Places of Interest

Places of Interest

Ton Sai Waterfall

A small falls, over which pours a great volume of water during the rainy season.
The trees, watercourses, and pools nearby provide one of Phuket’s loveliest scenes.
The park headquarters and a small restaurant with an excellent view are also
at Ton Sai. Located near Thalang Town, 22 km. from Phuket Town.

Khao Rang


A great view of Phuket Town, the southern part of the island, and some of
the offshore islands, can be obtained by going to the top of Khao Rang Hill, on the
town’s northwest border.
There are also several restaurants featuring spectacular views of the city,
a health park for exercise enthusiasts, and a comfortable, expanse of grass s at
the top with a bronze statue of Phraya Ratsada Nupradit, the model Governor of
Phuket during King Rama V’s reign.

Wat Chalong


This is where stands the cast statue of Luang Por Cham, who helped the
people of Phuket put down the Angyee, or Chinese Coolie Rebellion, in 1876 during
the reign of Rama V. There are also statues of Luang Por Chaung, and Luang Por
Gluam, abbots of the temple during later times.
How to get there : Wat Chalong is about 8 km outside town. Take Vichit Songkram
Road to the Bypass Road and turn left, and drive for about 10 mins. Wat
Chalong is on the left.

Wat Phra Tong


This temple enshrines a golden Buddha image that sprang up from beneath
the earth long ago.
The story tells of a young boy who tied his buffalo to what he thought was
a post. After doing so, he fell down in agony and died. The father of the boy dreamed
that the reason his son had died was for the sin of tying a filthy buffalo to a sacred
object, that what the boy thought was a post was in reality the golden peak of the
Buddha’s conical cap. He told his neighbors the dream and they all went out to dig
up the statue but had no success.

Phuket Beaches

Patong Beach (15 km from town)
Phuket’s most developed beach offers numerous leisure, sporting, shopping and recreational options along its 3-km long cresent bay. Windsurfing, snorkelling, sailing, swimming and sunbathing number among the many popular daytime activities.
Patong is equally well known for its vibrant nightlife, among which seafood
restaurants feature prominently.

Karon Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
The second largest of Phuket’s tourist beaches. Large resort complexes line
the road behind of the shoreline, but the long, broad beach itself has no development. The sand is very white, and squeaks audibly when walked upon. The southern point has a fine coral reef stretching toward Kata and Bu Island.
Restaurants, bars, tour companies and other non-hotel businesses are at the
north end, near the traffic circle, and at the south end, on the little road connecting 52 - Smart Traveller the backroad with the beach road. The narrow road between Kata and Karon has a number of small businesses as well as the Dino Park Mini Golf facillity. Karon is the most up-scale of Phuket’s beaches. There is a regular daytime bus service to and from Phuket Town.

Kata Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
Beautiful Kata is a scenic gem, its clear water flanked by hills, and picturesque
Bu island sits offshore. Kata retains a village feel at its northern and southern ends and is perhaps more family-oriented, its beach is much more peaceful than Patong.

Kata Noi Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
South of Kata is Kata Noi, a smaller beach with only a few hotels and little other
development. The beach is superb. Many fish inhabit the rocks and corals along the
beachless shoreline stretching south. How to get there : Take the narrow beach road up over the hill from kata.

Naiharn Beach (18 km from town)
South of Kata Noi and north of Promthep Cape, Naiharn is not Phuket’s longest
beach, but it borders the most gorgeous lagoon on the island. The middle
of the beach is dominated by the Samnak Song Nai Han monastery, which has
obstructed excessive development and is the reason that the beach is generally
less crowded than other spots on the southern part of the island.
A wide variety of water sports can be enjoyed, but swimmers should be alert
for the red flag which warns of dangerous currents during the monsoon season
from May to October. One can walk to nearby Promthep Cape to observe sunsets,
which are often fiery and spectacular.

