More Thailand, Much Cheaper

You may have heard it, Thailand’s tourism industry is again suffering thanks to our red brothers promising a bright future and pure democracy. As a “side effect” there’s a flare up of civil unrest with reds hurting their very own people, upcountry migrant workers. Because, however looked at, as a result many tourists and business travelers have canceled or reconsidered their travel plans to Thailand.

In a country famous for its beaches, nightlife and friendly folks, people are suffering greatly as many towns and cities are heavily reliant on tourist dollars. The official Tourism Authority of Thailand was hoping that the days of economic downturn and riots that have put a dent in Thailand’s tourist industry were over.

However, the recent clashes and series of attacks that rather remind of Baghdad than Bangkok have caused more doubt and confusion in the minds of foreign tourists. Travel departments of many countries, such as Australia, the U.K. and U.S., have warned their citizens to reconsider, while some media have also done their best to play on the fears of tourists.

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May 9, 2010 | Filed Under News & Media, Nightlife & Entertainment, Politics, Sports & Fun, Travel & Tourism | 5 Comments

Rocket Yoga. Get There Faster.

Back in my year in India when I was looking for enlightenment one of the toughest part was the goddamn meditation. To sit quiet for a few minutes that’s OK. But for hours! They are saints back there in India, and I’m not. But there are ways to find inner peace, and one of those more active methods is blooming in Thailand: yoga, or more specifically: Rocket Yoga. Get to the fitness nirvana faster.

Larry Schultz? Says something? Argh you ignorant soul. This is Larry Schultz. And Larry Schultz recently brought his Rocket Yoga teachings to Bangkok for the first time. And guess where. At Bangkok’s top yoga studio Absolute Yoga Bangkok. An unintentional namesake of this site. There they find peace of mind by body activity, here by mental work …

Anyway, Larry Schultz has been teaching yoga for 30 years and has influenced yoga practitioners around the world. Bangkokian fellow yoga practitioners felt indeed lucky to have him here. In case you missed this express way to salvation, here’s a short cut. You might wanna give Rocket Yoga or any yoga for that a try. Yoga is booming here. Khun Ben and Khun David, participants at the workshop, sent us this little report with photos by Patrick Thorpe:

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February 22, 2010 | Filed Under Culture & Arts, Health, Body & Mind, Sports & Fun | 2 Comments

Urinators Anonymous

They’re one of my favorite spots in Thailand, one of the kingdom’s most romantic places, the hot springs of Hin Dat an hour’s drive northwest of Kanchanaburi. To cut a long story short: The public bath with beautiful hot spring water pools are open from 6 am to 10 pm each day. Enjoy a relaxing bath in the hot thermal water with this distinct odor of rotten eggs, i.e. sulphur. After that enjoy a bath in the refreshing little stream bubbling just alongside. And again, and again. Pure idyll. And maybe a massage.

The brook brabbles, the birds are singing and tweeting … Best to be enjoyed close to the opening and closing hours when there are hardly any visitors. So I went there on a Friday night – and guess what, some eager locals were washing out the pools. All the thermal water got pumped off into the stream and the locals were scrubbing the walls. They do that every Friday night, a worker told me. So Saturday morning I tried to be the first in those pools freshly refilled with healthy thermae spring water.

But what a surprise, eager local residents were enjoying the fresh water already! That early! And I thought I’d be alone … It’s still dark, not a ray of sunlight. Local residents relax in the quiet peace of the hot mineral-rich spring water of Hin Dat before the tourists arrive. Only one guy was talking, and I heard him say – obviously not the least bothered that me farang could understand: “Yesterday afternoon, there were so many farangs in the water. God was that water dirty. Now it’s clean again.”

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January 24, 2010 | Filed Under Being Farang, Culture Shock, Sports & Fun, The Thai Mind, Travel & Tourism | 9 Comments

Recently, In The Wild

As one single panda cub keeps on taking the breath away from a whole nation with breaking news such as when she opened her left and when her right eye, the kingdom’s official animal, the elephant, falls into ever deeper oblivion. The panda earns the Chiang Mai zoo millions. Elephants cost millions.

The little panda is so cute. Hence elephants have become a menace. They roam Bangkok’s streets begging for food and recently, while driving to a temple near the Burmese border, a 2 1/2 hours drive away from Bangkok, on the beautiful highway 3219 from Hua Hin to the Pala-U waterfalls, we ran into a wild elephant.

There he was, at around tenish in the morning, breaking out of the jungle thicket and slowly marching along the road. A pick-up driver tried to tell me: slow down. But there he came, the elephant, kind of charging, speeding up in exactly our direction. What to do?

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July 12, 2009 | Filed Under Nature, Sports & Fun | 3 Comments

Tidbits: Read & Write Thai + Thailand Sports

The probably best Thai language course out there Learn Thai Podcast LTP just added a Reading & Writing Course. Thumbs up to Jay and his team. Another innovative add-on.

LTP’s approach based on repetitive memorization works. It’s money most well spent if you finally want to master that beauty of a language after years of not understanding your hosts.

And for the sport fanatics out here looking for new kicks and like-minded people: the Sports Network went online, “connecting sporting people throughout Thailand.”

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April 23, 2009 | Filed Under Being Farang, Culture & Arts, Sports & Fun, Tidbits | Leave a Comment

Golfer Prayad’s From Nowhere To Riches

I’m not a golfer. Got a single club, a no. 7, somewhere. What can you do with a single club. I’m a kiter. But even as a anti-golfer, Thailand has a great PGA event with a promising Thai twist coming up.

Hua Hin’s Black Mountain Golf Club from March 26th to 29th hosts the Black Mountain Masters 2009. Tiger Wood’s couldn’t make it, but they got Jesper Parnevik – and Prayad Marksaeng.

That’s right, the boy from Hua Hin from humble roots who recently caused a stir until that triple bogey on the final hole at Doral. Now all Thai eyes rest on Prayad who “grew up in poverty,” an AP story tells us.

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March 25, 2009 | Filed Under Sports & Fun, TTT - Top Thai Things | 2 Comments

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