Thailand Stories

One of the famous desserts for Samut Prakan Province is Khanom Jaak. The dessert is prepared inside the leaves of a nipa palm and then roasted over a charcoal fire. The ingredients include sticky rice flour, palm sugar and shredded coconut. A bundle of this costs about 20 baht. Original post blogged

One of the more popular sports in rural areas in Thailand is cock fighting. This is a traditional game that goes back hundreds of years. Gambling is prevalent during matches even though it is illegal. The sport is not as bloody as it was in the past and the number of deaths among the cocks have decreased. Nevertheless…

Every now and then, a shipment of illegal ivory is confiscated at Suvarnabhumi Airport. This is a picture of a press conference that I was invited to attend where 2,000 kilos of ivory had been seized with an estimated street value of 50 million baht. Original post blogged on

The first time I watched horse polo was in Gilgit in Pakistan. I always thought that it was only played in the Indian sub-continent and by the old colonial powers. I didn’t realize that Thailand also has an active polo team. Apparently polo was …

Late last year I was invited to witness an emergency exercise at Suvarnabhumi International Airport near Bangkok. They were simulating a lightning strike against ground staff who were refuelling an aircraft. Everything was done in real time. As you can see from the storm clouds, their visual effects were quite