The Bangkok Podcast

From a cute lil' gazebo on the rooftop of a newly-renovated hotel in Chinatown, Greg, Ed, and Stuart from Travelfish.org jump into the complex issue of "overtourism" in Thailand. Beginning with a definition of the term (roughly when the number of tourists exceeds the capacity of the existing infrastructure to properly service them), Stuart describes the situation in a number of popular tourist des...

We start off with some good news! Throwing back to episode 2.18 and guest Sawang Srisom, a disabled rights activist, Greg is happy to report that the city just gave a huge chunk of change to to the BTS so that they can finally add elevators to all stations! Really, it's about time - Bangkok's disabled facilities are embarrassingly unsuitable. Greg and Ed then get into the meat of the show - live m...

Greg welcomes former co-host Evo Terra back to the podcast after his repatriation to the good old U.S.A. Evo describes his new life in Phoenix and his many adjustments, including trying to drive on the right (that is, not left) side of the road. He also recounts the difficulty of finding a furnished apartment at a reasonable price and laments the relatively decent cost of living in the City of Ang...

Episode links: My interview with the guys at This Strange Life podcast https://soundcloud.com/this_strange_life/tsl04-tsl04-from-surviving-to-thriving-in-bangkok-with-greg-from-the-bangkok-podcast Bangkok may be great for the childless among us, but what about those expats who want to raise a family here? As a married guy without kids, Ed questions Greg about the pros and cons of being a parent in...

Key links for this show: StuJay.com Hey, do you know the difference between ใ and ไ? What about เ and แ? Well, we sort of do, but you know who really does? This week's guest, Stu Jay Raj. What started as a simple question from Greg to Stu about Thai vowels gets turned around as Stu - noted linguist, polyglot, and all around swell dude - starts asking questions of Greg, slowly revealing a method of...

Greg and Ed have each been in Thailand for more than 15 years, and along the way have done a lot of things right - but also a lot of things wrong. So in the spirit of the almighty do-over, they each thought of three pieces of advice they would give to their early Thailand selves. First of all, the boys skip the obvious piece of advice - learn Thai - which should be #1 on the list of everyone plann...

You may remember a month ago Greg and Ed invited our wonderful listeners to write in with details on how long they have been living in Thailand. Listen in to hear the boys discuss the results - or if you're more disposed to pretty colors, check out the neat-o pie chart on the website .   Greg then begins a conversation about Thai funerals with frequent podcast guest Phra Pandit, a British-born Bud...

Continuing with a series started in season 2 on some of Bangkok's more interesting neighborhoods, the boys discuss one of their favorites: Banglamphu. But before they can chat about that, exactly what is Banglamphu? It's not an official district, but it's probably best known for Khao San Road, with its borders hitting Ratchadamnoen in the south, the river to the west, north to Krung Kasem Canal, a...

Useful links: The Surprising Reason There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America Hot Thai Kitchen We're happy to have Pailin Chongchitnant as our guest this week, creator and host of Hot Thai Kitchen , a popular YouTube channel based in Vancouver, Canada that shows people how to cook delicious Thai food recipes in their kitchens. A handful of places - Italy, Japan, Vietnam, India - have food that...

Ahhh, Songkran, a waterfight so insane that people in other countries know all about it. Love it or hate it, it's THE holiday on the Thai calendar, and unless you've got a (probably damp) ticket in your (probably damp) little hands, it's hard to avoid. Greg starts off showing how poorly he can recollect the origins of Songkran off the top of his head, before he and Ed discuss the infamous "Ministr...

Going vegetarian in Bangkok has always struck Greg as somewhat of an inconvenience - I mean, how many vegetarian street food stalls do you know? But guess who's been on a full-on vegan diet for the past year? That's right, Ed. And guess who is going to give Greg some insight on actually how easy it is to be a vegetarian in Bangkok? Well...yes, of course, also Ed. You've been here before, I see. Ed...

