It’s that time of the week again… Sunday!
And, of course, it’s been another cracking 7 days in Thailand.
Proudly, Bangkok did exceptionally well in the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants awards with old favourite Gaggan taking the top spot yet again. Thailand had a respectable total of 9 restaurants on the list.
Otherwise, this week has seen epic queues leaving Suvarnabhumi, a BBC journalist facing defamation charges in Phuket and the potential sale of the British Embassy land for a whopping 20 billion baht.
The queue to get into immigration to get out of Thailand. Runs the length of the terminal pic.twitter.com/Aw4zhnj2yf
— Ian (@iamKohChang) February 26, 2017
Of course, that’s not all that’s been entertaining and enraging Bangkok this week…
News
Over 50% of Thais say their partner prefers phone to sex
In what might be one of the most predictable yet depressing survey results in recent times, it was found that 51% of Thais say their partners prefer playing with their smartphones to sleeping with them. The Prudential survey also found that 28% of respondents thought about leaving their partners every single day. Wonder if there’s any correlation between those results…
Tiger Temple plans to reopen in March
The people behind the scandal ridden Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi are planning to reopen a tiger zoo just 9 months after the temple was shut down on the back of trafficking charges. The newly proposed zoo — for which a permit was acquired just two months prior to the police raid on the temple — is also being marketed as a ‘tiger temple’, and will feature 105 tigers transferred from Nakhon Nayok. It’s been emphasized that the new zoo is a separate entity from the Tiger Temple.
Thailand is the most traffic congested country in the world
A study released this week claimed that Thailand was the most congested city for traffic in the world in 2016, with an average 61 peak hours spent in congestion. While anyone who’s sat on Ratchadaphisek on a Friday in rush hour will not hesitate to believe that, it seems crazy that Thailand ‘beat’ other traffic hot spots of Indonesia and Mexico so robustly.
Bangkok was placed as the 12th most congested city with LA taking the number one spot.
Blogs
Why go to Isaan?
This is a great mini travel guide to North Eastern Thailand from the Tieland to Thailand blog, covering transportation, geography and food in the region. While Isaan is reasonably familiar to expats (particularly those with vested interests in the region’s water buffalo), it’s relatively off the beaten track for traditional tourists and backpackers. Hopefully more people will wake up to the region’s unique culture with blog posts like these. Although not too many. Nobody wants too many tourists.
One night in Bangkok is not enough
This is a short and honest blog on Bangkok by a tourist who recently spent a week in the city and found that it exceeded his expectations — a familiar story. The author starts by saying that he expected the city to be underdeveloped and overrun by tourists and, while the latter half of that may be true in some areas, was surprised at the level of infrastructure, public services and overall friendliness of the tourist industry.
These views are similar to the ones we held before venturing to Thailand for a holiday a few years ago — expecting a city full of various iterations of Khao San Road, it can be surprising and humbling when you realise that Bangkok does many things just as well (if not better) than many cities back home in the West.
Falling for a ‘different kind’ of Thai girl
It’s not often we find ourself on the Stickman website, but we always have a good time when we do. This article is by a “pretty good looking, pretty successful at dating women in my home country” European guy (his words) and details his hookup with a new Thai girlfriend.
It’s clear from his tone that he thinks he’s hit the jackpot here: she has white skin, made their relationship public on social media, paid for all his expenses (all of them?! That doesn’t sound emasculating at all…) and just generally is a well to-do, cosmopolitan woman, according to his description. The conclusion of this epic tale? “I finally decided she would be my girlfriend and I’m now monogamous.”
Lucky lady.
Forum Threads
Should I marry a Thai girl I met during my first week here?
A Redditor asks for help and advice after meeting a girl during his first week on holiday in Thailand and living with her for 3 weeks, after she suggested they get married so she could go and live abroad because her job here in Thailand has long hours and an idiot boss. She offers him some land in return. He asks what could go wrong, and respondents tell him, not least that he can never legally own that land.
Our favourite response:
YouTube
Is there space in the international t-shirt market for a Thailand Smile series….per this “Smiling Farang in the Bangkok Night”… pic.twitter.com/gDuDGncq1W
— Kris Koles (@KrisKoles) February 24, 2017
Coffee shops that look like this, along with 350 thb/night hotels, are the backbone of every provincial Thai town. pic.twitter.com/dF1sDZlhnu
— Alec Peeples (@abroadwithalec) February 24, 2017
View from the urinal. Surat Thani train station men’s toilets, there is a family living in here. #thailand 😱😱😂😂 pic.twitter.com/HtI0TQBlyY
— Thos Major (@ThosMajor) February 23, 2017
A baggage handler employed by a private contractor at Suvarnabhumi Airport caught on camera stealing from passengers checked luggage. pic.twitter.com/kaG4PIVZTR
— Stickboy Bangkok (@StickboyBangkok) February 23, 2017
And that’s been The Week On Sukhumvit — see you next time!
