. After all, many flowering plants also have attractive foliage, and this is especially true in the tropics where the tendency is for most leaves to be evergreen and glossy. Nor am I thinking of foliage plants, which originate…
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Phuket Humor: Why is English so hard to learn?
PHUKET: Let’s face it, English is a ridiculous language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in a hamburger; neither apple nor pine in a pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England, nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. You cannot buy boots in Boots, you cannot buy virgins in…
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Phuket Health: Being strong and balanced
PHUKET: THE last article I wrote was about how to achieve goals and persist with New Year’s resolutions (click here for story). Every year, without fail, the resolution at the very top of most people’s list has to do with improving personal well-being, energy and health. This means being strong and healthy is inherently valuable to most of us. For…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Meet Marie G formerly known as HSL 1198
PHUKET: In the first quarter of the last century a brilliant engineer from England called Hubert Scott-Paine founded a company named Supermarine, which designed and built high performance aircraft, culminating in the legendary Spitfire of WW2 fame. By the end of the 1920s Scott-Paine wanted a change, so he sold his shares and invested in a new venture – the…
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Phuket Pets: Shaving your hairy dog
PHUKET: I’ve written about this before, and it’s a hot topic (no pun intended) among dog owners in Phuket. The key question is, “Can I shave my dogs’ fur coat?”. It seems logical – we look at our panting dogs and think that we couldn’t cope with a fur coat all day, so clearly they can’t. But we’re applying human…
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Phuket Property: Finding the balance between culture and a modern lifestyle
PHUKET: Highlighting Sansiri PCL’s confidence in the island’s condominium market, the Bangkok-headquartered firm has launched sales for ‘THE BASE Height-Phuket’ in the Sam Kong area of Phuket Town. As the third ‘THE BASE’ branded project on the island, following successful launches of the ‘Downtown’ and ‘Uptown’ projects also in Phuket Town, the ‘Height-Phuket’ is ideal for the young working generation,…
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Phuket Gardening: Variety is the spice of life
PHUKET: Every so often, readers of the Phuket Gazette pose questions which prompt other reflections, and ultimately require a fuller response than a mere email allows. Here is a recent, partly paraphrased example: A Kata apartment dweller has a sunny communal balcony, at present adorned with boxes of bougainvilleas. She says that some people would like to exchange these for…
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Phuket Books: One more head for the chopping block
PHUKET: In my last column, I reviewed Hilary Mantel’s extraordinary novel Wolf Hall, winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize (click here), which chronicled the rise of Thomas Cromwell from a blacksmith’s son to trusted advisor to King Henry VIII. Three years later, Mantel won a second Man Booker Prize for her sequel Bring Up the Bodies (Henry Holt and…
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Phuket Diving: A communal recovery from the myths of DCS
PHUKET: Recovered from her diving accident, Nicole still combs through the details of the day, searching for the tiny factors that might have contributed to the serious case of neurological decompression sickness (DCS Type II) she faced a year and half ago after a 22-meter dive in the Similan National Park. Unless it’s a ruthless horror story about DCS, where…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Rally round the family
PHUKET: Gentlemen, start your engines. A family event dedicated to making a positive difference is racing back to Phuket for the third straight year. The Phuket Invitational Car Rally is a family day out like no other. You won’t need to pack a food hamper or fix the ski rack, just fill up with fuel, bring the family and make…
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Phuket Lifestyle: St. Valentine’s Day
PHUKET: According to classics professor Noel Lenski of the University of Boulder Colorado, the lovers’ holiday traces its roots to a raucous annual Roman festival where men stripped naked, used goat – or dog-skin – whips, and spanked young maidens in the hopes of increasing their fertility. The annual pagan celebration, called Lupercalia, was held every year on February 15…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Nishamon Paiboonnukulkij
PHUKET: Nishamon ‘Eve’ Paiboonnukulkij was in Phuket recently to meet prospective customers before launching an Italian furniture store, Natuzzi. The showroom is the latest branch of Euro Creations, a Bangkok-based leading retailer and importer of high-end home furnishing. Nishamon, the company’s marketing manager, is charged with driving Natuzzi forward and making it known. Nishamon, 27, holds a degree in education…
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Phuket Property: Travel summit votes on key issues
PHUKET: The nation’s pre-eminent gathering of tourism and travel industry experts has concluded that while Thailand looks headed for its best year for tourist numbers and revenues ever, action to legalize gaming, improve infrastructure and attract ‘quality’ travellers was urgently needed ahead of moves to introduce the Asean Economic Community (AEC). More than 350 tourism industry movers and shakers attended…
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Phuket Property: New deal for Marriott
PHUKET: Marriott International recently announced the signing of seven management agreements with TCC Hotels Group, which means the US hospitality company will operate seven TCC hotels across Thailand.These agreements make the TCC Hotels Group the largest owner of Marriott International hotels in Asia Pacific. The seven hotels are: The Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok, to be rebranded as Bangkok Marriott…
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Phuket Humor: Learning about the birds and bees
PHUKET: Today I’m going to tell you how I learned about the birds and bees. All you young whippersnappers out there need to know how we learned about this important topic way back in prehistoric times, even before the Rolling Stones. Nowadays it’s easy for a young person to learn about sex. All you do is log onto the Internet…
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