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 How one hospital visit in Thailand could cost more than your whole trip
Thailand is a favourite spot for travellers who want to enjoy more while spending less. From cheap street food to low-cost hotels and fun attractions, it’s easy to stretch your budget here. But there’s one thing many people don’t think...
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Phuket Property: Organic resort nets new awards
PHUKET: Accolades continue to pour down on Thanyamundra, the unique five-star organic resort perched upon the fringes of Thailand’s most ancient rainforest. Thanyamundra has been elevated to the elite ranks of hotels and resorts included on DestinAsian magazine’s prestigious Luxe List, just weeks after being voted by agoda.com as one of Asia’s Top Three Eco-Boutiques. Agoda also honored the resort…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Count Snape gets his teeth into opera
PHUKET: Dressed in a flowing black cape, a certain Mr Snape mingled with the New Year crowds in Patong on New Year’s Eve, but Andrew Snape has no relation to the character in Harry Potter. Yes, they are both teachers, wear black capes and have English accents. But “Count Snape”, as Andrew calls himself when dressed as a vampire, performs…
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In memory of Bjorn Täckmann
PHUKET: Bjorn Täckmann, an important member of the dive community in Phuket and Thailand, passed away on January 6 in a hospital in Surat Thani. He had been diagnosed with cancer last year. Mr Täckmann started diving in 1983 and moved from Denmark to Thailand in 1993 as a PADI Dive Instructor. Since then he has ushered thousands into the…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Bottom time is now family time
PHUKET: Everyone can learn to dive, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Diving is like everything worth doing, there are obstacles to overcome. Sometimes those obstacles are mental, sometimes they are physical and sometimes they are both. For Emil Engahl aged 10 it was no different. For years Emil has been coming to Phuket with his parents Mette and Lars…
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Phuket Property Briefs: Kata Group; Banyan Tree; Thai Smiles
Kata Group opens Khao Lak Resort in NovemberA new Greater Phuket resort called The Sands Khao Lak By Katathani will open this coming November. Katathani Resorts have a well known flagship property on Phuket’s west coast and the upscale villa resort The Shore at Kata Noi. Francois Huet leaves Banyan TreeOne of the island’s best known hotel faces, Francois Huet,…
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Phuket Property: Sansiri set to invest heavily this year
PHUKET: Residential developer Sansiri has earmarked 24 billion baht to launch 44 projects worth 46bn baht this year and to buy land for more projects next year. “This year we will expand our products to cover all market segments, including units priced lower than 2 million baht and over 10 million baht. This will stress our number one quality brand…
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Phuket Gardening: I say paw-paw, you say papaya
PHUKET: When I was young, papayas (pronounced papaiya) were considered very exotic, rarities that occasionally came along with other fresh fruit – mangoes and kiwi fruit, at the end of an expensive dinner. Here papayas (stress on the last syllable please) are the most available of fruit. In Isarn, a meal without green shredded papayas in the mix is almost…
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Phuket’s Simon Star Cabaret opens with a flourish
PHUKET: Simon Star Cabaret, Phuket’s third ladyboy extravaganza, opened with two performances and a lavish feast at the Phuket Orchid Gardens & Thai Village, behind Phuket Rajabhat University in Rassada. Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which was also attended by Phuket MP Anchalee Vanich-Thepabutr and other dignitaries. They were joined by Phuket Simon Cabaret chairperson Wirat…
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Phuket Lifestyle: First Green Globe for Phuket resorts
PHUKET: Mövenpick Resort & Spa Karon Beach Phuket recently achieved the Green Globe Certification, an internationally accepted standard for sustainability and the first Green Globe certified Hotel & Resort in Phuket, Thailand. The award highlights Mövenpick Resort & Spa Karon Beach Phuket’s commitment to conducting business in an environmentally, socially, and culturally responsible and more sustainable manner. “We believe that…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Cables and canopies
PHUKET: Zipping along with the sea on one side and forest on the other is something residents and visitors do everyday on the roads interlinking Phuket’s beaches. Now they can do the same thing while flying over 40 meters in the air, propelled by nothing more than gravity. The island’s newest adventure attraction opens a door into Phuket’s often overlooked…
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Phuket History: From tin to tourism
PHUKET: Compared to industries such as tin and rubber, tourism is relatively new in Phuket, although its growth over the past few decades has been phenomenal. The island has come a long way from the backpacker’s haven it once was and today has found its place amongst the world’s leading tourist destinations. Its white sand beaches and top class hotels…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Teachers taught ‘trauma release’ exercises
PHUKET: Children at Yaowawit school in Phuket Town are now undergoing a new therapy to release trauma by participating in specific morning exercises. The trauma exercises were introduced to teachers and a few children at a one-hour workshop held recently. The workshop was run by Christine Von Aufsess, a psychotherapist from Germany, who was visiting her son, a volunteer at…
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Phuket Lifestyle: One night in Siam
PHUKET: For anyone interested in the cultural diversity and complex history of Thailand, an evening at the new Siam Niramit complex on the by-pass road, near Phuket Town, will be an enlightening and enjoyable experience. There are three different attractions to be seen. At the entrance, a Thai temple fair is being built around the popular crafts and games played…
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Phuket Lifestyle: The Yankees are coming!
