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 Long-term life in Thailand? 5 reasons private health insurance pays off in the long run
Thailand is a great place for expats and retirees, offering a warm climate, affordable living, and rich culture. However, healthcare can be tricky for foreigners since they aren’t eligible for public health coverage, and private care can be expensive. Private...
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Phuket Diving: Gear and skills part the waters
PHUKET: When was the last time something truly fresh hit the dive market? Yes, every year we get niftier regulators, more swanky dive watches and new fin designs that we can’t resist at least window-shopping for. But, when was the last time something was put on the market for recreational divers that really parted the waters – changed the way…
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Phuket People: Raise a toast to a coffee roast
PHUKET: Each cup of coffee served at Hock Hoe Lee has more than 50 years of history steeped inside. It’s a taste to be savored. Three generations of one Phuket family have worked tirelessly to create the coffee served up today at Hock Hoe Lee, which has shops in town and in Rawai. Back in 1958, when Chinese migrant Cheng…
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Phuket Books: Present at the creation
PHUKET: Carole King is a 70-year-old grandmother with four adult children from two of her four husbands. At age 48, she took up with a 27-year-old actor and kept him for six years before swapping him for another younger man for another seven. She did this because she could. She is Carole King. For the 25 million people who bought…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Raise up your glasses (and your expectations)
PHUKET: Recently, the owner of the Wine Lovers wine shop in Chalong asked me to assist at a wine tasting with a different twist. Instead of comparing the merits of the wines, we were to compare the various merits of the wine glasses themselves – a “glass” tasting. Now, I am aware of the almost mystical properties that some glassware…
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Phuket Health: Doctor’s orders – eat dark chocolate
PHUKET: Scientists have known for a long time about the protective effects of this “magic food” on atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). I call it “magic food” because the full official name of the main component in dark chocolate is Theobroma Cocoa or “Food of God” – from the Greek words theo (God) and broma (drink). Supposedly, cocoa has been…
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Phuket Gardening: Taking the pisonia
PHUKET: THE Phuket Gazette is certainly living up to its status as an international newspaper. Bernard King from Auckland, New Zealand, no less, wonders if I can send him some pisonia seeds. He writes: “I am a disciple of growing tropical plants in a cool country. I have managed to grow a small mango tree that is bearing fruits. I…
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Phuket Lifestyle: APEC launches photo contest
PHUKET: THE Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat has extended an invitation to the region’s photographers to submit pictures that best capture the organization’s priorities. The photos should be inspired by four themes: trade and investment liberalization regional economic integration strengthening food security establishing reliable supply chains intensive cooperation to foster innovative growth These themes reflect the policy priorities that APEC…
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Phuket Gardening – Cavalcade of Cassias
PHUKET: With the tennis season in full swing, sports addicts are hitting the covers off yellow balls, or watching day-glo missiles hurtle over the net on TV. Yellow is, apparently, more visible than the conventional white of my tennis-playing days. Yet this most vibrant of colors has plenty of negative associations. Yellow has traditionally been the color of cowardice, a…
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Phuket Diving: Knowledge trumps beauty of ignorance: sea snakes edition
PHUKET: Not every dive in Phuket’s waters, but often enough, a diver comes across a critter that they become inexplicably and completely fascinated with. The vast majority of dive instructors and masters seem to have their own sea-animal fetishes – from blue dragons to mantis shrimps. They’re usually obscure choices that lean away from charismatic mega-fauna like sharks and mantas…
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Phuket Gardening: Another golden boy
PHUKET: “HELIOTROPISM” – now there’s a word to conjure with, but what does it mean? Don’t use big words if you don’t explain them. Well, for the uninitiated, heliotropism is a plant’s diurnal motion, its capacity to slowly and imperceptibly turn towards the sun. (Helios is the Greek sun god, trope means turn in Greek). By doing this, a plant…
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Phuket Lifestyle: A head start ahead of the rest
PHUKET: Saturday is usually a fun day for everyone. It’s the beginning of the weekend and most people are looking forward to spending time doing what they want to do, and being with the ones they love. Saturday, June 30 was an especially happy day for students of the HeadStart International School (HSIS). It wasn’t just a regular Saturday but…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Art Dinners designed to expose local artists
PHUKET: Michael Earle is an architect and local magazine publisher with a mission to expose and support Phuket’s local artists. “I moved to the island three years ago after working as an architect in Spain for many years. I immediately noticed a great number of interesting art galleries operated mainly by local Thai artists in Phuket Town. They were not…
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Thai Gallery – Patima Khunpromkessara
PHUKET: Troubles in the southern provinces of Thailand are real and constant. Political unrest results in a spate of bombings, taking the lives of many and the problems look set to continue. Born and raised in Yala, Patima Khunpromkessara remembers just the opposite. “It was a neat little town. Do you know that we have a town plan similar to…
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Phuket Property: Crime and punishment in paradise
PHUKET: The tragic murder of an Australian travel agent in Kata recently has created a hailstorm of calls for action from both public and private sectors. There is little doubt that over the past few years a steady increase in crime and a straining infrastructure has thrust the island headlong into a self-induced, perfect storm. It’s easy to jump on…
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Phuket Entertainment: Impaling history
