Thai man almost loses home to monster monitor lizard

What do you do when you witness your house being broken into by a freakishly huge monitor lizard? Record the whole incident down of course.

Attanai Thaiyuanwong was in for a rude surprise on Sunday when he arrived back at his home in Nonthaburi, Thailand, to find an unwelcome visitor trying to get into his house.

The intruder was a giant monitor lizard, that looked as tall as an adult human, was standing upright on its hind legs with its mouth around the door knob.

In Thai tradition, monitor lizards are believed to bring good fortune to those who encounter them. Known as "Tua Ngern Tua Thong", Thais also call the reptiles "Hia!" which apparently means "F**k!".

Thaiyuanwong also posted a video on his Facebook which documented how he and his family tried to handle the situation.

According to a translation by Coconuts Bangkok, a man can be heard shouting in Thai, "Hia is in our house. It's f**king huge!", while a dog barked in the background.

A woman then said: "They say if you throw a coin at it, it will go away!"

The group continued to debate off-camera on what to do until the giant reptile wagged its tail, and everyone screamed.

Later, an unidentified man was seen trying to lure the lizard away with some rope.

It remains unclear if the monitor lizard was successfully removed, but seeing as Thaiyuanwong has been updating his Facebook page, we're assuming he's unharmed and the lizard returned to where it came from.

Like Follow Follow Thai fashionista recreates designer gown with bags of prawn crackers

A 28-year-old Thai woman has become an Internet sensation overnight after she posted her own version of a high fashion gown that's made from bags of prawn crackers.

Sine Benjaphorn is a plus-size model and owner of a clothing store in Ratchaburi, a province west of Bangkok, Thailand. The gown that she chose to replicate was a peach layered gown that Thai actress, Chompoo Araya wore to a L'Oreal event during the recent Cannes Film Festival.

According to Benjaphorn, she was inspired after seeing pictures of Araya and went out to buy bags of prawn crackers — a popular savoury snack — to sew them together. The end result from the colour down to the layering and wavy texture is uncanny. 

After posting a side-by-side comparison of her posing in the gown on the streets with Araya's red-carpet picture on May 12, Benjaphorn's post quickly went viral on Facebook, with many netizens praising her for her talent — both in design and comedy.

"I’m shocked. I never thought this many people would share my photo. And I’m on every news channel," Benjaphorn told reporters.

This peach gown is not Benjaphorn's first attempt at recreating a celebrity's iconic look. She has also dressed up as Katy Perry in her "Roar" music video and Claire Danes in her much-talked about Zac Posen gown that she wore during to this year's Met Gala.

British family punched and kicked while on holiday in Thailand

A British family has been attacked while walking on a busy street at a Thai beachside resort. 

CCTV footage posted online shows three holidaymakers, including a woman in her 60s, being punched to the ground and kicked in the face by several men during the Songkran Water Festival in Hua Hin, a coastal town about three hours south of Bangkok.

Editor's note: The video contain graphic images that may be upsetting to some.

The assault, which took place on 13 April according to local news site Khaosod English, starts when the couple's son touches shoulders with a Thai man carrying a bottle. An argument follows, during which several men punch the three to the ground and knock them unconscious. 

Thai police said three suspects have been arrested over the attack and are facing trial for grievous bodily harm, while a search continues for a fourth suspect. 

The victims were a British man in his 40s and his parents, both in their 60s. 

The younger Briton received seven stitches on the head, his father had a swollen wound in the head and the mother still has occasional headaches from the injury. 

Retail giant Central Group is buying Zalora’s businesses in Thailand and Vietnam

Zalora, the fashion-focused e-commerce site backed by Rocket Internet, is selling its businesses in Thailand and Vietnam to retailer Central Group, according to multiple sources close to the deal.

We reported the planned sale earlier this month and have since confirmed that Bangkok-headquartered Central Group is the buyer. The deal is said to be agreed in principle and currently subject to paperwork and red tape.

A Zalora spokesperson declined to comment. Central Group did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Central Group may not be a name well known outside of Southeast Asia, but it is one of the region’s largest retail players with a huge footprint in Thailand and forays into Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries. The group’s assets, which include multiple shopping malls and national department store chains, are worth close to $10 billion and it employs some 70,000 people across its operations.

The group has been tipped to enter the online commerce space for some time, and our sources say that it has struck a deal to buy the country businesses from Zalora for around $10 million each. Online is estimated to account for around three percent of all commerce in Southeast Asia and, while that figure has grown in recent years and stands to increase as the internet becomes more widely accessible throughout the region, it remains a nascent segment that few offline retailers have stepped into.

The low level of online commerce has been a challenge for Rocket Internet’s e-commerce startups, which started out with overly-ambitious targets, missed their projections for profitability, and have required significant capital to continue. Lazada received a $500 million investment from Alibaba this month after running out of cash, while Zalora remains unprofitable. Rocket Internet’s latest financial results show Zalora’s revenue rose 78 percent to €208 million ($234 million) in 2015, but its net loss increased 36 percent to €93.5 million ($105 million.)

One comparison to Central Group’s move comes by way of Indonesia’s Lippo Group, a conglomerate with $15 billion in assets across a range of sectors that include retail. The group created MatahariMall, an online version of its department store, with its first move into online commerce last year. There are also parallels in China, where Alibaba has invested in physical retailers InTime and Sunning to explore the potential of combining offline and online commerce.

While Lippo Group pledged to invest hundreds of millions in its e-commerce venture, it is unclear what sum Central Group has set aside. What’s more certain is that the Thailand-based group is getting a running start with the acquisition of assets from four-year-old Zalora. Zalora doesn’t publish business figures per country, but it claims 10 million downloads of its mobile apps and 1.4 million transactions per year across 10 countries in Asia Pacific.

Sources close to Zalora suggest that the company is selling the businesses in an effort to streamline its costs and move towards becoming profitable. Last week we reported that two of the companies managing directors have left the firm over apparent fallings out with Global Fashion Group, the $3.5 billion-valued entity that manages Rocket Internet’s five emerging market fashion brands. Tension apparently circles around GFG’s prioritization of investment in more developed markets, like the Middle East, over parts of Southeast Asia which it deems to be less capable of returning value.

Zalora raised over $200 million from investors prior to becoming a GFG business unit in November 2014. Now its money comes from GFG, which raises capital centrally for all of Rocket Internet’s fashion sites.