PHUKET: Phuket Vice Governor Chamroen Tipayapongtada stepped forward to champion a complaint about an airport taxi driver who refused to use his meter to take an Australian expat home to Kamala.
PHUKET: Police arrested a Frenchman for threatening a Phuket convenience store clerk with a pair of scissors in an attempt to get a refund on Saturday. Riad Lahkim, 37, bought a mobile phone at a 7-eleven on Thursday. Dissatisfied, he took it back to the store two days later – at 4:30am.
Boonrat Apiwanthanakorn, 56, from Haad Yai, is the new president of the Phuket Press Club. He has a BA from the Teacher College in Songkhla and over 20 years experience in journalism, working for Kietibhumi and Chaotai newspapers and Thai TV Channels 3 and 5. He now works for Khaosod newspaper and the Phuket Andaman, which he owns.
PHUKET: Enough was enough. After nearly being run down by a mechanical dinosaur, I made my way through glass doors to the car park. The overbearing cacophony that apparently is a necessary companion to the modern shopping experience – or at least of the Games Zone on the basement level of the Big C shopping complex on the bypass road – faded behind me.
PHUKET: A recent protest in Patong against alleged corruption by Tourist Police officers (story
PHUKET: The freak accident that sank a liveaboard dive boat to a depth of 75 meters just outside the popular dive destination of Similan National Park was unavoidable, said the Regional Marine Office chief this week. MV The Flying Carpet based out of Ranong and operated by Aladdin Dive Safari had its propeller partially ripped out between Koh Bon and Koh Tachai on January 29. All on board were safely rescued.
PHUKET: Everyone has been safely rescued from a Phuket dive boat that sank in Myanmar waters, said the Managing Director of Chalong Sea Sports, Pekka Torri. However, the cause of the fire that erupted aboard the MV Blue Star and led to its sinking has yet to be confirmed.
Special Report Early last Saturday morning, a female tourist spent 45 minutes trying to contact the police. Repeated calls to the Tourist Police hotline 1155 went unanswered until a man picked up and told her he could not speak English and advised her to call the Thalang Police, who put her on hold.
PHUKET: Police seized 92kg of marijuana at a beauty salon in Thalang yesterday in a sting operation that netted two men also found in possession of a grenade, an illegal handgun and a cache of ammunition. Netithorn Waddina, 49, from Nakhon Pathom, and Suriya Chuayjuan, 34, from Songkhla, were arrested at about 5pm after undercover police arranged to buy 30kg of marijuana from them for 150,000 baht. A search of the beauty salon, located near the Baan Kian fresh market (map here), turned up the huge drug stash, all prepacked in one-kilogram bricks.
PHUKET: A Swedish honeymooner in Phuket was partially paralyzed from a fall as her speedboat to Phi Phi Island tackled choppy waters last month. “I still have pain in my back