We at WoWasis originally found furniture designer Caryl Olivieri on the top floor of his Artitude shop at Bangkok’s Gaysorn shopping complex. We were impressed by the designer’s bold, colorful furniture uses of traditional rattan, but with a new twist: it was woven into fine strips, and molded in contours that snake around cushions, armrests, […]
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Broken computer in Bangkok: Where do I fix it?
Sooner or later, one of your electronic gizmos will go on the fritz while you’re in the tropics. Here at WoWasis, our USB thumb drive went out while we were in Bangkok. It stores all our backups, and we wanted to preserve some of the data on it before buying another drive. We were referred […]
Read the rest of this entry »Thai taxes: how are those roads and hospitals paid for in Thailand?
One day a few years back, one of us here at WoWasis had to go to a hospital in Thailand on an emergency basis. We got all stitched up, and paid nothing. Why? Here’s another question: why are Thai roads so damn good? (Compare them with the Philippines, which has some of the worst roads […]
Read the rest of this entry »Thailand’s elephants: making paper from poop
Your WoWasis research team has uncovered a new way of making paper, and elephant dung provides the material. Taking a tour or trekking by elephant has been a favorite of western travelers to Thailand for decades. These sure-footed, gracious, and well-tempered animals can take you on a ½ hour to 1 hour walk through the […]
Read the rest of this entry »PC Air’s ladyboys to be Thailand’s queens of the skies
Freshly-minted Thai regional airline PCAir won’t make its first flight for several months yet, but here at WoWasis, we applaud them for staffing up with ladyboys in its effort to have a diversified work crew. Perhaps the highest profile ladyboy hired so far is Miss Tiffany Universe 2007 winner Thanyarat Jirapatpakorn. The Bangkok Post notes that […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bangkok’s streetside sewing & shoe repair: good quality, great price, and close!
Quite a few visitors to Thailand have told us here at WoWasis that they like the quality and price of streetside shoe repair and sewing so much that they actually bring their shoes and clothes from home to be repaired here. It’s cheaper than repair in their own countries, or buying new. In all Thai […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Thai-English Travel Dictionaries, What’s the best?
English-Thai/Thai-English dictionaries are essential for any frequent traveler to Thailand, and the best not only translate in both directions, but also have a third phonetic section that allows English users to take Thai spoken words and determine what’s being said. Two of the best are the ones by Mike Simpson and Benjawan Becker. They each […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Jonathan Kwitny’s ‘Crimes of Patriots’
Here’s a book about one of the great bank swindles of the 20th century, that touched countries as disparate as the U.S., Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia. And it touched them all in a big way. The bank was called Nugan Hand, named after its co-founders, lawyer Frank […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bachelor in Bangkok: Khun Lee’s 10 rules for being a bar girl
When I first started writing this column I explored the top ten rules for dealing with regular gals as well as a top ten for surviving with bar gals. I received a lot of positive feedback from both readers and close mates of mine who have to be constantly bombarded by my rants and unsolicited […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bachelor in Bangkok: Khun Lee on Bangkok nightlife today vs. 1995, Pt. II
Greetings to our loyal readers and I hope you are enjoying this blessing we call life as much as I am. In my August, 2010 column, I compared 1995 Bangkok to present day and detailed the changes in the nightlife industry. This month, I want to compare changes in cost, livability, transportation and relationships with “good […]
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