Thailand, Phuket Island: Patong is Wrong, the Rest is Best

One of the good things about Patong Beach was visiting the beach at sunset
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After the paradise that we experienced at the Koh Phi Phi islands and the fact that we decided to stay in the Patong Beach area when we arrived in Phuket, Phuket did not stand much of a chance against our quickly ill-harboured feelings when we arrived back on the island to spend a few days there. Whilst both of us really did not like the Patong Beach area (at all!), there were other areas of the island we discovered to be quite nice.

An island of contrasts, Phuket does have much on offer. Spectacular scenery, tropical sunsets and a warm blue sea awaits travellers at Asia’s most popular beach destination. White sandy beaches can be found along the west and south coasts whilst mangrove lined shores are abundant along the east coast. A range of hills runs down the middle of the island, dividing it in half.

YOU SHOULD LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN AT HOME if you are visiting Patong Beach

Tuk-tuks are local taxis and are a common method of transportation in Thailand
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Apparently, the west coast's Patong Beach was once (once?) known as the sleazy, red light district of Phuket and has undergone a period of transformation in recent years. The area's once notorious nightlife has been tamed somewhat to make it friendlier to women, couples and families and Patong now is supposed to have something for everyone. However, we both disagree with this as we saw very little evidence of that in the main area of Patong where we stayed. Ladyboys running around half-naked in the streets and very old, fat, bald men walking through the streets holding hands with extremely young Thai women was enough for us to think YOU SHOULD LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN AT HOME if you are visiting Patong Beach. We can only imagine how much worse Patong Beach must have been prior to it being "cleaned up"!

A shopping mall in Patong offered many Thai arts and crafts
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We booked ourselves into the cheapest accommodation we could find at Patong Beach. Crown Hostel is a very cheerful place run by a kind Thai man named Peter and his wife, and is located in the centre of Patong Beach. The hostel has been set up to provide all the basics needed by backpackers and his place definitely delivers for the value. There were only a couple of minor drawbacks about Crown Hostel, one being the lack of any kind of breakfast and the second being its location right in the heart of the noisy, crazy, late-night shenanigans of Patong Beach. However, if you are looking for late nights and lots of crazy, highly energised tourists and Thais alike, then this is the place for you!

Kyle praying that the second and third day in Patong and Phuket will not be as bad as the first
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On our first night in Phuket, after arriving from Koh Phi Phi, we took to the streets of Patong to see what the fuss was all about. Within minutes, we were harassed by young Thai girls trying to convince us to venture into their bars and buy loads of drinks for ourselves and them. Dan was grabbed roughly by one girl, or so he thought at the time, and was pulled towards a bar on the side of the street. Luckily, Kyle was able to distract the "girl" so that Dan could manage to escape her intimate hug and get back to the main street. We later laughed over the realisation that in fact it was a ladyboy who grabbed Dan, our first (but unfortunately not the last) encounter with one in Thailand. Throughout the rest of our time on Phuket island, we observed many more roaming the streets of Patong looking for their latest prey, and from then on we tried to avoid any harassment by walking on the opposite side of the road whenever possible. That proved to be difficult, however, since they were everywhere!

There are many beautiful beaches in Phuket that you must explore if you visit the island (Kata and Karon are two examples)
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Muay Thai (boxing) is quite popular in Thailand and is basically boxing "with a kick", aka kickboxing. Whilst we didn't want to part with a few hundred Thai Baht to watch a full match, we did notice a match in full swing outside a bar down a side street in Patong, and we headed in that direction to check it out. As neither of us had seen live Thai boxing, it would have been a great experience for us. However, we arrived right at the moment when the referee lifted the winner's arm in the air to announce the fight was over. Oh well, maybe next time. One of the reasons we missed the end of the fight was due to us being detained by a pack of ladyboys hunting for innocent victims passing their lair, the bar just before the one showing the live boxing match. The ladyboys were being loud and obnoxious, and one in particular tried to attract people's attention by flashing her fake and uncovered boobs in the middle of the street for all to see. She was shouting and screaming something in Thai but it was completely unintelligible as she seemed to be completely drunk or on some kind of drugs.

Several bays on Phuket island offer calm, clear waters which are good for swimming and snorkelling
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The streets around the main area of Patong were very busy with tourists, people selling souvenirs and Thai prostitutes milling around looking for action. The noisy and crowded bars were full of Thai girls and ladyboys wearing next to nothing and dancing on top of tables and bars, many gyrating around old, white men. We found all of this a bit "in your face" and nasty so didn't spend any time getting to know the area. The area was generally sleazy, quite racy at times and dirty; because of this, Patong seemed to attract the "trashy" tourist. This is one place which will never appear again on one of our "places to travel" lists, and it should be noted that we have no qualms about stating this fact.

One of the viewpoints in Phuket offered a great expansive view of one of the bays
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To clear our minds from our Patong Beach experience, we decided to circumnavigate the island by scooter. This proved to be an enjoyable experience as we got the opportunity to see many other villages on the island and meet the real Thais of Phuket, who live outside the tourist-infested beach areas. It seemed that the further we went away from Patong, the more enjoyable the island was, and we are able to now finish this journal entry with a slightly better taste in our mouths.

Hiring a scooter is very cheap in Thailand, and we paid 250 Baht (£4 or $7) to use the scooter for a day. To fill up the scooter with petrol, we only spent 120 Baht (£2 or $3.50)! Our first and primary stop of the day was at Phuket's Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre. After a quick glimpse of wild gibbons in Borneo (see our Niah Caves journal entry to read about this experience), we wanted to experience seeing these shy animals again up close. The Gibbon Project which is run at the rehabilitation centre in northern Phuket houses many gibbons that have been badly treated or kept as pets, whereby the owners can no longer look after them. Once the gibbons reach maturity, they can become aggressive and dangerous and one of the project's aims is to stop these gibbons from being killed when they are too old to keep in people's homes. Thailand has an issue with people using baby and young gibbons as tourist attractions; owners charge tourists money to have their picture taken with one.

