Thailand is synonymous with rice. We eat rice daily (well, until 7-Elevens popped up everywhere) and many of our customs and traditions have come from rice cycles and activities. We even have a national holiday in homage of rice – the Royal Ploughing Day. So this month we thought we would bring you three restaurants where rice isn’t just served as a staple afterthought, but where the white grains of joy are the actual star of the show!

I’ve done something terrible. Possibly unforgivable. Something I want my family and loved ones to know I regret deeply. It’s not the first time I have done this, but, if I can be forgiven – perhaps allowed a second chance and with the help of Jesus – I will never do it again. There will be some of you who can relate to this, and, if you cannot, then please let my story be a warning, an exemplar and a deterrent. I went to McDonald’s. I done a McDonald’s. I paid a visit to, I called on, I whored myself to a McDonald’s. I chased the dragon through the Golden Arches.

Misty, moody, and densely populated, Hong Kong is an island metropolis packed with a tessellation of gargantuan high-rise buildings and streets that offer a never-ending variety of sights and smells. A mere three hours’ flight from Chiang Mai (and it being school break and all) why not grab your family and swap the hot, sweaty Thai summer for something a little bit cooler and a lot more unknown? So when Hong Kong’s first low cost airline, Hong Kong Express invited Citylife for a fam trip, we thought it would be rude to say no.

Chiang Mai, unlike Bangkok or Pattaya, is thankfully not known as a city of vice. However, the less angelic amongst you can still indulge in some good old fashioned cardinal sins whether you are feeling just a bit gluttonous or downright naughty, here is a quick guide to satisfy that little devil on your shoulder.

“For less than the price of a Ferrari, you can build our system,” proclaims Sebastian-Justus Schmidt, the mastermind behind the world’s first self-recharging renewable energy system for a multi-house compound, Phi Suea House. “I really want to make a point,” he says proudly addressing the group gathered for Phi Suea House’s first media day, “to show how hydrogen energy storage works and to show the way.”

The rumour of monks serving free lattes on silver platters was so quintessentially Chiang Mai I hardly dared get my hopes up. But having rushed off to Sankampaeng to check it out, I can now speak from experience that yes, in between temple duties, studying Pali and Sanskrit, spiritually guiding the flock and staying true to Buddhist precepts, the monks at this temple also double up as baristas.

Burger joints are opening up city-wide and is all the rage these days. You can have a posh beetroot bunned foie-gras burger at a white table-clothed restaurant or hang out by the side of the road at 2am and chow down on some greasy fries and a dodgy bun.

One of those memes was doing the rounds on Facebook a few months back: click on a map to show off to your friends how many countries you’ve been to. After a nostalgic amble through my memories, I was quite satisfied with my total (41), when a friend’s status popped up: she had been to 114 countries.

Wongnai.com, Thailand’s largest online food site lists nearly 8,000 restaurants in Chiang Mai. Here are just three new eating venues we have discovered this month.

Let’s talk about boobs. I have a pair. I rather like them. I never thought that they were of any great importance to anyone but me, or whomever chooses to appreciate them, let alone be of enough significance to pose a threat to my country. But I am told I’m wrong.

One of the things many of us love about Chiang Mai are the many dive bars and small restaurants that litter the city with their delicious foods and cheap beer; beer you’ll never have to pour yourself if you don’t want to. No matter how long you live here, it seems you always stumble across a new bar that is frequented by loyal patrons. When I first moved here, I went to meet a friend at a bar in the Old City, just across the moat from Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant. This bar was CMBC and I fell in love (no really, I met my wife there).

Suicide, ironically, perhaps represents the epitome of self-control, an act of self-empowerment that makes us free above everything the world has to offer. At the same time, it is perfectly synonymous with the lowest depths a person can reach, the nadir of our emotional range, and the only point where life’s tribunals can halt, abruptly.

Design Ideas by Torlarp “Hern” Larpjaroensook, Artist/Founder Gallery SeeScape (Alternative Art Space)