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 Where to shop for sports gear at Jungceylon Phuket
Phuket might be known for its beaches and nightlife, but the island also has a thriving fitness culture. From Muay Thai gyms to beach runs at sunrise, staying active is part of daily life for many who live here (as...
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Phuket’s Tri Tim primed for LPT success
PHUKET: I’ve spent the last few issues telling you about what I’ve achieved so far in my personal odyssey of health and fitness leading me to my goal of completing the Laguna Phuket Triathlon on November 27. With only weeks to go before race day dawns, maybe now its time to talk about what actually goes into learning – from…
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Phuket Youth Acoustic contest
PHUKET: Life Home Project Foundation, the Phuket organization that cares for children and women affected by HIV, in association with Phuket Indy Market, Limelight Avenue and Phuket Provincial Public Health Office announced that they will be holding the AIDS Project – Acoustic Contest, a youth acoustic band contest, through November with the final to be held on World AIDS day,…
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Phuket Gardening – Thriving in stormy weather
PHUKET: Recently I enjoyed a visit to a Phuket spa with a South African couple who had come to live on the island. They pointed out that while many of the flowering shrubs are the same as in Cape Town or Johannesburg, they seem to be much less colorful in Phuket. There are reasons for this relative dearth of blooming.…
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Phuket’s corals and conscience now cleaner
PHUKET: The sandy seafloor suddenly gave way to the wall of wrecked coral skirting Coral Island. The forest of dead branching corals, which should have been a Mecca of sea life, was a ghost town. The site was haunting, but further along the reef, the barren coral landscape gave way to signs of life as a volunteer dive team carefully…
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Phuket Property: The Privilege Residences Patong
PHUKET: The Privilege Residences Patong is the sister project of successful luxury condominium project The Bay Cliff. After the first project sold out, Bay Cliff Development decided to launch another condominium development and take the definition of ‘luxury living’ to the next level.“Since we launched The Privilege Residences Patong in October last year, we have sold about 30 per cent…
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Phuket Lifestyle: Suey Restaurant, a beautiful fusion
PHUKET: Call me old-fashioned, but I have misgivings about so-called “fusion food”. I like my food the way it’s cooked traditionally: no added milk in my tom yum goong please, and I am very wary of mango sticky rice in the form of a shake. All that changes when a friend invites me to dine at Suey Restaurant in Phuket…
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Phuket Lifestyle – TEFL Courses: the good, the bad and the cowboys
PHUKET: Phuket has no shortage of expats who want to live and work here. Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is a popular way to achieve this goal, which means that the competition for these jobs are fierce and wages are somewhat lower than those in other urban areas of Thailand. One way to improve the odds of finding…
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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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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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Hats on for charity at Phuket’s Andara Resort
PHUKET: The Melbourne Cup, the horse race that stops a nation [Australia], was celebrated in style at Phuket’s Andara Resort & Villas, in Kamala, on November 1. Anticipation was high before the race, and once the gates opened guests cheered for their favorites with Dunaden winning the Melbourne Cup in a thrilling photo finish, one of the closest finishes in…
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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 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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Phuket Lifestyle – going it alone
PHUKET: Canine separation anxiety – part of the joy of having a dog is the tight bond we enjoy with them. However, separation or isolation anxiety in dogs can be a huge problem and, somewhat ironically, is a key reason that many dogs end up in animal shelters or abandoned on the streets. But one of the bigger problems is…
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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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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’s Central Festival to expand food zone
PHUKET: Central Festival Phuket will open a number of new food and beverage outlets in its Dining and Bar Circle Zone in December, its management has announced. Central Festival Phuket General Manager Wilaiporn Pitimanaaree told the Phuket Gazette that several new outlets would join the successful Wine Connection restaurant in mid-December as part of a relaunch for the zone, which…
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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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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 – 3 legs, 2 heads,1 aim
PHUKET: Gazette columnist Russell Distance Russell (the Dog Whisperer) and his close friend DJ Jay “Le Shark” Walker are set to become even closer this December as they intend to spend 24 hours strapped together while walking 100.31 kilometers. The three legged charity walk aims to raise funds for the Phuket Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and achieve worldwide fame and…
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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 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 to put its hat on for the Melbourne Cup
PHUKET: Celebration of Australia’s premiere thoroughbred horse race, the Melbourne Cup, is in sight again with Phuket punters under starters orders and waiting for the off at the Andara Resort in Kamala on November 1. This is the second year that the Soi Dog Foundation has organised another prestigious paddock gathering to mark the “race that stops two nations”, when…
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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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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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