Kamala Beach
The beach is a favoured spot for witnessing sunsets. The northern end of
Kamala Beach is suitable for swimming. Whilst Kamala doesn’t attract tourists in
the same numbers as other places it has a certain niche, those who do come say
‘we like it just the way it is, don’t tell anyone as they’ll all come and spoil it’.

Singh Beach (About 1 km from Surin Beach)
The name means Lion’s Point. The beach is in a small, curving bay with rocky
headlands at the foot of forest-fringed cliffs and is among Phuket’s most beautiful
spots. Look for signs indicating the path down to the beach.

Kalim Beach
Just north of Patong Bay, starting from about the Novotel Resort Hotel Patong
to Thavorn Bay Resort, this area consists of rocky but quiet beaches, and an
interesting road leading up into hills with high viewpoints and a few good quality
restaurants perched on the edge and top. Some housing compounds are now being built on the hillsides and the whole area is steadily moving upmarket.

Chalong Bay (11 km from town)
Chalong’s muddy East Coast shoreline makes it rather unsuitable for swimming but
it’s an ideal and natural spot for yacht mooring. This beach has several restaurants selling some of Phuket’s best seafood.

Panwa Beach (10 km from town)
The southernmost tip of this cape is home to a Marine Biological Research
Centre and Phuket’s Aquarium where visitors may inspect several hundred exotic,
grotesque, and flamboyantly colourful marine species found in the teeming waters
of Phuket and elsewhere.

Surin Beach (24 km from town)
Evergreen trees line this small, curving bay, beneath the foothills north of
Kamala. Surin is home to Phuket’s first golf course, a nine-hole course laid out
more than sixty years ago during the reign of King Rama VII. It is now largely in
disuse except as a park.
The steep incline of the beach, turbulent water, and big waves make Surin
a dangerous place to swim.

Bangtao Beach
Bangtao is a large open bay with one of Phuket’s longest beaches. It was
once used for tin mining, but has since been developed into a luxury resort. Most
of it is occupied by the Laguna complex, a massive five-hotel development with
golf course. There are, however, accommodations available outside Laguna at the
bay’s south end.

Rawai Beach (17 km from town)
The palm-fringed beach is best known for ‘sea gypsies,’ a formerly nomadic
fishing minority believed to be of Melanesian descent. Rawai holds the distinction of
being the very first tourist beach on Phuket.

Promthep Cape
Promthep Cape is a headland forming the extreme south end of Phuket.
“Prom” is Thai for the Hindu term, “Brahma,” signifying purity, and “Thep” means
‘God.’ Local villagers used to refer to the cape as “Leam Jao”, or the God’s Cape,
and it was an easily recognisable landmark for the early seafarers traveling up the
Malay Peninsula from the sub-continent.

Phuket Life

Phuket Life : So, your enjoying the elephant tours and boat rides, the spas and the bars, but before you head back home, you’do like to see a bit of culture - the living,
breathing culture of daily life in Thailand. Well, it’s a lot easier than you may
think………. For a start, how about a ride on one of the local ‘buses’. These large wooden buses are known as ‘songthews’ and are usually painted blue with open sides. Like your average bus, they run along set routes, although it is not uncommon for them to detour up a side street to drop someone off at their house if they have a particularly heavy load of shopping. However, unlike regular buses, they don’t have set drop off/pick up points and they don’t even attempt to run to a fixed schedule.
If you want to catch a lift, you simply stand out on the main road and hail one
down when it comes your way – just check the small wooden sign along the top with the route hand painted in English and Thai. When you want to get off, simply bang on the side and yell to the driver. There are enough of them plying the roads to ensure that your wait shouldn’t be too long, especially if you adopt the ‘Thai style’; simply find a spot to sit down and contentedly watch the world hop by until your ride comes.
The songthews usually have a fixed rate for the route, no matter how far along that route you travel, and not only is the travel at a much more relaxing and safer pace than a tuktuk, its also a lot cheaper; the ride from Patong into Phuket Town will only cost you about B40. It’s also a great way to meet the locals and experience the Thai-life. The usual drop off point from the songthew into town is right in the heart
of the Old Town – a perfect place to soak up the atmosphere and culture of the Chinese-Thai population. Take a walk around the fresh market (talat yai) and absorb the buzz of the daily grocery shopping; stalls of neatly arranged fresh fruits and vegetables, carts of meat, fish and seafood on ice, as well and samples of Thai snacks. The road which the market sits on is lined with shops selling general household items; bamboo baskets for cooking rice, hand woven hats to keep the sun at bay and sweeping brooms made from various types of grasses and stalks.

