Tita Petchnamnung

Out we walk from the bookstore chains. In we go to the independent spots, with dog-eared pages and well-worn spines. Bangkok Design Week's on right now and a big part of it is the Bangkok Book District Fest – folks are calling it the city's first proper 'Book Town'. Running through to February 8 2026, it turns Banglamphu and Rattanakosin into a neighbourhood where books are the common thread. Here's the lot – the Book Town stops and the everywhere else scattered throughout the capital. The Book District (Banglamphu & Rattanakosin) Photograph: bkk.bookdistrict

Maybe it's date night and you're a little tipsy now, leaning in close, laughing at nothing. Maybe you're solo at the bar, half-hidden and loving it. Either way, Bangkok screams neon at you 24/7 – sometimes you just need the lights off. These spots let darkness do the heavy lifting. Sure, you'll squint at the menu, grabbing your phone torch to see. But that's the vibe. You feel mysteriously hot and order another round on autopilot.

‘I only see red, black, white and a scale of grey.' Fabio Brugnolaro – the Italian-born head mixologist at Penthouse Bar and Grill – tosses this out so breezily you'd think he hadn't just dropped the sort of detail that rewrites human creativity itself. All those jewel-toned cocktails with their fussy little garnishes, yet 'I've never seen the blue sky,' he says. 'When people go on about how blue it is – I haven't got a clue what they mean.' His story starts like this. Photograph: penthousebangkok The revelation arrived on the first day of primary school in Turin, Italy. The assignment: draw your house. Fabio drew his mum, his dog, the garden. The sky came out brown. The floor, blue. The dog, purple. The roof, inexplicably yellow. 'The teacher rang my mum the next day,' he recalls. 'She said, I think your son is colour-blind.' His mum started labelling markers with colour names – teaching him to navigate a world he couldn't quite see the way others did. But when he announced he wanted to be an artist, she drew the line. 'She said no, no, no, you're going to technical school.' Art, she reasoned, was hard enough: 'Art whilst colour-blind?' Fabio did it anyway. He worked nights as a waiter to fund his illustration degree. Tried tattooing for a spell – 'maybe 20 people'. His professor at university noticed his work looked off – too bright, a little discordant. When he explained, she handed him three books on colour theory. Mathematical equations for mixing pigments. Primary col

New year, new you. Sure. But what about that anger you’re still hauling around? The stuff that didn’t get the fresh start memo. It’s just sitting there, or worse, popping off at random over something small that you know isn’t even the actual issue. You could journal it out. Meditate. Talk to someone. But if you need to actually move the feeling through your body, that’s what this list is for. Important note: nobody’s condoning actual violence here. But there are places built specifically for this – controlled, legal, supervised. Bangkok and the surrounding areas have spots where you can smash things designed to be smashed, hit bags that exist to be hit, move hard and fast enough that the anger just flies out.  Here’s where to take it when the talking part stops working. Better than letting it leak out sideways into your actual life where people don’t deserve it!

GAWDLAND is loud, proud and RuPaul-approved.  The Northern-born, Bangkok-based queen stormed Drag Race Thailand season 3, became a Silom staple and is now the only Thai queen on RuPaul's Drag Race VS The World season 3 – the international all-stars showdown in front of Mama Ru herself. Here's her gag on Thai pride, Gen Z fire and what going versus the world really means. So, GAWDLAND – where does the name come from? Photograph: Laliphat Bumrungkarn   It's from my real name! Tharathep, which in Thai means 'god of the land' – like the big boss of the earth. And then I thought, you know what? Let's make it queer. So instead of 'God' (G-O-D), I made it 'GAWD' (G-A-W-D). Just GAWD-ed it up. What makes GAWDLAND... GAWDLAND? What's your signature? "Loudness. Volume. I'm like a firecracker – you know those little ones we see when Chinese New Year comes around? Small, compact, but the impact is massive." Every time I step into a space, people have to turn and look. Some love it, some find it annoying, some find it jarring – but you will notice me baby! That's guaranteed. People define drag in so many ways – art, activism, entertainment so what is it to you? Photograph: Laliphat Bumrungkarn "All of it. And more. It's art, it's entertainment, it's activism – it's life itself." My entire life is driven by drag. I wake up thinking about it, I go to sleep thinking about it. It's always: how do I become a better drag queen? It's in my head constantly. It's my life force, honestly. It's

