Phuket

Prior to visiting Thailand, I'd known of Phuket as a beach filled resort area in the south of Thailand. It turns out that Phuket is actually the name of a region, an island maybe 40 miles long and 15 miles wide. There are several towns on the island, one of which is also called Phuket. We didn't stay there, we stayed in Patong, the somewhat seedy party town in Phuket.


Dec 6 - Dec 10
Dec 22 - Dec 23

Prior to visiting Thailand, I'd known of Phuket as a beach filled resort area in the south of Thailand. It turns out that Phuket is actually the name of a region, an island maybe 40 miles long and 15 miles wide. There are several towns on the island, one of which is also called Phuket. We didn't stay there, we stayed in Patong, the somewhat seedy party town in Phuket.

Patong has a nice beach, a huge sweeping crescent of nearly rock free sand. The downsides are the crowds and the jellyfish that you have to keep an eye out for while swimming. The beach itself is packed with lounge chairs (which you have to rent for a fee, of course) and touts selling everything from jet ski rental to skin treatments to the ubiquitous Thai massage. Still, the beach was nice to spend some time on. At one spot on the beach, someone at brought in a set of large, inflatable water toys - something like you'd find at a summer camp. They had two large trampolines, a couple Saturn-like balance balls, some hot dog like see-saws, and a big floating climbing wall. I ended up spending several hours here the first day (Danny unfortunately couldn't because his knee was still healing), and got a sunburn despite the ultra sport SPF 75 sunscreen.

Patong Beach fun, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

Patong Beach, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

At night, the beach got a lot quieter. We did see some people selling the sky lanterns, but there would only be a couple in the air at any one time, nothing like Loy Krathong. One night, we happened upon a big dance party going on on the beach, and stayed there for a hour or so, until it was shut down.

Patong has an excess of bars, clustered around Bangla Road. When I say excess, I mean perhaps 120 or so, just on this one short street. We didn't really hang out here, but it was fun to walk through and people watch a couple times.

Bangla bar map, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

Another thing that Patong has a lot of is outdoor seafood restaurants. Some of these are tourist oriented, and some are far enough off the beaten track that they seem to be more for locals. Regardless, they all seem to be about the same. There's a big cart of crushed ice that has 10 to 20 different types of fish laid out in it. You pick which fish you want, and how you want it cooked, and they charge you by weight. The puzzling thing is that every place we tried had the same methods for cooking the fish - there was no attempt at innovation to pull in the customers. We witnessed the same thing in New Zealand where there was a set of 4 or 5 fancy restaurants in a row, and they all had almost exactly the same menu.

The fish is quite good though. Our favorite preparation was the "3 flavors", which was sweet, sour, and spicy. This was also an opportunity to try some more unusual fish, so we had barracuda, parrotfish, red grouper, some kind of crab, and a couple others I don't remember. One of the places we ate at had the cooking area very close to the dining area, and whenever they threw the chili paste into the wok it would make everyone's eyes water.

The rest of our time in Patong was spent doing planning for the upcoming excursions in Phang-Nga Bay and the islands, and just relaxing.