PHUKET: Film-makers love revising history to suit a story. Some, such as Oliver Stone, weave their fabrications so subtly into the weft and warp of historical accuracy that they can become instant conspirators. Others, such as Quentin Tarantino, strip history down to its underpants and strap a silly hat on its head, before shooting it, blowing it up and, just…
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Looking Back: A brief history of Thai-US relations
PHUKET: Diplomatic relations between Thailand and the United States date back to the early 19th century. The United States was founded only a few decades earlier, when thirteen of Great Britain’s colonies in the Americas declared their independence on July 2, 1776. The USA was a young nation, more concerned with preserving its new found freedom than becoming a great…
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Phuket Gardening: Mellow yellow
PHUKET: Few other yellow flowers can compete with the golden opulence of a sunflower, chalice vine or allamanda in full bloom. But that does not lessen the value of less spectacular garden inhabitants. Take the galphimia or “shower of gold”, which is sometimes referred to as thryallis in books on gardening. To give it a human epithet, this small, compact…
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Phuket Property: Bricks and mortar won’t hold back the water
PHUKET: Speaking exclusively with the Phuket Gazette, Goetz Dienel, Managing Director of Thai-Dien Co Ltd, said demand for his company’s products and services is on the up due to an increase of technically-demanding projects across the country. Established in Phuket 17 years ago, Thai-Dien specializes in cutting-edge building repair and reinforcement solutions. “We’ve done work for government facilities and institutions,…
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Phuket Lifestyle: The “Dean’ of Thai Silk
PHUKET: Fashion can seem like an enigma, its true meaning obscured by smoke and mirrors; a touch of sparkle here, a well established line there, and you’ve made the dress of the season – though no one quite knows how. What is trendy today is later passé and might be the trend again someday – 30 years down the road.…
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Phuket Life: Young scribes come of age
PHUKET: Koji Maehara is a rare gem. Born in Tokyo on December 26, 2000 to parents who are both Japanese and non-native English speakers, he was taught to speak English before he learned Japanese.Although his mum does speak English as a second language, he usually speaks Japanese with her at home, but always English with his brother.His proficiency in English…
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First Person: The merit in being an organ donor
PHUKET: Many Thai people who believe in reincarnation think that donating an organ after death may affect their body in the next life, such as being reborn without the organ they donated.Making merit is a good thing, but to help to extend other people’s lives is the biggest merit of all. Take my life, for example.I was 20 years old…
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Thai Gallery – Dr Wiwat Seetamanotch
PHUKET: DR Wiwat Seetamanotch has a quick analytical mind, matched only by his quick actions. He hardly ever leaves things undone and there seems to be no ‘pending’ tray on his office desk. Perhaps this explains why crisis management appeals to him, and why, in terms of personality at least, he appears to be the best man for the job.…
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Phuket Comedy: Laugh away the low season blues
PHUKET: Stand-up comedy comes back to the island this Wednesday when three star comedians take to the stage at the Holiday Inn Resort Patong for a night of fun. Hailing from Canada, the UK and Scotland, respectively, Paul Myrehaug, Jeremy O’Donnell and Brian Higgins are currently touring Asia, performing not only in Phuket, but also Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok.…
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Phuket Books: Heartbreak’s hardest road
PHUKET: Recently I reviewed a pair of books – The Lifeboat and The Starboard Sea – by a pair of first-time female novelists that were competent enough in terms of prose and plot but sorely lacking in characterization. In a word, they lacked heart. Scott O’Connor’s Untouchable (Tyrus Books, Blue Ash, Oklahoma, 2011, 381pp) is chock full of heart: that…
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Phuket Life: Given the chance of his young life
PHUKET: Imagine that you are thirteen years old and school just isn’t your thing. Your mother lives with her new boyfriend in another province and you’ve been in trouble quite a bit lately – understandably so. Now imagine that amidst this unstable period of your early life, someone offers you the chance that many poor Thai boys dream of –…
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Phuket Health: The truth about dengue fever
PHUKET: A prominent Phuket doctor has warned residents to protect themselves from dengue fever, also known as “break-bone fever”, by removing all sources of stagnant water from around their homes and minimizing exposure to mosquito bites. According to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), dengue (pronounced den’ gee) is caused by any one of four closely related dengue viruses.…
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Phuket Property: Quality homes in a nice part of town
PHUKET: On the verge of closing sales for Eva Town Suan Luang, a city-park housing project in the heart of Phuket Town, Eva Group is taking reservations for the last 10 units.Sales for the 250 million baht housing development opened in December last year. With the project now 85% sold out, the developer doesn’t think it will be long before…
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Phuket Gardening: Changing from red to amber
PHUKET: The light has changed to amber. Time to stop dawdling, to drive on, and seek shrubs of a different hue. But since there are red plants aplenty that have escaped our scrutiny, here are some we should have noticed on our travels. The most stupendous scarlet bloomer of all is the flame tree (delonix regia). Right now, one is…
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Phuket Life: Operating Phuket’s new incinerator
PHUKET: After a long wait, with a few false starts, the second trash incinerator at the Saphan Hin waste management facility became fully operational recently. The incinerator, which was expected to be fully operational during May, encountered technical problems during its trial run and repairs needed to be carried out. The timing was unfortunate. At the same time, the older…
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Phuket Lifestyle: C’mon light my fire
PHUKET: The smell of gasoline lingers on your hands after the flames have been extinguished, and the performance is over. But the smell itself is a little addictive, like a woman’s perfume on the pillow of an empty bed – a reminder of a past flame. A very talented busker (street performer) once took me aside and gave me a…
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