Thai-British chef John Chantarasak is sitting at the back of the ceremony hall in Glasgow at the Michelin Guide Ceremony 2025, 'stomach in knots, looking around, seeing every Michelin-starred chef in the UK is here.' One hour of preamble before they start calling names. Just 10 days ago, he got an email. Stark, giving nothing away but unmistakably Michelin – an invitation to the ceremony with a plus-one. He’d called his wife, Desiree, immediately.  ‘We need tickets to Glasgow. Holy shit. Maybe we’re winning a star.’ Photograph: AngloThai AngloThai is now London's only Michelin-starred Thai restaurant. ‘You hear your name and it’s a very surreal moment,’ he says now. ‘When I first started cooking, the dream was to open a restaurant. We achieved that. Winning a Michelin star felt like an unattainable thing we should always pursue. But it was really the icing on the cake.’ Processing it took longer than expected. In the aftermath, John got a bit lost. ‘We’d spent so much time and effort trying to open and then we won the star and I was like, well, what happens now? I’ve kind of done all this stuff and I’m confused.’ That moment lasted a couple of days before clarity returned. You keep getting better. You make the restaurant better every day. Maybe one day you push for another star. ‘I think that’s a good thing, to always have a target in mind.’ But leading to this there was a guy playing music in a Welsh village, who’d taken an economics degree, who’d worked in the city for tw

You know you're allowed to take yourself out, right?  Flying solo is light, fun and comes with zero compromise on where to eat or how long to linger. Just you and eight million Bangkokians who are way too preoccupied to judge your table for one. This is a city guide to romantic solitude for Valentine's, or whatever day you decide deserves it.

They don't call Thailand the Land of Smiles for nothing. In Bangkok though, those smiles graduate into real laughs when punchlines are attached to mics. The comedy scene's really become its own serious thing – intimate spots, real community, international acts rubbing shoulders with Bangkok's own while you sit close to the action with a cold one watching the barbs land softly here, harshly there. Either way, a good laugh is promised. If this sounds good, here's where to go.

Tattoos are often described as art on skin, with each piece uniquely connected to the person who wears it. Some tattoos hold deep, soul-stirring meaning, while others are playful mementos of a spontaneous moment. Either way, they turn skin into a bold canvas for human creativity. If today feels like the day to walk into a tattoo shop and express yourself on your own body – even if you're simply flirting with the idea – here are our recommendations for standout Bangkok tattoo parlours that give peace of mind with their clean and efficient expertise and their caring attitude to this ancient form of personal artistic expression.

For those with a style-conscious girlfriend, or treating yourself on the sly. Be it a birthday, anniversary, just-because moment or thoughtful souvenir – we've tracked down eight winners, things to adorn self or surroundings. We promise minimal risk of them languishing at the back of a drawer!

So this isn’t a manifesto or anything. I was just standing outside work one day, waiting for my chicken butt skewers, completely absorbed, watching the vendor’s hands for a solid few minutes. Eight people lined up behind me and he didn’t speed up once. Very gangster. Made me think – do I ever actually watch my food being made anymore? So I started wanting to eat things I could actually see happen. Not as some big strictly enforced rule, just something I'd slide into my days when it worked out. Food I could follow along with – the whole process, or even just parts of it – while I'm waiting on the sidelines. These are my top voyeur moments, unranked, told as they came.

Bangkok holds its breath a little tighter through this January 10-15 stretch, said to be the worst of it. The air isn't moving, ventilation is weak and everything just hangs there: car exhaust, emissions, all of it stagnant and heavy. Authorities say PM2.5 levels will keep climbing until winds from the Gulf push through around January 17-18 and clear ‘some’ of this out. On the maps many districts show up orange bleeding into red, which means hazardous for everyone, not just those with asthma or underlying conditions. The worst-hit district as of January 12 is Pathum Wan at 49.9 micrograms per cubic metre. To put that in perspective, the World Health Organization (WHO) sets a health-based guideline of 15 micrograms per cubic metre for 24-hour exposure. See the districts taking the hardest hit here. So, we adapt. It's about keeping your lungs intact but also keeping those orange-to-red maps from consuming every waking thought. Right now the numbers stay put until the winds shift. Here's the adaptation playbook so far.

