Phuket Thailand

 Phuket is Thailand's largest island, hilly, and famous for its beaches.

We visited Phuket a few weeks ago (June 16th to June 20th) on a Scoot Flight, and stayed at Patong Beach area. The primary activities there include - combing beaches, visiting big Buddha and night market, snorkeling and swimming at Phi Phi island. We rented a car there for convenience to visit places off the beaten path.

Patong Beach

We stayed at Hotel Clover, right next to the beach, short walking distance to the beach, restaurants and night clubs. Convenient but noisy at nights.

The beach is long, about 2.5 km from end to end, and flat, the main activity there is swimming and parasailing. Facing west, it is also a good place to see Sunset, and we were luck to see a splendid Sunset in rain season.

Patong Beach

sunset at Patong beach

Dusk

After sun set, we walked to Patong bar street, which was noisy, full of solicitors for bars, massage parlors ..... there is also restaurant market where most restaurants sell sea foods at pretty good price. 

gate to the Bar street

Surprisingly there were few birds or shore birds at the beach or any beaches we went during our stay there. We walked on the beach in a morning, and finally saw a couple of egrets wandering at the southern end of the beach.

two egrets - the only ones I saw at Phuket

Catching a fish

Another long beach on the west  coast is Karon beach, similar to Patong on beach itself, no stores by the beach, and much quieter, and fewer people. We also visited freedom beach and Bangtao Beach.

Big Buddha 

The 45 meter tall Big Buddha is a major attraction at Phuket, on a hill top, great panorama views of west coast and east coast of Phuket island, as well as hills to the south and north. There are smaller golden statues of Buddha at the base of the big Buddha, total of 7, each for a day of a week.

In addition to see the grand statue and beautiful scenery surrounding it, we also walked into the temple by the statue, watched monks chanting, observing a family kneeled in front of Buddha receiving blessings from a monk... in the end I made a symbolic connection to the Buddha!

Note that it is free to visit the big Buddha, but female visitors have to buy capes or skirts to cover up bare shoulders or thighs.

west coast

east coast

hills

touching Buddha

East Coast

East coast of Phuket has less beaches, and rocky shorelines. It is more of residential areas, some shorelines are inaccessible for public. Driving along shoreline, we arrived at Kao-Khad viewpoint. Beautiful cove, hills and view of big Buddha across the cove. Further along the shoreline, we arrived at Ao Yon beach, there was no beach due to high tide. We had a great lunch at Ao Yon seaside restaurant. 

East coast is also the gateway to the famed Phi Phi island.

Kao-Khad Viewpoint

Nigh Market and Old Town

Phuket night market we visited. The night market  - Chillva Market, is a flea market with a big open air food court. The food stalls there sell mostly snack like food. Very popular with locals, and we saw many middle school/high school girls. There are two stages for singing - the front one the singers sing in English, apparently targeting foreign tourists, and the back stage in Thai for domestic consumption.

flea market

fried bugs

night market

stage singing performance - English songs

backstage - sing Thai songs

The only regret for our Phuket trip was that we missed the opportunity to visit elephant sanctuary due to poor planning - we thought we could walk in but it has to be pre booked. 

The real highlight of our Phuket trip was outside Phuket - Phi Phi island, about 1 hour east to Phuket by speed boat. I will cover the Phi Phi island tour in next blog.