Residents in a moo baan in tambon Pa Bong, Saraphi district, Chiang Mai, were tonight treated to Thailand’s first snowfall in history. The Chiang Mai Mail has reported that at about 9 pm, locals were bemused by the formation of a thin layer of white powder in their gardens.
Suspecting a possible terrorist attack or just [...]

The murder of Hanna Backlund has been doing the rounds on the Thai Visa forum, but now things are getting ridiculous. I logged onto Thai Visa this morning to find a thread titled “No Less Then Death Penalty For Hanna’s Murderer, Show of force at the hearings”. The post reads like this:
It is possible to [...]

Khanom jeen is without doubt my favorite Thai food. It tastes fantastic and although it’s traditionally a breakfast dish, it can be eaten for any meal. I sometimes have late-night khanom jeen from a place in Phuket Town.
Rather than regular rice or noodles, khanom jeen is eaten with a combination of both: rice-flour noodles, which [...]

I can only find one news story covering this. It looks like they are trying to keep it quiet. On Wednesday, an Australian tourist was raped at a resort on Koh Samui.
Today, according to the Bangkok Post, “Somchai Duanglai, 26, a native of Sakon Nakhon, was arrested at a rented house near Samui airport.”
The 20-year-old [...]

From The Nation:
Legal advisors of the Election Commission voted Wednesday to dissolve the Chart Thai and Matchima Tipataya parties.
The voted 6 to 1 to dissolve the two parties.
More to follow apparently.

This won’t interest any of you who don’t live in Phuket, but for those of you on the island, there are two great concerts in the next week that are worth checking out. First up, at 9Richter tomorrow night (Thursday), Flure are playing. Then, next Thursday at Blue Marina, Phuket Merlin Hotel, Da Endorphine and [...]

Sure, the justice system in Thailand is messed up, but the rest of the world isn’t helping. Within one week of 26-year-old Swedish tourist Hanna Backlund’s death, a manhunt was launched, reward money was put up by local businesses, the supposed killer was arrested, a media circus ensued, the Swedish media was appeased and everyone [...]

It’s definitely long overdue, but Guru magazine now has a website. It’s not quite as content-rich as BK’s website, but it’s a start – and it’s only been online since January from what I can tell.
On the website there are video clips, surveys, horoscopes, event listings and pictures from Bangkok parties. Each of the staff [...]

After mentioning that I had acquired a copy of a book by Dr Iain Corness, I felt a little bad that I haven’t actually had time to read it. So I did the next best thing and contacted the author to ask him to write a little something here. Here is a guest post from [...]

More than a year after nine bombs ripped through Bangkok on New Year’s Eve 2006 the police have given up their investigation after successfully finding absolutely nothing in the form of clues as to who is responsible.
Bangkok was shaken to its core when those bombs went off. Three people died and 42 were injured. It’s [...]

I might rename this blog Death Watch. Juan Jose Gonzalez Jnr, 41, from Britain died while swimming of the coast of Koh Pha-Ngan. He lived in Brighton and was in Thailand as part of a round-the-world trip. (theargus.co.uk)
There have been too many cases of tourists drowning while on holiday in Thailand. People, even strong swimmers, [...]

In every foreign-language book store in Thailand there is a section devoted to books written by foreigners about their new home. I sometimes pick one up and read through a few pages, only to be greeted with re-hashings of some bloke’s sexual exploits or else anecdotes that would be better in the form of a [...]

Yet another case of foreigners suspected of paedophilia being arrested in Thailand. This time the arrests were made in Pattaya. From AFP:
Two Britons have been arrested on paedophile charges in the Thai beach resort town of Pattaya, police said Wednesday, adding that one of them had been detained twice before on similar charges.
They were arrested [...]

Well that didn’t take long. After a regional manhunt, Akkaradej “Chon” Tunkae has been arrested on suspicion of murdering Swedish tourist Hanna Charlotta Backlund. Although he’s been hung, drawn and quartered by the Swedish press, it’s important to remember that this guy hasn’t been proved guilty yet.
I don’t have any more details because we just [...]