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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Phuket Books – I am woman, hear me laugh
PHUKET: Those eminent contemporary philosophers Jerry Lewis and Christopher Hitchens have advanced the proposition that women lack a sense of humor. This notion can be shot down in two words: Tina Fey. The former Second City improp trouper, head writer for Saturday Night Live and creator and star of her own sitcom 30 Rock, has now produced her first book,…
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Phuket’s culinary arts festival
PHUKET: North Phuket Resorts will host its second Culinary Arts Festival of the year from December 2 to 4 on Mai Khao Beach to celebrate the culinary experiences and attractions of this unspoiled area of the island. Located just minutes away from Phuket International Airport on Mai Kao Beach, North Phuket Resorts hosts this festival twice each year, with the…
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Pearl of Thai reggae at Phuket’s Nai Yang Beach Club
PHUKET: Reggae fans can start preparing for a magical evening by the sea on November 25 when The Beach Club in association with Indigo Pearl launch the 2011 Nai Yang Beach Party Grand Opening Season. Headlining this event will be the hugely popular Job2Do. Indigo Pearl is the title sponsor of this initial collaboration between the award winning resort and…
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Phuket’s sea gypsies gain ground
PHUKET: After decades of struggle, Phuket’s sea gypsies may soon be allowed back into their ancestral fishing waters.Sea gypsy communities for centuries lived freely off the abundant sea life in Andaman waters with an unyielding respect for the source of their nourishment and an innate commitment to environmental preservation. With industrial development, tourism growth, the creation of new technologies and…
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Phuket’s jet-skiers play good samaritans
PHUKET: In a humanitarian effort, 13 members of the Patong Jet Ski Club traveled from Phuket to the flooded regions in and near Bangkok where they used jet-skis to rescue more than 600 people and distribute emergency food rations to stranded victims who were unwilling to leave their homes. Somkid Kueanun, a 36-year-old Phuket native and head of both the…
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Phuket Books – A mission of madness
PHUKET: Every grade school student is familiar with the epic voyage (1497-1499) of Vasco da Gama from Portugal around the Horn of Africa to India. What they are not so familiar with is the gruesome tale of naval bombardments, sea battles, siege, sack, piracy and mass mutilations that would follow. Launched only five years after the first voyage of Columbus…
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Phuket Gardening – It’s all about looking pretty
PHUKET: In the next few weeks, this space will be devoted to small trees suitable for your Phuket garden. The distinction between small trees and large shrubs is a blurred one. So what are the differences between shrubs and small trees? Both are perennials and both live for a number of years, but neither is a herbaceous perennial, as are…
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Phuket film low-down: Just In Time for Timberlake
PHUKET: A sci-fi flick about immortality starring Justin Timberlake is out now. It’s not great; it’s not terrible – if you have time to spare, then give it a go.Tick, tick, tick – six years have passed since Andrew Niccol, writer of the Truman Show and director of Gattica, did a project of note so it’s about time he got…
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T minus five weeks for Royal Phuket Marina’s Tri Tim
PHUKET: Now in his 20th week of training for the Laguna Phuket Triathlon (which started off with just a walk around the block), Tim’s activity rate has built up slowly but surely to where he is now stronger, a lot fitter and 12kg lighter. Although he continues to improve, it has not always been smooth sailing. The last four weeks…
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Phuket Lifestyle – Nail Art, fashion at your fingertips
PHUKET: Nothing completes a look like a great manicure. From subtle and chic to striking and bold, your nails say a lot about your style and character, and they can often make or break your look. As with any fashion accessory, the quality of the product should be the determining factor when making your decision. To ensure that you receive…
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Dining delight at D Phuket
PHUKET: D Phuket is a relative newcomer to the island’s restaurant scene. Opened last year by Mrs Panarat “Oom” Jairakpakde and her husband Suvich Prechaharn, it has already become a focal point for diners who appreciate authentic central Thai cooking. D Phuket’s concept is clear – Thai food “Bangkok style”. The word Bangkok when used in the same sentence as…
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Phuket lifestyle – Around the world with solar power
PHUKET: The MS Turanor PlanetSolar, the first solar-powered boat to attempt a circumnavigation of the globe, arrived at Phuket’s Ao Po Marina, en route to the Indian Ocean and the final legs of its 57,000-kilometer expedition. The voyage began on September 27, 2010 in Monaco and has been mapped with stopovers along the equator, where the boat can exploit the…
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Phuket Gardening – don’t be bamboozled by big bamboo
PHUKET: Like the coconut, bamboo is an indispensable part of Thai life. Essentially a lover of hot, monsoon climates, most of the genus Bambusa, or giant bamboos, come from the Asian region. Giant bamboo is used as a building material, as scaffolding or ladders, as a source of mats, and as a key ingredient in Thai cuisine, especially the huge…
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Female sleuth equal among Phuket police
PHUKET: Captain Nucharee Longkaew is the only female police detective in Phuket. The single, 27-year-old native of Nakhon Sri Thammarat has been working for the investigations department of Phuket City Police since May of this year and is also working on a master’s degree in law. Here she talks about the life lessons she has learned and what it is…
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Paul Poole to market Phuket’s TSLC
PHUKET: Thanyapura Sports and Leisure Club (TSLC) in Phuket have announced that leading independent marketing consultants firm Paul Poole Co Ltd (South East Asia) will manage all sponsorship and marketing operations for the sports facility in 2012 and 2013. The Sponsorship Experts team, led by Managing Director Paul Poole, will work with TSLC to provide brand and business alignments for…
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Phuket Lifestyle – Helping to save Phang Nga Bay