An English lit professor's personal collection. Out in Pathum Thani, still soft launching, grass half-planted. If you're into a proper curated library setup though, it's worth the trek. What they're selling: English literature and academic texts, here and there of Thai books, especially scholarly stuff by the owner's academic friends, plus design books, graphic novels, art books, cookbooks, all those beautiful coffee table things people collect but never have space to display properly. It's essentially browsing someone's dream library. Message before you rock up – they're still setting things up. Also there are dogs. The owner calls them 'the real owners of the house' and they're big on the greeting committee, so if you're not a dog person, flag it when you message. Location: 82 Moo 11, Soi Phahon Yothin 64 Yaek, Khu Khot Subdistrict, Lam Luk Ka District, Pathum Thani

Multi-storey bookshop in Sathorn that does monthly themes because they're ambitious. Art books, novels, graphic novels, children's books – mix of Thai and English.  There's a reading library upstairs (heavy on Thai horror and thrillers, respect), workshop space, a piano you can actually play. They run discussion groups, host events, the whole community space thing. The cafe serves drip coffee and organic drinks.  Location: 572/3 Soi Sathon 3, Thung Maha Mek, Sathon, Bangkok

Started as a beloved indie bookshop in RCA with all the charm and none of the commercial backing because owner Tong (Pravit Phansawang) hated how expensive certain titles were – hundreds, thousands of baht just sitting there out of reach – and wanted to make quality reading actually accessible. Then reality hit. Financial challenges, the brutal economics of book retail, the usual story. Instead of packing it in completely, Tong integrated the bookshop into a restaurant called Hen Ok Hen Jai Ratchawat. So now their bio reads 'a restaurant that sells books (not a whole lot but we do)'. It's a hybrid situation – you're eating surrounded by books, the concept persists even if the business model had to adapt to survive. The selection's mostly Thai with occasional English titles, leaning literary and translated works. They publish stuff themselves too, better specs and lower prices than the overpriced editions that started this whole thing. Location: 544 Rama V Rd, Thanon Nakhon Chai Si, Dusit District, Bangkok

Three floors of secondhand English books that have been around since 2004. The wooden everything, the soft lighting, the way they've organised over 18,000 books by author so you can actually find stuff without losing your mind. The selection skews heavy on fiction but they've got decent French, German and even some Scandinavian titles too. The cafe situation is tiny but functional – grab something cold and settle in. The vibe makes up for it. The staff will buy back books at 50 per cent of the price you paid if you're done with them too. Location: 714/4 Sukhumvit Rd, Khlong Tan, Khlong Toei, Bangkok

Dark green walls, plants everywhere, resident cats lounging on shelves. The inventory's mostly Thai with occasional English titles, heavy on politics and social issues. There's a proper little bar serving Thai tea, coffee, juice – the Espresso Nutella is their signature move. Sometimes they run workshops on weekends but honestly the real draw is just existing there. Location: 721, 723 Samsen 17 Alley, Thanon Nakhon Chai Si, Dusit District, Bangkok

A publisher first, bookshop second, putting out gorgeous titles on Southeast Asian art, history and culture for over 30 years. Founded by Narisa Chakrabongse who came back to Thailand needing to reconnect with Thai culture after growing up in London. The small bookshop attached to the publishing house sits near Wat Pho – you walk in and it's basically a library of everything they've ever published. Archaeology, ethnography, cookbooks, dictionaries, contemporary Thai culture. A well-stocked bookshop and cafe in the heart of old Bangkok stocking all the River Books range and many more books about Thai politics, art and culture. Delicious Monsoon tea, coffee, smoothies and soft drinks. They're committed to recording disappearing cultures even when it doesn't sell well, which is exactly the kind of publishing ethos that deserves support. Location: 396/1 Maha Rat Rd, Phra Borom Maha Ratchawang, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok

Another Ram Buttri entry. Fiction is organised alphabetically. Comics mostly live upstairs on the second floor. Rare books, older editions and foreign language titles sit alongside military books, history, fiction, biographies, psychology, sport and comics. Fiction readers in particular will want to linger.  Beyond English, there are books in French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Italian. Location: 59 Ram Buttri Aly, Chana Songkhram, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok

Small secondhand operation on Ram Buttri, one of the quieter streets peeling off Khao San – part of the Book District network.  Ram Buttri's got a few bookshops clustered together actually, so if you're already wandering that way, it's worth poking around properly rather than just passing through. Location: Ram Buttri, Chana Songkhram, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok

A vintage-style book cafe in the historic Chakkraphatdi Phong area – Nang Loeng if you know it better. Paengrum's does old-school charm but also actual good food, which isn't always a given. Wood furniture, antiques, collectibles mixed in with old books and odd finds. The owner's cat patrols, checks on things, judges your choices. No strict genre focus – just eclectic titles you can browse whilst sipping coffee or working through a proper Thai-style breakfast. Snacks too. Location: 96/6 Chakkraphatdi Phong Road, Wat Sommanat, Pom Prap, Bangkok

Children's books and comics stacked up, the kind of place the neighbourhood actually uses. Thai books, general selection, more local community than tourist dollars. Location: 93 Nakhon Sawan Rd, Wat Sommanat, Pom Prap Sattru Phai, Bangkok

Been around over 20 years, run by a couple (Num and Yo, absolute legends) who built their collection around their own tastes, which is exactly how it should be. The shelves are packed with philosophy, travel and non-fiction in both Thai and English. They serve coffee and scones upstairs on weekends. The space is tight and feels like browsing someone's personal library whilst they make you tea. Location: 28 Soi Samran Rat, Khwaeng Samran Rat, Khet Phra Nakhon, Bangkok

Travel books in a century-old wooden house near the Giant Swing. The siblings who run this place – Nat's a fashion photographer, Sivika's a writer – organised the whole shop by continent because they're extra like that. But it works. Fiction from different countries, travel writing, cookbooks, biographies, stuff they've collected from everywhere they've been. The whole concept is 'see the world through books' and they commit to it. The house itself is gorgeous. Blue and green walls, rustic wood, memorabilia from their travels scattered around – Guatemalan dolls, postcards, random beautiful things. Location: 1 Mahannop 1 Alley, Sao Chingcha, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok

There’s something deliciously cruel about realising you spent your twenties on the wrong person, isn’t there? Givēon knows it and he’s dragging those Long Beach heartbreaks straight to Bangkok. He peddles a particular kind of devastation as a singer – what many call velvet-smooth heartbreak, wrapped in a deep baritone. The seven-time Grammy-nominated R&B singer has announced his first ever Thai concert at UOB LIVE at EmSphere on Monday February 2 2026. It’s part of his Dear Beloved Tour, named after his second studio album Beloved, which dropped last July to critical praise and reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200. His breakthrough hit ‘Heartbreak Anniversary’ turned post-relationship misery into streaming gold and his new album Beloved continues mining that same vein. Tracks like ‘Twenties’ and ‘Rather Be’ explore the peculiar pain of wasted time and hindsight regret, all delivered in that signature baritone. Givēon told Rolling Stone that Beloved ‘was made live, so it’s made to be performed live’. He’s planning to bring strings, horns, background vocals and a full eight- to ten-piece band to create what he describes as a ‘movie-like world’ on stage. Bangkok has every sign that it will be part of that promise. Pricing and where to purchase Mastercard and Live Nation Tero member presales have ended. General tickets are now available at Thai Ticket Major in two price tiers (all standing): B2,500 and B3,200. Photograph: Live Nation Tero Event details Date: Monday February 2 202

You know that bit in the California rapper’s hit Taste where he’s ticking off cities? LA gets a taste, Miami gets a taste, then New York, Chicago, Houston and Portland get their shoutout. Well Bangkok's next on his worldwide roll – Ekamai to be exact. Photograph: salonedivita SALONE DI VITA’s hosting the whole thing with Hennessy behind it, launching their X.O La Carafe at the venue. So there's your excuse to feel fancy before inevitably losing all composure to ‘Rack City’.   The details:  When: Friday January 2 2026  Where: SALONE DI VITA, Sukhumvit 63 (Ekamai)  Reservations: LINE @salonedivita or call/WhatsApp +66 83 982 6262 Entry is table reservations only. No tickets sold.

