Monday 20 April 2026

Good morning Bangkok. Happy Monday.

🌡️ Weather: 34-37°C (93-99°F). The storm window that ran April 16-20 is finally easing, so today should be cleaner than last week with less afternoon thunder. Still hot. Still April.

🌫️ AQI: Bangkok improving, sitting around 81 (moderate) after the weekend's rain activity flushed some of the haze. A meaningful step down from 104 earlier in the week. Chiang Mai remains elevated.

SET: 1,489.73. Gold ฿71,850 buy / ฿72,050 sell.

A new survey published this week by Jobsdb by SEEK puts workplace happiness in Thailand at 67%, placing the country third in the region, a result that sounds reassuring until you read what's underneath it. The survey, which covered thousands of workers across sectors, found that burnout and chronic stress are the most persistent threats to that happiness score, and that the gap between how workers feel day-to-day and how they feel about their longer-term work lives is significant. Respondents cited long hours, unclear advancement pathways and cost-of-living pressure as the main compressors squeezing the score downward. Thailand's 67% still places it ahead of several regional neighbours, but the burnout caveat is the part worth paying attention to, particularly in a year where energy costs and inflation are chipping away at real wages without anyone officially announcing a pay cut. The survey lands on a Monday, which feels appropriate.

Bottom line: For Bangkok's expat professional community, this is a useful data point for both reading your own situation and understanding the environment around you. Thai colleagues absorbing the same cost-of-living pressures with generally lower salaries are doing so at a time when the safety net is thinner than the headline happiness number suggests. If your team feels stretched right now, the data says they probably are.

Bangchak Corporation launched its "Fry to Fly" campaign on April 6 and it runs through April 30, operating across 15 service stations in Bangkok, Samut Prakan, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani. The deal is simple: bring 2 litres of used cooking oil, walk away with 1 litre of diesel or regular-grade gasohol on the spot. Each person can exchange up to 20 litres, and restaurants and food operators can bring in larger volumes through separate collection agreements. The campaign has drawn active participation from motorcycle taxi riders and restaurant owners in particular, and universities and housing estates have set up collection points as well. On the back end, Bangchak converts the collected oil into sustainable aviation fuel as part of its existing green energy program, so the scheme works in two directions at once: cutting household costs at the pump while diverting waste oil away from drains and into jet engines. The practical math is not life-changing for a single household, but for a restaurant or a motorbike rider going through litres of oil weekly, it adds up.

Bottom line: This is exactly the kind of lateral thinking a crisis tends to produce, and it is actually working. If you have a stack of used cooking oil sitting around from Songkran cooking or run a restaurant in the Bangkok metro area, you have ten days left to use it. Participating stations are listed on Bangchak's website and Instagram. The campaign closes April 30.

This one requires a reservation, a taxi, and ideally a month of advance planning, but it earns every one of those conditions. Baan Tepa is a two-Michelin-star and Michelin Green Star Thai fine dining restaurant built inside the three-generation family home of Chef Tam Chudaree Debhakam, the first Thai female chef to hold two Michelin stars and named Asia's Best Female Chef by Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in 2025. The experience begins before you even sit down: guests get a guided tour of the Tepa Garden out back where staff grow herbs and vegetables used in that evening's menu, which immediately grounds everything that follows in something real rather than decorative. The seven-course tasting menu reinterprets Thai culinary traditions through local, seasonal and largely organic ingredients, with dishes like squid ink dong dang noodles with salted duck egg, soft shell crab glazed with northern Thai crab jam, and a chicken liver mousse on sticky rice brioche that shows up in almost every review as a standout. The 1980s colonial villa interior, warm brick tones and open kitchen create a space that feels intimate and alive rather than stiff. Chef Tam herself is known to appear tableside during service. Tripadvisor reviewers consistently note that the journey to Ramkhamhaeng is worth every extra minute of travel time, and that the meal runs a genuinely unhurried two and a half hours.

TIP: Book at least four weeks ahead, ideally further. Allow extra time from central Bangkok during evening rush hour. Budget around ฿4,500-5,500 per person for the tasting menu before drinks. A wine pairing adds approximately ฿3,800. A

(Confirm times directly before heading out.)

See you tomorrow morning.

— Devon