This area of town is also home to many coffee shops, fabric shops and art galleries, but with a distinctly different atmosphere to similar establishments in the tourist areas of the island. It’s also the best place to check out the Chinese temples and will give you a reference to compare with Thai temples and how they differ, both architecturally and in the images and layout of the interiors. The best times to visit the temples is early (and we do mean early) morning. Every day, as the sun rises, the novice monks walk the streets barefoot, giving blessings and accepting offerings of food from the local Thais. Around each Thai temple, there are usually several shops selling candles, incense sticks, flower garlands and orange buckets full
of soap, shampoo and orange robes. These are bought and offered to the Buddha images and monks. A good temple to visit is Chalong Temple, or Wat Chalong. A visit at any time of day should allow you to observe some of the rituals and practices of Buddhism
in Thailand. It is a common sight to see the elder generations taking the grandchildren to the temple to pray and make offerings to the Buddha. A popular offering is to apply small squares of gold leaf to the Buddha images.

History Phuket

History in a Nutshell : Most geologists believe that the area known as Phuket today was once a cape that extended into the Andaman Sea. Geographical formations gradually
changed the capes location, finally detaching it from the mainland. A famous Greek philosopher, Claudius Ptolemy, was the first person who mentioned the cape in his book written in the year 157. The cape was locally referred to as Jung Ceylon, which was located between latitudes 6 N and 8 N (the present site of Phuket Island).
Natives called the place Cha Lang, which evolved to Tha Lang the name of the main town to the north of the island. As a perfect stopover sheltering traders from monsoons, Jung Ceylon welcomed merchants from India, Persia, Arabia, Burma, China and also Siam. During the 16th century, the island was also a popular trading port for tin with Portuguese, Dutch, English and French traders flocking to the island. This
contributed to making the development of mining so unprecedented. Chinese businessmen and miners later migrated to Phuket and soon enjoyed thriving business wealth.
Apart from serving as a meeting point for traders from Europe, Central Asia and China, Phuket also attracted ambitious immigrants, especially those from Portugal and China, to work in the tin mines. With its colorful history, visitors admire the
Sino-Portuguese style architecture in the city especially those buildings located along the Thalang and Yaowarat Roads. Thalang town was surrounded by Burmese troops who invaded the coastal area in 1785. It was under the leadership of Chan, the widow of the governor, and her sister, Muk, who united local residents and successfully fought and drove the invaders out of Phuket. It took over 30 days for the defending
troops of Phuket, under the command of Chan and Muk, to claim their victory.
As a result of such heroic deeds, noble titles were granted to Chan and Muk as Thao Thep Krasattri and Thao Si Sunthon respectively. To honor them, a monument was established at Tha Ruea Intersection, 12 kilometers to the north of Phuket City in 1966. They are still highly respected by Phuket residents even today.