Thailand just officially declared its native cat breeds a national symbol. Not metaphorically anymore, but cabinet-approved, stamped and sealed – these cats are now part of the kingdom’s official heritage. The fab five of Thai feline culture Suphalak Photograph: Maewboran A rare reddish-brown beauty that’s been prowling Thai soil for centuries. Pure native bloodlines are increasingly hard to find. Korat   Photograph: Veda Napha Naramit The silver-blue good luck charm. One of Thailand’s oldest breeds, traditionally given as gifts to bring prosperity and happiness. Siamese (or Wichienmaat)   Photograph: Elite Veterinary Care Perhaps the most famous globally, but thoroughly Thai at heart. Temple cats of ancient Siam, documented for over 700 years. Konja   Photograph: The Thai Cat Center The sleek black beauties with a rich history in Thai folklore. Native to the region and revered in traditional beliefs. Khao Manee   Photograph: Octavio.hgc Those stunning odd-eyed white cats that look like they're judging your life choices. Once exclusive to Thai royalty, they’re ancient symbols of good fortune. These cats have been padding around Thai homes, temples and manuscripts for centuries. There’s literally an ancient text called the Tamra Maew (basically a mediaeval cat encyclopaedia). They’re woven into local beliefs, good luck charms and cultural folklore – the whole nine lives, if you will. Why this matters (beyond the obvious cuteness factor) Sure, it sounds like the Thai

Your last call on a night out in Thailand might be pushed later into the night as Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is pushing hard to scrap the country’s alcohol-zoning rules, extend closing times to 4am nationwide and axe the ban on selling alcohol between 2pm and 5pm. If all goes to plan, these changes will roll out in January 2026. Right now, only certain licensed zones get to party past 2am: Silom, RCA and Ratchadaphisek in Bangkok, as well as hotspots like Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chon Buri and Ko Samui. Everyone else has to shut down at 2am, no exceptions. It’s a system that’s been criticised as outdated and a bit arbitrary. Many say why should geography determine when you can order another round? The proposed reforms would level the playing field. Instead of jumping through hoops to get entertainment venue licensing, all alcohol vendors could register directly with the Ministry of Interior as liquor outlets for that ‘simple, streamlined’ structure. The government’s motivation isn’t purely altruistic, of course. Extended hours and fewer restrictions are expected to pump up tourism-related numbers and generate hundreds of billions of baht in additional tax revenue.  Both the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Public Health have been tasked with figuring out the logistics of actually killing off these zoning regulations through ministerial channels. As mentioned, it’s early days, but if the cabinet thinks this is the way to go, Thailand’s hospitality industry (and anyone w

Halloween’s creeping up and the city’s got spooky activities lined up for this haunting season on every major soi (full lineup here). But before you reach for the witch’s hat or vampire cape, here’s a thought: why not dress up as Bangkok itself – its beloved faces, its everyday heroes, its homegrown icons? Bangkok has more personality in one street corner than most places have in their entire downtown. It’s colourful, unpredictable and iconic, so wear that energy on your sleeve, literally. Be the one at the party who thought outside the box, or in this case, outside Chatuchak’s costume stalls. Here’s some inspo to get you started: Tuk-tuk  Photograph: TAT Start strong with a local icon. Go DIY by grabbing a large cardboard box, paint it that unmistakable blue and red combo, strap it around your waist. Throw on a short-sleeved button-up (bonus points if it’s slightly faded) and you can optionally layer a vest over it to give that motorbike jacket energy. Khaki or dark blue work trousers keep it authentic. Maybe tuck a mini Bangkok map in your pocket. Finish with worn trainers or sandals and, really important, a neck towel for that ‘I’ve been driving all day’ effect. What you need: Cardboard box, blue and red paint, short-sleeved button-up (any colour, faded preferred), dark vest, khaki or navy work trousers, folded map, neck towel. If Thailand could win Best National Costume at Miss Universe 2015 with a tuk-tuk, we’re betting hard you’ll win best dressed at your Halloween pa

Friday October 3, the very same day The Life of a Showgirl hits streaming, Sukhumvit 31 goes shimmering-naughty for Bangkok’s Swifties with a Nightify Bar Crawl: Taylor’s Version. The long night includes five crawl stops, three all-night sanctuaries and DrinkAid keeping watch in the backroom, which means every ticket comes with hangover support.   Photograph: nightifyth   The route:  Soho House – 5pm onwards Backstage energy. Listening party. Screening. Eras Tour atmosphere at maximum saturation. Peppina – 6.30pm-8pm Italian food with Taylor-inspired drinks. Special pricing on à la carte cocktails. Treehouse Cafe and Bar – 8pm-9.45pm Trivia warfare. Deep cuts. Lyrical forensics. Pin 31 – 10pm-10.45pm 10 percent off cocktails. Projections. DJ sets. OFTR – 11pm-late Live bands. Complimentary shots keeping momentum vertical. Afterparty. All-night sanctuaries: Luka Buy-one-get-one cocktails and Suntree beers. Taylor bingo rewarding album knowledge with shots. Kenny’s Set menu, drink specials, themed decor, Taylor soundtrack on loop. C.A.L.M. Live band covering her greatest devastations from 8pm-11pm. Outdoor seating, food, cocktails, stars overhead. Basically, you get: Taylor-coded cocktails and bites at every venue. Trivia that separates casual fans from vault-track scholars. Photo ops and projections turning walls into Taylor moodboards. Live bands reimagining her catalogue. DJs spinning remixes until dawn. Free DrinkAid to keep you going. Plus surprise discounts, shots and p