These are rubber trees lining the road, and if you look closely you will see the cuts marked into the tree where workers collected the rubber sap
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Although we are guilty of succumbing to this tourist "attraction", we recommend you avoid this as it only lines the pocket of the owner and does nothing to prevent the bad treatment of these poor, defenceless animals. We also later learned that some Thais will kill a baby gibbon's parents in order to capture the young ones for use as these so-called tourist "attractions". They will also remove the gibbon's canine teeth which prevents the gibbon from returning to the wild as its survival chances are much lower without its strong canines. This is causing a threat to the gibbon species as a whole and people should be aware of the implications of this (including us!).

Our first up-close sighting of a gibbon, at Phuket's Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre
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There was a cafe outside the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre, and we grabbed something to eat before leaving. We then headed towards Phuket Town, the island's capital, to travel through and reach the southern end of the island. Being the largest island in Thailand, the journey time between locations was longer than normal island travel, but this did not prevent us getting around the island in a day.

Trying to navigate our way through the somewhat large Phuket town, with no map to help us, was an interesting experience. We quickly got lost trying to get out of Phuket Town and we think we looked the part as a friendly local came racing over to us to provide assistance. Well, it came as no surprise that he wanted money for his help in guiding us in the right direction, and as soon as we told him we had no money (this little white lie REALLY works in Thailand), he said that he could take us to an ATM. One thing we have noted about the Thais is that they are quite bold, brazen and unnerving, and this guy was a prime example - he strongly suggested we could go to an ATM to give him a few hundred Baht for helping us with directions. To solidify this analogy of Thais even further, we told him that we didn't have a wallet with us (another little white lie that REALLY works in Thailand), and he was gone before either of us could blink!

These adorable apes are being reintroduced to the wild after a time at the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre in Phuket
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After driving around a little bit more, we came upon a 7-Eleven and went inside for an orange slush and directions out of town. It took awhile to sort both out, but we got there in the end and left Phuket Town to check out the southern island viewpoints. Stopping and spending a long time at sights around the southern tip of the island was very unpleasant in the middle of the hot afternoon, so we made each stop a very quick one in order to get back onto the scooter to enjoy its natural, but not dust-free, "air conditioning".

We ate pad thai (spicy noodles with egg, tofu, chicken and vegetables) at this "cafe" outside the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre
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Nai Han Beach was an amazingly beautiful bay set on the most southwestern tip of Phuket. Away from the hoards of tourists, the crowd was much younger than in Patong and much less trashy looking. The beach was fairly large and clean and would have been more enjoyable for us had we stayed there. The other beaches we really liked on the island were located near Nai Han Beach: the beaches of Rawai, Kata Noi, Kata and Karon. The waters were calm and blue on these beaches and a presented a more idyllic setting than Patong.

We have experienced many gorgeous views from the islands we are visiting in Thailand
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Around the southern part of the island, we stopped at the viewpoints at Promthep Cape and Kata. Both of these were situated on high cliffs overlooking different bays and beaches along the western coast of Phuket, and they both offered spectacular views. At the Promthep Cape viewpoint, we found an open-air Buddhist shrine with worshippers saying prayers and leaving offerings to their god Buddha. Circling the shrine were hundreds of elephant figurines of all sizes and materials; clearly this outdoor temple takes the sacred elephant very seriously. It was also near this viewpoint that we saw an elephant crossing sign in the road, and where we got our first glimpse of elephants in Thailand!

A small door to someone's house on Friendship Beach
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We stopped off at Kata Beach to eat something and were disappointed in our selection. We chose to eat in a resort on the beach, so we could sit in the shade and rest our sunburned arms and noses and admire the beach and sea over a snack. You would think a resort would offer excellent food for the price they charge, but this one really didn't. The food we had was bland and a little bit cold, and it just goes to show that we should never assume anything over here. Some of the best food we have eaten has also been some of the cheapest food we have bought! It's a shame that we can't remember the name of the resort to warn you, so instead we will advise anyone travelling to Kata Beach on Phuket to avoid all resorts in general.

Dan taking a siesta in a hammock on Friendship Beach
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For our last full day in Phuket, we booked ourselves onto a Phang Nga Bay tour, to see the infamous James Bond Island, and this journal entry can now be viewed online. We spent the remainder of our time in Phuket counting the number of 70-year old men we saw hobbling around the streets with young Thai women, and also working on our travel journal and travel plans in an internet cafe down the street from our hostel. One evening we had a few too many Chang beers while working online, and when we left the internet cafe we both were a bit wobbly in the knee! To give a little credit to Patong Beach (only a smidge), we ate good food at nearly all of the restaurants we tried. We also enjoyed sitting out on the beach one day, although the hawkers walking up and down the beach never left us alone. It was a good thing that we didn't take any money to the beach that day as our "little white lie" of having no money was a reality that drove them away!

Kyle opted for the more comfortable king-sized bed on Friendship Beach
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Our next destination after the Phang Nga Bay tour is to be Koh Samui island, a place where Kyle visited back in June 2000 and was rained on every single day for 9 days straight. This was his only real taste of Thailand seven years ago and he wanted to experience the island properly, so he suggested to Dan that they add this island to the travel itinerary to make up for the bad travel experience at the start of the millennium. Dan, being a Thailand virgin (not literally), easily acquiesced and you will soon be able to read about a very successful and enjoyable trip to the island of Koh Samui.