However, 24 years later, the Burmese succeeded in seizing Thalang causing many local residents to flee to Phang Nga and Krabi. In 1825, some of them returned to re-establish a town and
established a rice farming community. On the other hand, the area to the south of the island (Phuket City today) was developed and became a tin trading center. When Phuket was elevated to a town in 1850, it attracted more immigrants from Thalang and nearby communities. In 1894, Phuket was promoted to be a Monthon administrative unit under the supervision of the central administrative body (located in Bangkok). In 1902, Phraya Ratsada Korsimbi, a Sino-Thai businessman who contributed to developing the modern city of Phuket was appointed Governor of Phuket. He also helped to improve the
welfare of local residents and set up the market system in the countryside. In
1916, Phuket became a province. The tin mining industry has gradually failed to generate economic growth in Phuket, especially after 1985 when the price of tin fell by half. However, with its natural resources, Phuket later emerged as a tourist destination with great potential. This polished pearl of the Andaman is truly a destination that provides guests with great experiences. The islands history has shaped the distinctive Phuket of the present with its diverse ethnic groups, culture, architectural influence, and fine cuisine. With about 35 percent of the population
being comprised of Thai-Muslims, it is possible to see an equal number of Wats
(Thai temples) located next to Mosques.

About Phuket

Located approximately 862 kilometers south of Bangkok is Phuket, pronounced
“Poo-get”, which is often dubbed as the pearl of the Andaman. Thailand’s largest island is also its second smallest province covering an area of approximately
570 square kilometers (Including 32 small islets). The island measures, from north to south, 48.7 kilometers and from east to west, 21.3 kilometers.
Phuket governance is divided into 3 districts, called ‘Amphur’; they are Amphur Muang, Amphur Thalang and Amphur Kathu. The province is bordered as follows :
To the north is the Pahk Prah Channel with Phang Nga Province on the other
side. The two provinces are connected by two bridges right next to each other,
the Sarasin Bridge and Thao Thep Krasattri Bridge. To the south and west
lies the Andaman Sea and to the east is Phang Nga Bay, with its spectacular
jungle clad limestone islands, including the ‘James Bond Island’ from the movie
‘The Man with the Golden Gun’. The residents of Phuket comprise Thais
who have migrated from the mainland, ethnic Chinese, Malays, and Chao Leh
or ‘sea-gypsies’ who were the original inhabitants.
According to the census, Thai-Budd hists account for 71% of the popultion,
Malays 24%, and the Chao Leh, 4%, make up the remainder. The figure
for Thai-Buddhists also includes the Chinese who are almost completely
assimilated. Some estimates put the percentage of ethnic Chinese at around
35%. The vast majority of the population resides in or around Phuket City
in the east and the resort of Patong Beach in the west, creating a population
distribution along an east-west axis.



In March 2007 the Phuket Provincial Administration office reported that there
are 313,955 people registered as living in Phuket. However, the real figure is
likely to be quite a lot higher as this data does not take into account those
who live and work in Phuket but are registered as being resident elsewhere,
a fairly common occurrence. One must also add the seasonal workers and visitors, of whom there are a significant number all year round. Taking everyone into account, some estimates have calculated a figure as high as 500,000 during peak periods.
Since the early 1980’s the tourist business has been Phuket’s chief source of
income. Hotels, restaurants, tour companies, and souvenir shops are much in
evidence on the west coast. However, while once all-important tin mining has
ceased, tourism is by no means the island’s only activity. Agriculture remains
important to a large number of people, and covers by far the largest acreage of the island. Principal crops are rubber, coconuts, cashews and pineapples. Prawn farming has largely taken over the east and south coasts but pearl farming is also important.
Phuket’s fishing port is at all times filled and the processing of marine products,
mainly fish, makes a significant contribution to the economy. With so many healthy industries supplying income, the building industry has also become a major factor in employment. Construction encompasses massive public works projects, large office
buildings and hotels, housing estates with hundreds of units, single luxury or
family homes, and many apartments and condominiums. Phuket has a lot more to offer its visitors other than just its natural heritage of sea, sand, sky, beach, forest, and world renowned diving sites. Sino-Portuguese architecture casts its spell delighting travelers to the city, while Phuket-style hospitality has never failed to impress visitors from all walks of life. In addition, accommodation ranging from worldclass resorts to tropical-style bungalows have warmly catered to the different
needs of travelers. For seafood lovers, there is a lot more to sample than just
Phuket’s famous lobster. Altogether, these characteristics have made this
island a truly unique destination.