So, there’s a performative male contest happening at Thammasat Rangsit University on October 1, put together by @sl4y3rr.rika, @sapphostirical, @ingmaroan, @ptricica, speakableherb and the Toa Hin On (โต๊ะหินอ่อน) collective. It’s part of a bigger phenomenon that started in America, famously in Seattle, then San Francisco joined in. The events drew hundreds. Sponsors even stepped in, funny enough a matcha label. Then colleges got FOMO: Cornell, University of Florida, Memphis, Yale, everyone wanted their piece of the action. And now Bangkok’s being Bangkok: a city where all gender expressions feel natural, where global movements find fertile ground and grow into something distinctly Thai. And it’s happening at Thammasat Rangsit Campus, Thailand’s progressive intellectual institution, where student movements were born and never really stopped. The place practically runs on boundary-pushing. Always has. So when the winds of change blow through, Thammasat makes it matter.   Photograph: @sl4y3rr.rika, @sapphostirical, @ingmaroan, @ptricica, speakableherb and the Toa Hin On (โต๊ะหินอ่อน) collective The invitation post reads: ‘Everyone’s welcome! This is a lighthearted event organised by students. Come join us for fun and entertainment! P.S. Don’t forget to bring all your performative essentials – books, matcha latte, wired earphones, your favourite CD and any literature! See you Wednesday October 1 at the SC1 Hall.’ Still, the contest’s poster makes clear the matcha latte can’t b

Sony Pictures just handed one of their biggest rom-com properties to Thailand’s GDH. If you’re not familiar, this is the Bad Genius studio, the same house that got How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies Oscar-shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. This Thai production powerhouse now claims 50 First Dates.   Photograph: GDH The 2004 Hollywood original is a pure amnesia romance. Drew Barrymore’s Lucy wakes up memory-wiped daily while Adam Sandler’s Henry relives the same courtship ritual. Love on permanent reset yet still choosing each other every sunrise. But in Thailand’s version, love rewinds in a whole new way: he forgets, she recalls.   Photograph: Sony Pictures The casting doubles down on surprises. Thai-born I-DLE’s Minnie Nicha leaps from K-pop stages to her first film role.    Photograph: min.nicha   Opposite her is Nadech Kugimiya, Thailand’s eternal heartthrob and box office guarantee, whose film Death-Whisperer 2 became the highest-grossing Thai film of all time in 2024, raking in B825 million.    Photograph: kugimiyas   Behind the camera is Mez Tharatorn, whose credits include co-writing How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies as well as hits like The Little Comedian, The Con-Heartist and I Fine… Thank You… Love You.   Photograph: Content Thailand   Since the announcement, everyone’s talking about cultural translation. GDH rarely does shallow remakes and we already see them reshaping the core story. What changes whe

Moo Deng’s first birthday bash has come and gone. Over four days, 28,890 local and international visitors flooded Khao Kheow Open Zoo to celebrate this basin baby. Photograph: Khamoo and the gang They carved her a cake from earth’s bounty. A fruit-and-veggie cake was sculpted for the birthday girl herself.  Photograph: Khamoo and the gang Then Moo Deng rang in her first year with a birthday shower that gave us a chaotic, wet-floor ballet.  Photograph: Khamoo and the gang Next came the first-ever official Moo Deng Coin by B.Leila, a collectible currency crafted for the Wildlife Sponsorship Programme. Photograph: Khamoo and the gang As the confetti settles, the zoo offers its star resident (and us) the ultimate grand gesture: a rebrand of the Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s Hippo Village. Plans are still under wraps but teaser visuals appeared on the zoo’s Facebook page, causing fans to swoon in the comments: ‘So pretty, just like Moo Deng,’ said one. ‘Hey, Moo Deng, let me know when it’s finished so I can visit often,’ said another. Post-birthday, her keepers wrapped it up with heartfelt words on Facebook: ‘The event’s wrapped up – thank you to everyone who came to see Moo Deng! And to the international fans who flew in from all over the world. We never thought people would cross oceans just to see a hippo standing in a basin.’ And that’s our girl, closing out her first chapter. This went from a full-blown zoo celebration to an international spectacle, with fans crossing oceans

