Destination: Thailand
Video: ‘Money for Nothing’ at Koh Phangan’s Full Moon Party
by Jim Benning | 01.23.08 | 2:33 PM ET
Peter Delevett’s latest World Hum story, The (Full Moon) Party’s Over, captures the scene at Koh Phangan’s famous (or infamous) Full Moon Party, but I was still curious what I might find from the parties on YouTube. The video offerings are many, and they are remarkably similar: farangs on a wide beach, drinks in hand, hooting and bopping to thumping disco music. The videos are amusing—for a couple of minutes. It’s not hard to see why Peter concluded the party was, at least as far as he was concerned, over:
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Yahoo! BuzzThe (Full Moon) Party’s Over
by Peter Delevett | 01.16.08 | 11:12 AM ET
Photo by Peter Delevett. Peter Delevett visited Thailand's Koh Phangan with his girlfriend in 1994, discovering a boho backpacker Eden. He recently returned -- older, married and with a mortgage -- just in time for the island's signature bash.
In Thailand, Pink is the New Black
by Jim Benning | 11.30.07 | 12:39 PM ET
Seriously. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who traditionally has worn dark colors, was recently spotted wearing a pink shirt, and that has prompted a run on pink shirts in the country. Reports the BBC: “Thais have been queuing in their hundreds” for shirts like the one pictured, and the “Phufa fashion chain said it had sold 40,000 pink shirts this month.” No word on whether backpackers in Thailand will trade in their ubiquitous Southeast Asian Red Bull T-shirts for something in pink. I hope so.
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New Travel Book: Bad Karma
by Frank Bures | 11.29.07 | 10:19 AM ET
Full title: “Bad Karma: Confessions of a Reckless Traveller in Southeast Asia”
Author: Tamara Sheward
Released: Nov. 1, 2007 (U.S.)
Travel genre: Bad Aussies abroad (you know the type)
Territory covered: Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
Plane Carrying Tourists Crashes in Phuket, Thailand
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 9:34 AM ET
More than 80 people were killed, including more than 50 foreigners, when an MD-82 operated by the budget airline One-Two-Go crashed Sunday on Phuket, Thailand’s popular resort island. News reports vary on the exact number killed and injured, but many note that it was Thailand’s worst air disaster in a decade.
I Have $6,000 For a Trip to Asia and the South Pacific. Any Tips?
by Rolf Potts | 08.21.07 | 11:16 AM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
The Upscaling of Khao San Road
by Michael Yessis | 08.20.07 | 7:57 AM ET
In yesterday’s New York Times, World Hum contributor Newley Purnell highlights all the ways travelers can now blow their budgets on Khao San Road, Bangkok’s famed backpackers hangout. The once dingy “decompression chamber for those about to leave or enter Thailand,” as Alex Garland described it in “The Beach,” now contains a spa offering body wraps and salt scrubs, as well as a Starbucks, Purnell writes. The changes should come as no surprise, particularly in the wake of Khao San Road’s central role in “The Beach.”
Latvia to Fight ‘Baltic Bangkok’ Image
by Michael Yessis | 06.26.07 | 10:30 AM ET
Cheap flights and men on “stag nights” have threatened to turn Riga, Latvia into a destination most noted for pubs, clubs, strip bars and a growing sex industry—a “Baltic Bangkok,” if you will. It’s easy shorthand and perhaps too simple of a way to characterize Riga—or Bangkok, or any city for that matter—but some people in Latvia fear the name and image will stick. Hence, the current “Stop Sex Terrorism” campaign, which, according to Reuters, aims to steer local women away from one-night stands and to educate them about the dangers of interacting with tourists.
Bill Gates’s Yacht Inspires Plans for Thai Island
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 4:01 PM ET
Oh, to be Bill Gates’s yacht. The waters you’d sail. The navigational software that would chart your course. The luxury tourism developments you’d inspire. Developer Gulu Lalvani says a conversation he had with Gates in Phuket, Thailand earlier this year has inspired him to build a small island just off the Thailand coast in Phang Nga Bay. As Lalvani recalled, Gates told him: “If I could bring my yacht, I would come here every year.” The trouble is, Gates’s 54-meter yacht (a little larger than the pleasure craft pictured here) is too big for Phuket’s marina, which holds yachts up to 40 meters long.