PHUKET: Patong’s already wide selection of international cuisines just got a little larger, with the opening of its first New York-style delicatessen. Big Bill’s Deli, which officially opened for business in early December, is run by Dokmai “Flower” Khamkheukong, long-time companion of one of Phuket’s one-of-a-kind expats: William Sawyer. Better known as “Big Bill” or “Large William”, Mr Sawyer has…
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Czech beauties make a splash in Phuket
PHUKET: Fourteen finalists in the Miss Czech Republic Beauty Pageant 2012 who were busy doing photo shoots in Phuket and around Phang Nga Bay this weekend fly out of Phuket today. The beauties, who landed in Phuket last Wednesday, have spent the past five days taking part in publicity activities carefully orchestrated by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). On…
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Phuket Books: A short but happy life
PHUKET: The Spanish novelist Susana Fortes has won many literary awards and her latest novel entitled Waiting for Robert Capa (HarperCollins, New York, 2011, 201pp) is set to be made into a film by director Michael Mann. On the book cover is a photograph of a slender blond woman in beret and military fatigues crouched asleep upon a road marker…
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Phuket Property: Drilling for a response
PHUKET: Groundwater drilling operators have not received any response from the government to help solve the conflict with Natural Resources and Environment (NRE)’s. Udomsak Naddasena, managing director of Surat Badaal, a groundwater drilling service company, said, “We have not received anything back since I handed the official letters to Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha and the senate Pol Gen Sunthorn Saikwan,…
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Phuket property market is strong despite floods
PHUKET: Samma Kitsin, director-general of the Real Estate Information Centre (REIC), said recently “The floods last year are having a lingering effect on home-buyers’ decision-making this year.” But demand for homes in tourist destinations, especially Phuket, is still strong, according to a survey by the Agency for Real Estate Affairs (AREA). Samma said most home-buyers who are considering projects in…
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Phuket Property Watch: Stand up and deliver
PHUKET: Winter has hit the northern hemisphere and somehow the “Occupy Wall Street” movement looks to have lost momentum. Was it the chilly weather, or fractured interests of an aggravated monster with no head proverbially chasing its own tail? Round and round we go, and where we land, no one knows. It’s like bursting into a crowded room and shouting…
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Hotel industry keeps growing in Phuket
PHUKET: The hotel and retail businesses in Phuket grew significantly and most property firms expanded their investments in the province, according to Knight Frank Phuket. Among the new projects are Patong Promenade, developed by Baan Sukhothai at Patong Beach Co Ltd, on Bangla Road. It will be a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, with room for 150 retail shops over…
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Phuket Media Watch: Will Phuketians eschew meat?; Supalai eyes Phuket
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Phuket Lifestyle: Turning away from meat? Phuket Gazette / The Nation PHUKET: More and more meat eaters are turning their backs on steaks and even fish in favor of healthy vegetarian fare as part of their personal healthcare regime. However, many complain there are not many…
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Phuket Gardening: Stating the bleedin’ obvious
PHUKET: How often do we overlook the obvious? How many times have you gone shopping in Phuket City, or even to Bangkok, for an essential purchase, then discovered that you could have found exactly what you wanted just down the road? Maybe it’s just me.I’ve even found myself deciding to take holidays outside my adopted home country of Thailand and…
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Special Report: Caring for the unknown dead of Phuket
PHUKET: The unidentified body of a Caucasian male, recovered from the sea south of Phuket at the beginning of November, was finally laid to rest on December 14. The red-haired foreigner, dressed only in a black singlet and gray shorts, was discovered by the crew of Thai fishing boat Sor Naja as it sailed between Racha Yai Island and Koh…
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Phuket Property Watch: For better or for worse
PHUKET: I remember sitting in a restaurant quite a few years ago with a brief flame who was knock-out-dead gorgeous. Without a doubt she was out of my league. Chit chat conversation was the rule of engagement here, but suddenly I found myself surrounded by a wall of silence as this was a decade before the iPhone and the age…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Genesis turns out a revelation
PHUKET: When I was asked to review a new production on Soi Bangla, I was a little nervous as I have yet to learn how to gracefully fend off the many invitations from very lovely and much younger Thai ladies (or ladyboys) who suggest I spend a few hours in their company. What a surprise then when I approached the…
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Phuket Lifestyle: No reservations – the life of a hotel English teacher
PHUKET: Tucked away on the idyllic white sand beach of Kata Noi, a very chilled out and softly-spoken Jacob Ritter works as a communications specialist and English teacher for the Katathani Beach Resort. Flanked by palm trees and with an ocean sunset behind him, Ritter sat down with the Gazette to share his insights into the luxurious life of a…
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Phuket Lifestyle: The perfect steak out
PHUKET: In this so-called “New Age” of raw food fads, organic salads and whole grain sustainability sometimes it is necessary to go all out for what all macho real-red-meat- eaters really crave – a great big juicy steak. We hear there is a new steak venue on the island and as part of our New Year celebrations my male colleague…
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Phuket Books: The Boy Wonder’s sad decline
PHUKET: The 1960s were Tom Wolfe’s decade, the stage upon which the founder of the New Journalism strutted with The Electric Kool Aid Test. The 1970s belonged to Hunter Thompson and the Gonzo journalism of Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles. Wolfe eventually turned to turgid meta-fiction and Thompson to shameless potboilers. But the 1980s saw the rise of P.J.…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Take the art – leave the real antiques here
PHUKET: A dispute about the export of art and religious objects between the Thalang National Museum and a Phuket shop was tentatively set to rest after a meeting on December 15. The museum’s concerns that there was a risk of valuable national treasures being illegally exported from Thailand was looked into during the meeting headed by Vice Phuket Governor Somkiet…
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Phuket Gardening: Growing plants indoors and outdoors in water
PHUKET: When I first came to Thailand, I was, like everyone else from colder climes, astounded by the sheer range of plant life. Even more amazing was the way nature not only coped, but actually thrives in these hot, humid conditions, some of which seemed downright alien: smoggy air, poor soil, periods with either burning sun or bucketing rain. The…
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