Chut thai where ‘chut’ cuts straight to the bone, meaning ‘outfit.’ But peel back the surface and you're staring into centuries of textile artistry and encoded culture.  From the Dvaravati to the Srivijaya eras, spanning the sixth to thirteenth centuries, the wrap skirt was designed to move with the monsoon and with meaning. It’s fashion, function, faith and flirtation, all woven into one. You could trace it back to a story told in homegrown silk and the ancient trade routes that pulse through Thailand’s past.  For women, there’s the ‘pha nung’ and its cousin ‘pha sinh’. From North to South, each province translates climate and spirit into their chuts. Mountain communities speak different textile languages from coastal cities.  Then in 1964, Queen Sirikit unveiled chut thai ‘phra ratcha niyom,’ a polished royally endorsed national costume. The men’s suea phraratchathan followed in the late 1970s, rooted in that Raj-pattern legacy with modern grace. Now the story moves forward: UNESCO recognition. Thailand aims to immortalise the artistry behind its national costume, the know-how, craftsmanship and rituals, by seeking a place on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, with evaluation set for 2026. This nomination is part of a larger cultural preservation effort, an ever-growing vault of 396 relics and rituals already safeguarded as national heritage, with Muay Thai and Songkran circling close by.  The proposal weaves a story of shared heritage and mutual respect, threaded

History walked in wearing the face of Wanlop Rungkumjad. The first Thai to claim Best Actor at the 27th Taipei Film Festival, the so-called throne room where cinema gets consecrated. Mongrel delivered him there, a Taiwanese sledgehammer directed by Chiang Wei Liang and You Qiao Yin. Rungkumjad and his colleague Atchara Suwan breathe life into the undocumented, embodying those who exist like ghosts made flesh in society’s blind spots. The movie’s synopsis goes: An undocumented Thai immigrant moves through Taiwan's rugged mountain shadows. For survival, he tends to the elderly and disabled while his own spirit fractures. Days blur into survival, each breath borrowed time. When dignity starts slipping through cracked hands, the film asks: when everything conspires to hollow you out, what's left to call your own? With the gold horse in his hands, standing before the crowd and Mandarin sharp on his tongue, Rungkumjad said: ‘Before Mongrel, I was ready to give up. I thought it was my last shot at acting. But Taiwanese cinema gave me a rebirth. It made me part of something bigger.’ Throwing it back to 2019, Manta Ray was a submerged meditation directed by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng. Rungkumjad played a fisherman sheltering a Rohingya refugee that caught Venice’s eyes and The Orizzonti Award for Best Film landed in Thai hands for the first time. Six years forward, Rungkumjad has discovered what the margins know well: truth lives in the spaces too dangerous for the centre. In Mongrel, he

The Asian water monitors, omnipresent fixtures sunning themselves at Lumpini Park, just crawled out of legal limbo and into economic opportunity. The Department of National Parks has lifted these prehistoric reptiles from decades of commercial prohibition via a Royal Gazette announcement. While still under the watchful eye of wildlife conservation, water monitors can now be legally farmed for commercial purposes – their skin supple as fine leather, with a finesse worthy of haute couture, driving an entirely new economic sector. The rule is you can breed them but only at licensed hatcheries. No wild capture. No bare-handed snatching from the wild. Each one gets a microchip, a barcode beneath the skin. They’re not trophies, not to be hunted as prey, but to be handled as important national economic assets. But this eco-entrepreneurship of water monitors settles into an ethical grey zone, rooted in wildlife-to-wardrobe capitalism. The fashion world knows intimately how to romanticise skin, call it exotic leather, ship it to Milan, shoot it in monochrome. Yet many see that beneath those arm candies was a living creature, once breathing air. This thrums with the weight of extinction, survival and the strange tension between power and preservation. Water monitors were originally only ‘tolerated’ as urban scavengers. Acting like low-key park janitors, they helped clean the city and control pests naturally. But when their numbers exploded to an estimated 400 giants, some reaching thre