Out: Buddha G-Strings. In: Jesus Thongs.
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 1:48 PM ET
Or something like that. CafePress.com has removed G-strings and dog attire featuring images of the Buddha from its online catalog after Thais protested the sale of the products. “Such products offend not only Thais, but Buddhists elsewhere in the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Piriya Khempon told Reuters.
Chiang Mai Under Siege: The Struggle to Save Classic Thai Architecture
by Michael Yessis | 05.09.07 | 2:25 PM ET
The temples of Chiang Mai are coming apart, and more than half of its historic buildings “have come under the wrecking ball,” according to a story in the International Herald Tribune. Preservationists are taking steps to save structures dating back to the Lanna kingdom, but precisely what they can accomplish—and how they can accomplish it—remains to be seen.
A Wikitraveler Goes to Thailand
by Michael Yessis | 04.10.07 | 4:44 PM ET
What’s it like to leave Lonely Planet at home and travel to Thailand guided only by resources on the Internet? It’s an interesting question, but the resulting Slate story by Tim Wu, unfortunately, poses more questions than it answers. “The Internet has long been terrible for travelers—full of sham sites designed to lure visitors to selected hotels, or, in Thailand’s case, go-go bars,” he writes. The Internet has long been terrible for travelers? Huh?
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Bali, Bargains and Jet Blues
by Michael Yessis | 02.16.07 | 9:20 AM ET
The Silk Road, Mexican beach towns, Chiang Mai and those poor passengers stuck on the tarmac at JFK were on travelers’ minds this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist:
World’s Best Travel Value: Island
Travel + Leisure Readers’ Poll (March 2007 issue)
Bali, Indonesia
* The rest of the top five: Phuket, Thailand; Ko Samui, Thailand; Langkawi, Malaysia; and Borneo.
World’s Best Travel Value: City
Travel + Leisure Readers’ Poll (March 2007 issue)
Chiang Mai, Thailand
* The rest of the top five: Kathmandu; Mendoza, Argentina; Hanoi; and Bangkok.
Most Read Story
World Hum (this week)
Armrest Seating, Anyone?
* Perhaps those stranded JetBlue passengers can relate.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Viewing Two Chinas From a Stop on the Silk Road
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Check Out Under-the-Radar Mexican Cities and Beach Towns
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler’s Life List
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Mobissimo
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
JetBlue Apologizes for Stranding Passengers on Planes at JFK
* It makes this seem not so far fetched.
Problems at Bangkok’s New Airport
by Jim Benning | 02.05.07 | 8:07 AM ET
Perhaps it was all too good to be true. Bangkok’s $4 billion “Golden Land” international airport opened in September to great fanfare. Monks and Brahmin priests even went so far as to apologize to the spirits for any harm done in the airport’s planning and construction. But several months later, all’s not well. Problems ranging from “cracked taxiways to leaky roofs to inadequate bathrooms to luggage snafus” plague the airport, reports the San Francisco Chronicle’s Travelers’ Checks column. It gets worse: “The national airport authority has found some 61 issues at Suvarnabhumi needing repair or redesign that will cost an estimated $45 million and six months to fix.” Meanwhile, the airport can continue operating. Great.
Bangkok, Thailand
by Ben Keene | 01.12.07 | 6:44 AM ET
Coordinates: 13 45 N 100 31 E
Population: 6,604,000 (2005 est.)
Maps always have distortions and abbreviations: It simply isn’t possible to fit every place name and natural feature on a single page or sheet of paper. Of course, this may seem obvious to anyone who’s ever squinted at an atlas in search of his or her hometown. Arguably the best example of this is the city westerners call Bangkok. Called Krung Thep by the people of Thailand, the full name of the capital founded on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in 1782 is a whopping 43 syllables. Roughly translated, it means “great city of angels, the supreme repository of divine jewels, the great land unconquerable, the grand and prominent realm, the royal and delightful capital city full of nine noble gems, the highest royal dwelling and grand palace, the divine shelter and living place of the reincarnated spirits.” It would challenge a Thai T-shirt designer as much as any cartographer.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.