Spirit of Thailand

Many expats or longer term residents in Thailand have to leave the country every two or three months in order to obtain a new visa. Within Asia you can generally only get short term tourist visas. There are exceptions: Retirement visas let you stay in Thailand permanently, but you have to put a big chunk of money in the bank (about US $25,000.-), and you have to be older than 50. Work visas also allow you to stay in the country, but they are only good as long as you are employed by a company.

My visa is good for one year, but I have to leave the country every three months in order to get a  new entry stamp in my passport. And once a year I have to travel to the US or Australia to get a new one year visa. Just recently it was again time to get a new visa, and I went to the US to get it. Read the rest of this entry

Would you be interested in better health, more relaxation, better circulation, greater flexibility, higher levels of peace of mind, an improved feeling of well-being, better ability to deal with stress, and a feeling of being totally revitalized? Yes? Then you are a candidate for a Thai massage. You might get some of the benefits or all of them, but you will certainly benefit greatly. Read the rest of this entry

I am not sure who originally came up with this, but those ten commandments for the New Age have helped me a lot in my life, and I am very happy to share them. I hope you get some inspiration from them. What is interesting to me is that we might label these ideas as “new age”, but in Thailand they fit perfectly within the  Buddhist principles. Great ideas are not confined to specific countries or religions. Read the rest of this entry

We have heard the stories: Westerners go to Thailand and find that suddenly their world is turned upside down. People react to them in ways they cannot understand, the language is not even remotely similar to European languages, the food is strange, the traffic seems chaotic, people are smiling but you have no idea what they are really thinking, relationships don’t work at all like in the west, and the religion can be contrary to western beliefs. It can be confusing indeed, and it is called culture shock. Read the rest of this entry

After living in Thailand for many years and having received many Thai massages I have come up with a listing of different styles of Thai massage therapists you will encounter in Thailand.

1. The social type: This is the chatty type. She will immediately ask where you come from, if you speak Thai, if you are in a relationship etc. She will chat with you during the massage and she will have lively conversations with her fellow Thai massage therapists who are working in the same room. She keeps her mobile phone next to her and she will take any call. Either she will stop the massage until she is done talking or she will hold the phone with one hand and massage you with her free hand. She is not really focused on what she is doing and sees the massage scene as a perpetual social gathering. It might really annoy someone, but there are clients who actually enjoy this party atmosphere. Read the rest of this entry

There are people out there who suggest  “no pain, no gain”.  Interestingly enough a lot of the Thai people actually subscribe to that. Many massage therapists in Thailand have told me that their fellow countrymen often prefer really strong massage even if it is painful, but in contrast the foreigners prefer a gentler and non-painful approach. I have also met a good number of  Thais who will not get Thai massage because they have heard or experienced that it can be painful, and so they stay away from it.

My personal experience has been that when I ask a Thai massage therapist to work on a tight spot, they often will just press harder and use their elbows to dig deeper. But this has nothing to do with Thai massage as a therapeutic system, but only with the way how it is applied. I have practiced and taught Thai massage for over 10 years and I don’t hurt anyone. Read the rest of this entry

Recently I visited a beautiful resort about 100 km from Chiang Mai. The owner is a naturopathic doctor who developed some amazing treatments for serious health challenges. He is committed to running a holistic spa and building a sustainable project. The food is healthy and clean, a lot of it grown on the resort’s own farm.  There is a steam sauna, two swimming ponds, beautiful grounds, horses, deer and other animals, and even a small golf course. Read the rest of this entry

Have you ever had a massage that left you with a feeling like you just went to heaven for a while? If not, you did not get enough massages, or you never found the right therapist. What is it that makes a touch magical, what is the secret? Can one develop such a great touch?

Energy transforms, and if you think that this sounds esoteric, it is not. Did you ever see someone who is deeply in love? Did you notice that the person seems to glow, to radiate happy energy? Or did you ever meet someone who is deeply depressed and you felt like a dark cloud enveloped you suddenly? Read the rest of this entry

Why are Thai men not interested in relationships with foreign women? And why don’t western women care about Thai men? After all Thailand is known for cross-cultural relationships and men come here by the tens of thousands to find female Thai partners. Why is this a one way street? Why do you rarely see Thai men with western women?

Who follows whom?

Thais are shy people compared to most westerners. Culturally it is not acceptable to show strong emotion, get angry, yell at people, confront someone head-on, or have an intense argument. On top of that in many Asian cultures the woman traditionally follows the man much more compared to the total equality concept that is prevalent in the west. And here we have a major sticking point. Read the rest of this entry

In Thailand it is not always easy to distinguish between prostitution and legitimate relationships. Let’s say a foreign man hires a woman to be his girlfriend for a certain amount of time – quite a common scenario in Thailand – and pays her a fixed salary. That must be prostitution, you would think.

But what if that same man gets involved in a relationship with a Thai woman, lives with her indefinitely, but still pays her a certain amount of money every month, which she expects from him, and she would not stay with him once he stops paying. Now is it still prostitution? There is no clear and easy answer, since I have just described a high percentage of western man/Thai woman relationships. Read the rest of this entry