City Buzz
Grab some of your best girlfriends and treat yourselves to a day of shameless indulgence. Shopping, pampering, food and wine. Honey, it’s a woman’s world. De Iann Jewellery Tucked inside a lovely old Lanna Colonial building on Tha Pae Road, this handmade jewellery shop is stocked with glass cases full of high quality, candy-coloured adornments just waiting to be browsed and bought. Ranging in … Continued
Easy Rider: The Ups and Downs of Motorbikes in Chiang Mai
Hands up if you’ve ridden a motorbike in Thailand. Most foreigners have; whether you straddled a big boy to Pai when you first arrived as a backpacker, rented a Honda Dream by the month during your first year of living here or own one straight out. It’s cheap, you are generally not even asked for your driver’s licence and you can learn how to drive in five minutes…enough to think you know how, a … Continued
Daughters Unite: One Woman’s Fight Against Sex Trafficking
On Thanksgiving Day 2011, Alexa Pham was on her annual fall trip to Chiang Mai, checking in on her non-profit, Daughters Rising, when her Thai translator was called in by a farang in need of assistance. Alexa went with him, and walked right into a scene that would change her life. A 60-something European man was seated on a picnic table in front of a hotel in downtown Chiang Mai. Next to him sat N … Continued
City Talk
01 Sharon Fleming, 63 Teacher, American I want to visit Nepal because I want to see the Himalayas and do some trekking in the high mountain regions. I also want to get to know the culture in Nepal by spending some time in some of the villages. I would like to view some wildlife that is unique to that region of Asia by visiting Bardia Park, which is quite unaffected by tourism and changes to the e … Continued
From Chiang Mai to Hollywood: An Interview with Aria Inthavong
Aria Inthavong is a former Chiang Mai resident who left Thailand a few years ago to work as an actor and filmmaker in Los Angeles. In ‘Development Hell’, an upcoming comedic web series he co-created, Aria plays Damien Lockwood, a failed and arrogant director who plans to conquer Hollywood by staging a disastrous movie-musical project. With the imminent release of the first episode, I had an opport … Continued
Editorial
The Pope is alive. Long live the Pope! I had to change one word there from my May 2005 editorial opening sentence, excerpts of which I shall simply transfer here, being still relevant nearly eight years later. Not being Catholic, or religious, I did, to a certain extent, mourn the passing of Pope John Paul II. I didn’t know much about him, but I felt him; he was a presence. Like an avuncular Santa … Continued
City News Chiang Mai
CityNews, Chiang Mai’s first daily-updated English language online news site brought you the city’s biggest news events last month, as well as some hard-hitting feature stories that we hope you enjoyed. So, what happened in Chiang Mai last month? The weather changed, and so it was feared that as summer came there would be more pollution, but as I write this in mid-February it is looking like there … Continued
Clients’s Spot
Open for less than a year, River Market has already earned its place as one of Chiang Mai’s most beloved dining establishments. The huge Thai-Burmese colonial-style building, located on the shores of the Ping River just next to the iconic Iron Bridge, was built from 95% recycled wood using traditional construction methods, with a huge open garden in the front and a green space in the back by the r … Continued
The Community
Citylife is taking more and more of our regular content online so this will be the last month which Community Services will be found here in our magazine. Contact details for relevant community related services will still be available in our Directory. 01 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 i … Continued
Music Box
Matmos – The Marriage of True Minds This experimental electronic duo is a new discovery for me, and I’m wondering where I’ve been since they formed in San Francisco in the mid ‘90s. The sounds found on this record and previous ones are not of the pre-loaded synthesizer variety, but instead derived from recordings of various pulses, plinks, clicks, and clacks found in nature and everyday objects. W … Continued
This is Thailand
For those of you with questions regarding Thailand, Thai culture, history, tourism, laws, rules, food, nightlife, subcultures, dating; generally anything as long as it is relevant, we have a panel of experts ready to respond to all your enquiries. Email: hilary@chiangmaicitylife.com 1. Where can I watch foreign films on the cheap in Chiang Mai? Hilary: There are quite a few different places … Continued
What’s Happening?
Now – 20th March PHOTO THESIS EXHIBITION @ CMU Art Museum A photo exhibition by Fine Arts students at Chiang Mai University. 11th – 29th March ART THESIS EXHIBITION @ CMU Art Centre An art thesis exhibition presented by undergraduate students of Department of Printmaking, Painting and Sculpture from Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University. The opening will be on 11th March at 6 p.m. 2nd March … Continued
The Life of Wine
I think we can all agree that there is no more gorgeous a sound than that of a wine cork being removed from a bottle. Whether it’s the sudden explosion of a champagne cork or the squeaky sound of a corkscrew being twisted home followed by that most satisfying of pops, the sound is just heaven. Because the pressure in a bottle of champagne can be as much as 90 pounds per square inch (imagine the pr … Continued
Your Say
• Not Such Big Cheeses From your article The Illegal Entrepreneur [Jan 2013]: “The average virtual entrepreneur often spends in excess of 50,000 baht a month. It would not be remiss for them to claim that they actively contribute to the economy whilst taking nothing more from it than a gourmet coffee, a pad thai and a good time.” 50,000 baht a month doesn’t even come close … Continued
They Got Game: How Team Sports have Helped Expats Find Their Sense of Belonging
Meet some expats in Chiang Mai who have found a way to defy the friendless life -and even earn a six-pack while doing it. They’ve all joined a sports team; Cricket, Ultimate Frisbee, softball, rugby, ball hockey, football. In many cases, you don’t even have to be very good at sports!
Special Scoop: Chiang Mai International School
Imagine a school where students come from all over the world yet they cannot see the differences among each other. That is the general atmosphere at the Chiang Mai International School (CMIS), which prides itself on inclusion and acceptance of all foreign identities, along with continued excellence in education. CMIS is a private school that teaches students from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. Loca … Continued
Special Scoop: Elephant Parade House
Thailand is proud of its millennia-long association with the elephant. Its kings won battles on the backs of elephants, their victories celebrated in history books today; these gentle grey giants are used in PR and marketing to promote Thailand’s tourism worldwide; an elephant used to grace the national flag before being replaced with a more westernised design; one of Thailand’s most famous beers … Continued
Mommy is a Mermaid
When I was assigned to go interview the Belarusian mermaid that performs in the shark tank every weekend at the Chiang Mai Zoo Aquarium, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I found was a seemingly normal family, parents with two young children living in an upscale moo baan near Mae Hia. The spacious living room was strewn with toys, Jimmy Buffett memorabilia and a floppy grey bunny named Fluf … Continued
Street Eats
When you settle down somewhere, your life tends to take on certain patterns, especially when it comes to cuisine. My Chiang Mai food habit is a soup called yen ta fo. I discovered it in the first few weeks I was here, and happily ate it for months before being informed that the ‘black tofu’ I was so cheerfully munching away on was in fact congealed pig’s blood. Today when I order my favourite squi … Continued
Turning a New Page: Magic at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Rangoon
One of my biggest regrets in life was bowing out of a school trip to Berlin because of homesickness. Had I gone, I would have been able to witness the opening of the Brandenburg Gate shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, in December 1989. There are momentous events in life which one never forgets. The personal, of course, we all have, but when one’s path crosses with something that is far fa … Continued