City Buzz
This restaurant, believe it or not, is by the moat. It offers a large menu of Thai and international food that will satisfy even the pickiest of eaters. Vegetarians will be gratified to find a vast selection of options including banana flower salad, mushroom satay with peanut sauce and pumpkin curry, veggie dishes are priced on average between 50 and 60 baht each. The English and Thai couple who o … Continued
What’s Happening?
• ARTS & EXHIBITIONS Now – 16th August DIVERSITY OF IMAGINATION @ CMU Art Centre An exhibition of paintings inspired by the artist’s imaginations and thoughts, by Suwatchai Tubtim, Pongsiri Kiddee, Nirot Jarungjitwitwat, Kreingkrai Kulphan and Suwat Boontham. 10th – 24th August THAI – OKINAWA EXCHANGE ART EXHIBITION @ CMU Art Centre To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Faculty of Fine … Continued
Clients’ Spot
Thailand’s largest barbecue retailer has now opened a shop right here in Chiang Mai. With well known stores all around Australia and a headquarters in Bangkok that delivers worldwide, their new shop in Chiang Mai sells over 500 types of barbecues and tons of barbecue accessories at reasonable prices. The Barbecue Store has been awarded a special honour known as the Aust Cham Award, given by the hi … Continued
City Vibes
Artist: UsherAlbum: Looking 4 MyselfRating: If US ‘R&B’ artist Usher Raymond has anything to offer the music world it certainly isn’t thought provoking album titles. Looking 4 Myself follows his 2010 album, Raymond Vs Raymond, which was hot on the heels of 2008’s Here I Stand. So apart from talking about himself, singing about himself and focusing entire albums around the concept of the signif … Continued
Chiang Mai on WWW
www.TokyoVenderHotel.com Are you in need of an exciting yet cultural weekend break in Chiang Mai? Does your accommodation have to be modern, fully equipped and in the heart of the city? Tokyo Vender Hotel is within walking distance from the trendy Nimmanhaemin Road, Kad Suan Kaew shopping mall and only a tuk-tuk or red bus ride to city’s focal point Tha Pae Gate, many temples, tourist attractions … Continued
Your Say
• Incorrect Assertions about The Dow Chemical Company in your July issue In his opinion piece about Dow Chemical Company and its support of the Olympics in your July issue, Mr. Fawthrop fails to mention the facts about Dow Chemical’s culpability in the 1984 disaster at Bhopal, India. In truth, that plant was owned by Union Carbide, not Dow Chemical Co. In 1984, at the time of the disaster, the pl … Continued
The Life of Wine
Wine tastings are great, aren’t they? Not just because they involve drinking wine, which is always fantastic, but they make the act of getting drunk more classy and legitimate than popping out to a bar and getting spanked on Chang. Saying “I’m off to a wine tasting, dear” has a far nicer ring to it than “I’m off down the pub for lager and darts with Terry and the boys, don’t wait up.” The end resu … Continued
Community Services
01 Informal Northern Thai Group Tuesday, August 14: “Balloon Culture in Thailand” by Yut Wanichanond. For further information, please call 053 117 319 or [email protected] 02 Nicotine Anonymous Want to stop smoking? It works! Meetings on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 1 p.m. at the 7 Fountains, Huay Kaew Road. For more information please call Earl 086 194 6300, Peter 087 145 9655. 03 AA group I … Continued
Fashion Frenzy
It’s hard to decide whether Thai fashion is somewhatconfused or simply genius. Hearing about wacky new fashion trends around town,we decided to delve into the mysterious world of Thai fashion, which todayseems to consist of animal prints, detachable collars, and fruit headbands. Thetrends seem to align with Korea and Japan’s latest, and the young Thais arestrutting them in style (with the girls te … Continued
This is Thailand
1. I’ve been renting for too long in Thailand, please can you tell me how to go about property buying? Mo (Intern): I found Rodney Waller’s book ‘A complete guide to buy a property in Thailand’, a useful overview of the subject of buying property in Thailand. Basically foreigners can buy and own condominiums, according to the Condominium Act 2008 such as villas, pool villas, apartments penthouses, … Continued
Editorial
Like most Thai people, I am not a walker. We hop onto our Honda Dreams, or in my case, Honda Jazz, to go to the Seven Eleven three hundred metres away. Laziness? Sure. Convenience? Well, the store is supposed to be one of convenience, so I suppose a mode of transport could enhance said convenience. Whatever the reason, urban Thais, unlike their many foreign counterparts, are not great walkers. I h … Continued
If Music be The Food of Love
…then they better be more careful in shops about what they are playing. We’d been paying some bills and Mrs. D decided the best way of dealing with the emotional trauma of parting with lots of money was to buy a new handbag. Despite my protests of this causing more filthy lucre to disappear, I was dragged round the shops, complaining all the way. Things picked up when we reached the bag section … Continued
It’s Not Just ABC: the Politics of Teaching English in Thailand
In 2007, Bangkok Post reporter Erika Fry wanted to see how easy it was to fake being an English teacher in Thailand. Her resulting article, ‘Thailand’s School Daze’, encapsulates all of the little horror stories we’ve heard of faked resumes, careless school administrators, and overcrowded classrooms. After contacting an employment agency on Khao San Road, Fry found herself in a classroom of 50-som … Continued
Les Restaurants Francais
The French know how to cook. Luckily for us they also seem to like living in Chiang Mai and a number of French restaurants have opened up in recent years to offer us a variety of French flavours. From dizzyingly high end dining to the more rustic, check them out. Lapin does simple French and Italian homemade style fare. The prices are very reasonable as are the wine rates. On the menu is a list of … Continued
Welcome to the Jungle
Recently, I was taken about 60km north of Chiang Mai to explore the jungle, to see the wilderness, and to pray that I wouldn’t be eaten alive by giant bugs. The guides promised to show me the pristine wilderness of the north and said I would be the first farang to see many of these sights and abseil down the ‘Great Limestone Waterfall’. While in the jungle I saw the sights, heard the sounds, and s … Continued
Brothers in Peace: veterans of foreign war
Being born over ten years after the Vietnam War, my impression of this significant historical event is a collage of black and white images of long haired flare-wearers in anti-war protests, as well as the film The Deer Hunter, which I watched with my Dad. And of course, I cannot forget the harrowing pictures of Agent Orange victims I saw in a museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Whilst researching for an a … Continued
Diet Pill Delirium
Growing up an overweight teenager in Thailand, where most Thai girls are skinny and petite, hasn’t done wonders to my self-esteem. I wondered if there was something wrong with me; some genetic curse I could blame, some mistake I had made and karma decided to plump up my thighs. But then I wondered…Maybe there was something wrong with the girls who had managed to maintain a size zero their entire … Continued
The French Connection
Honorary Consuls, like the rest of us, come in all shapes and sizes; Thomas Baude, the Honorary French Consul since 1995, happens to come in a particularly elevated package. Towering above his consular counterparts at official receptions, typically decked out in his dapper blue and white pinstripe jacket and with his moustache quivering in humour, Thomas Baude is a bon vivant whose irreverence alw … Continued
Beach Life
Nothing screams summer like a beach holiday…(Well, we are officially in the monsoon season, but it is summer somewhere in the world, and it certainly is on the islands.) For us mountain-bound bouquetins, a trip to the azure seas of the south is an especially precious treat, and with direct flights to both Phuket and Samui from Chiang Mai, you can now have white sand between your toes quicker tha … Continued