Welcome back! For the first show of season 3, Greg introduces you to the new co-host of the Bangkok Podcast, Ed "The Truth" Knuth. Together they have a combined 35 years in the Big Mango, so they reminisce a bit about what the city was like when they first got here, how it compares to now, and what they think the city will look like in 10 or 20 years. Purely based on conjecture, of course, they ha...

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Though various types of pestilence plagued all of your hosts, two of of us managed to muster the necessary strength to record the episode this week. You're welcome. (Hi again, Ed!) We've a special guest on this week that anyone into in finance in Bangkok probably knows, Mr. Andrew Stotz , Ph. D. He's an award-winning equity analyst, the current President of the CFA Society Thailand, and the founde...

Key links for this episode: Map of Thonburi On the first show in our new series that digs into some of Bangkok's better-known 'hoods, we ask: did you know that Bangkok (that is, Thailand's modern capital) is not the original Bangkok? Nope! The first Bangkok (that is, the new capital after Ayutthaya was thrashed by the Burmese) was a little town called Thonburi. But, that didn't last long. Another...

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Key links for this episode: Nomadic Matt Plume App Our patrons know a secret. You can know it, too. One of the OG travel bloggers, Matt Kepnes, AKA Nomadic Matt, joins the program with all kinds of stories, tips, and reflections on travel on his site NomadicMatt.com . He even has a NYTimes best-selling book on how to travel the world on a budget! He's a hard guy to pin down, but he recently came t...

Support us and get cool stuff ! The thought of spending a few days on an island in Thailand sounds about as close to paradise as a westerner can get: blue water, white sand, the works! But the reality of it is a little different than the picture in your mind, and you might want to adjust your expectations a bit when visiting an island in Thailand. And speaking of Thailand as a great vacation desti...

Key links for this episode: Sign the Change.org petition to put the pressure on 7-11 Donate to support the fight against plastic waste in Thailand Greenpeace's position on Thailand's plastic problem Support the Bangkok Podcast on Patreon Yes, there are too many plastic bags floating -- literally -- around Bangkok. But rather than you listen to just more expat bitching, we brought on a local Thai p...

Key links for this episode: Support us on Patreon to get the show early You've probably heard of "the Thai smile", or know that Thailand is referred to as "the Land of Smiles". Both of those phrases are well-earned, but that whole smiling thing is more than something done just in the hospitality space. For many Thais, smiling in a situation is a default reaction, even when the experience they are...

To help us ring in 2018, we're bringing back a prior guest on his annual pilgrimage to Bangkok. Frank Smith from UC Berkeley teaches Khmer to children of Cambodian refugees. We caught up with him in person at Bangkok's Central World mall… before we got kicked out by security. Yes, again. Not just because one of us made a foot faux pas . What's it like for a Thai speaker who doesn't live in Thailan...

Before we start, we have to mention a recent news story from Bangkok, which is rather appropriate considering the topic of tonight's show. You may recall we discussed traffic on episode 2.27 -- Blood on the Highway: Thailand's Seven Deadly Days of Songkran . On that episode we mentioned that Thailand was the second-most deadly country in the world for road fatalities. Well, not anymore. We're numb...

You can now follow to the Bangkok Podcast on Spotify! It's nearly Xmas, so we figured we'd might as well start getting into the spirit of things with a Xmas-themed show. Now those of you who are westerners understand just how important Xmas is in your home countries. In most places it's the BIG DADDY of holidays, the one that the entire year has been building up to. In fact it's so big that they e...

On this episode we get into a few vague, strange - and possibly even non-existent - rules that you may or may not bump up against in Thailand. From buying chainsaws to changing your name to flying helicopters to losing your &$%@#! "book bank" (known throughout the rest of the world as bank books), these are things that govern the nuances of every day life. Greg reads 'em off, Evo plays Devil's Adv...

RSVP to the I Love Podcasting In Bangkok meetup on Nov 29, 2017! Patrons get early access and exclusive bonus content. Today's focus is on Korea's influence on Bangkok. Ted Ahn, an expat and ex-power plant manager from Korea, is actively working to bring about change in Bangkok's local Thai craft beer industry. Ted is the owner of Changwon Express , and Evo sat down with him at his newest location...