Mess Transit: Why Chiang Mai Doesn’t Have Public Transportation
With a greater-city population of around 600,000, it is well past time Chiang Mai had its own public transportation system. Having lived here for nearly 40 years I have seen buses come – and rapidly go. I have read, and been excited by, ad nauseam announcements of pending monorails, trams, trains and all sorts of plans which have never borne fruit but ended up costing taxpayers when they fail. And through it all we fall back onto unreliable songtaews, overcharging tuk tuks, elusive taxis and finally our own trusted vehicles.
Joob Joob Presents: Chemistry
As the weather clears up in northern Thailand people are getting ready for the cooler temperatures. Around this time of year it starts getting easier to go out and enjoy yourself without having a heat stroke and I’ve always felt that more people have the energy to go out this time of year.
Five Reasons to go to Vientiane
Vientiane, Laos, is a relatively sleepy capital city when compared with many others in the region. Most visitors from Chiang Mai tend to stop over for a brief overnight before heading to the ruins of Pakse or the World Heritage charm of Luang Prabang…or as so many expats know, to sit in the Thai embassy waiting for a visa. But there are indeed great reasons to go to Vientiane, and here are some of them.
Why Did People Give This Man 100,000 Dollars?
I stopped by Sangdee Gallery after work on August 25th for a glass of wine with a few of our writers to find the usual convivial crowd replaced by a handful of expat men huddled over sleek laptops – marketeers, bloggers, online experts of all walks – tensely sipping espressos on the long teak table, huddled in whispered conversation, and startling the staff with the occasional fist bump and shout.
Editorial: November 2015
When I was a little girl we had buses in Chiang Mai. I never used them, but I knew that the city had them and I regularly saw people standing around at bus stops. Fast forward well, let’s say, a few decades, and most people you meet will be surprised to hear that there was ever a bus system here at all.
Citylife Garden Fair ’15
Over the past ten years our Citylife Garden Fair has grown up, evolved, and simply grown into a pretty incredible annual event which, according to JJ Hobby Market, attracted over 5,000 people last year, raising nearly 220,000 baht for two local charities in 2014. The fair is now way bigger than our small staff can handle, and thankfully we have been supported by a team of dedicated volunteers, who are promising to make this year’s event the biggest and best yet.
7000 Jehovah’s Witnesses Coming to Town
I had never met a Jehovah’s Witness before. While I had heard funny stories of people having to contend with their door being knocked here in Thailand, I thought their numbers to be nominal – that was until I heard that this month over 7,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses would be attending the biggest non-sporting convention Chiang Mai has ever seen.