Thailand - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Trash Talk: Thailand’s Never-Ending Battle with Waste If Thailand’s politics are a soap opera, then waste management is the tragicomedy spin-off. It has all the drama, none of the happy endings, and the main villain is a plastic bag that refuses to die. Season 1: The Plastic Bag Apocalypse For decades, every purchase in Thailand came with not one, but seven plastic bags. Buy a bottle of water? Bag. A single banana? Bag. A pack of chewing gum? Double-bag it, just in case the gum escapes. By the time you walk out of 7-Eleven, you look like you’re preparing for a three-week jungle expedition. Season 2: The Big Ban (Sort Of) Then one day, the plot twisted: some supermarkets and big-name stores finally said, no more free plastic bags! Shoppers looked shocked. Panic erupted. Tote bags, woven baskets, even pillowcases were suddenly pressed into service. People proudly carried their groceries home in style, until they remembered the fresh fish they’d just bought was now dripping juice through ...

Burn It All for the Mushrooms: The Smoky Quest for Thailand's Truffles Ah, Chiang Mai, land of misty mountains, tranquil temples, and a three-month period every year when you can’t see any of it because the air turns into a smoky apocalypse. Why? Sure, some of it’s due to large-scale agriculture and cross-border burning, but a surprising amount of haze comes from a much humbler source: villagers setting the forest on fire to hunt for mushrooms. Not just any mushrooms, but the illustrious  het thob (เห็ดถอบ), also known as earthstar mushrooms or Astraeus hygrometricus . These round, truffle-like fungi are delicious, elusive, and most importantly, they thrive in recently burned forest soil. So, come dry season, locals grab their lighters and head to the hills to light things up, unfortunately literally. To be fair, this isn't just chaos for chaos’ sake. It’s tradition, it's seasonal income, it's dinner. These mushrooms fetch high prices at the market and can mean serious...

Breathless in Bangkok: A Tale of Air Pollution, PM2.5, and Government (In)Action Welcome to Thailand, where the air is thick with... well, not just the aroma of delicious street food, but also a not-so-delightful cocktail of pollutants. Let's dive into the hazy world of Thailand's air pollution problems, the infamous PM2.5 particles, and the government's attempts to tackle (or not) this invisible menace. The Invisible Enemy: PM2.5 PM2.5 particles are tiny, sneaky foes—so small they can infiltrate your lungs and even enter your bloodstream. These microscopic menaces come from various sources: vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, and agricultural burning. In Thailand, they're a chronic problem, especially during the dry season from November to April, when farmers burn fields and the weather traps pollutants close to the ground. Selfish Farmers and Local Losers: Fueling the Fire One of the major contributors to Thailand's air pollution woes is the selfish practice of...