PHUKET: More than 200 men, women and children gathered recently at pristine Phang Nga Bay to release 200,000 baby shrimp into the sea to enhance the local ecosystem. Phang Nga Bay is a marine conservation zone that encompasses Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi territory. The Phang Nga Bay ecosystem includes mangroves, coral reefs, sea grass, shrimp, squid, molluscs, small fish…
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Phuket Lifestyle – SSI brings dive training online
PHUKET: Scuba Schools International (SSI) is the second largest school-based diving certification agency in the world, and it’s growing at a rapid rate. It’s one of only two diving agencies that holds a global ISO rating, it has been training divers for over 40 years, and it’s the only diving agency that offers free online training. Operating in over 130…
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Phuket Lifestyle – Book reviews
PHUKET: In 2001, Alexandra Fuller wrote the best memoir of the decade: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. This was a funny, tender, brutal, harrowing, lyrical account of her childhood growing up on a farm in Rhodesia on the border of Mozambique in the middle of a war between white farmers and black insurgents. She followed this with a…
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Phuket Gardening -a sticky note for gardeners
PHUKET: Despite its unfortunate name, pisonia is a most unusual and spectacular plant. It’s unusual because it’s grown as a garden shrub or small tree entirely for its distinctive foliage, which is sometimes a brilliant light green, but often a luminous golden yellow. It’s spectacular because no other shrub has leaves of quite the same hue. An unlikely member of…
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Phuket History – The legend of Wat Pranang Sang
PHUKET: Wat Pranang Sang is the oldest surviving temple on Phuket Island. It has a long and fascinating history, serving as an important center of Buddhism for the townspeople of Thalang for centuries. When the Burmese invaded the island in 1785, the temple served as a rallying point for Siamese soldiers who gathered to defend the town. The history of…
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Phuket cinema – A film that makes you laugh and cry
PHUKET: Leave it to writer/producer Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express) and actor Seth Rogan (of the same films) to make a movie about cancer that is full of hilarious, raunchy comedy and still manages to possess heartfelt sincerity. 50/50 is a rare kind of film. Its themes of comedy and cancer play out much like a sickness does – calming…
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Phuket Gardening – Keeping the flies at bay
PHUKET: As gardeners, we are all susceptible to mosquito bites every morning and evening in Phuket. Unfortunately, there are few entirely effective natural repellents against the dreaded mosquito bite of Aedes aegyptiae, the mosquito that can spread dengue fever and other maladies. DEET, the chemical ingredient in most sprays, certainly is effective. A high intake of garlic may also help.…
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Have Thai house, will travel to Phuket
PHUKET: The concept of a mobile home inspires imagery of rectangular, pre-fabricated structures huddled in a trailer park, but in Kata a unique teak wood, Thai-style home exists which falls into this category of movable accommodation. Built over 100 years ago in Ayutthaya, it was purchased by Mrs Pranee Prayot-amornrakul, 57, from Bangkok, who moved to Phuket 22 years ago.…
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Phuket Lifestyle – Cheap glasses a sorry sight
PHUKET: Everyone wants to look good in their new shades, but there are some important health issues and practical points to think about before you run out and buy those designer glasses that make you look absolutely fabulous. The main health reason for wearing sunglasses is to shield your eyes from harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays found in natural sunlight. Overexposure…
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Phuket Gardening – Vulgar, but varied
PHUKET: The humble coleus was one of the first houseplants to become generally available in Europe after WWII. In those days, it came in relatively few variations, but it has since been hybridized so extensively that it now has what may be the largest range of foliage colors of any plant. Some people may regard it as a bit vulgar,…
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Phuket Books: ‘State of Wonder’ by Ann Patchett
PHUKET: Ann Patchett’s seventh novel State of Wonder (Harper Collins, New York, 2011, 353pp) made a big splash upon publication, with many critics comparing it to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This is nonsense. Comparing Kurtz, the cruel conqueror of an African tribe in the heart of the Congo, to Dr Annick Swenson, an elderly, eccentric and cleverly mendacious medical…
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Tri Tim conquers Phuket’s Naithon hills
PHUKET: Tim Haddon, Director of Golf at Laguna Phuket Golf Club, is an underdog who has undertaken the challenge of participating in the Laguna Phuket Triathlon (LPT) 2011, which will take place in Phuket on 27 November. Here, ‘Tri Tim’ tells us what it’s like to be training for his first triathlon. His story needs to be read in the…
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Phuket Comedy: A funny thing happened on the way to Patong
PHUKET: An Englishman, an Irishman and a Kiwi walk into a hotel… well, they will do on October 19 for the Punchline Comedy night at the Holiday Inn Resort, Patong Beach, Phuket. After a four month break, the kings of Phuket comedy return with a truly international show with the three gifted funny men coming from Ireland, New Zealand, and…
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Phuket Gardening – Between a rock and a hard place
PHUKET: Since we all live on Phuket island, seaside plants deserve a bit more attention here. Like the screw pine and sea vine, there are other plants that also stubbornly refuse to lie down when inundated by seawater. Take the casuarina tree. Although this tropical pine normally spreads its extensive roots on slightly higher ground, it still grows close enough…
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Phuket Gardening – Covering a lot of ground
PHUKET: The many virtues of ground cover plants were have already been discussed: their contrasting textures and colors; their capacity to act as a retaining layer by protecting the topsoil during tropical downpours, or as a natural mulch that absorbs much of the sun’s heat and inhibits the growth of weeds. Most importantly, they cover bare and unsightly areas. No…
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