We’re flying from Sukothai airport to Phuket, so Kat drops us off at the airport, hugs us all and heads back to the elephants. We’d got the train down here so this is our first view of the airport and it’s amazing – absolutely tiny (there are probably more staff than passengers!), security is relaxed, and the ‘gate’ is a handful of rows of wooden seats with complementary drinks and snacks for all passengers. The grounds are also beautifully manicured. It makes Koh Samui airport (which again is tiny and really nice) look like Heathrow! The airport is only used by Bangkok Airways, and numbers are low (there are about 10 of us that get on the plane) so it’s another turboprop to Bangkok before switching to a jet plane to Phuket. We head off and are in BKK an hour later. We hug Penny goodbye and move gates for our Phuket flight. BKK seems enormous (it is I suppose) and the crowd waiting at our gate is large and very different to what we’ve been used to for a while.
Being honest, we’ve both got very low expectations for Phuket. It’s by far the largest tourist hotspot in Thailand and is likely to be very commercialised and over-developed compared to where we’ve been (for the most part) to date. However, we consider it a necessary evil – we’re planning to do a lot of diving out here and Phuket rates in the top 10 dive places in the world. We’ve booked a two day overnight dive trip to Koh Phi Phi in two days time, and very early in trip planning we organised a liveaboard for five days in the Similan Islands out in the Andaman Sea. The main ‘resort’ in Phuket is Patong (any resemblance to the legendary Patpong in Bangkok is entirely intentional!) but we’re further south – we’ve booked to stay in a hotel on the outskirts of Kata Beach which is almost at the far south of the island. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.
It almost feels like we’ve moved to a different country when we land in Phuket – we realise our budget will need to increase significantly! The cheapest way to get to Kata is via minibus at 180 baht each, and that includes the inevitable stop at a tour agency for hard sell of hotels and excursions. We then head off and hit Patong, and appears as bad (if not worse) than the really big tourist hotspots in Europe – Magaluf, Falaraki etc. Most of the people on the minibus are staying here – we’re both really thankful we’re not! In fact, we’re the last drop-off, pretty much what we were expecting. Our hotel is OK – it’s attempting to be slightly corporate but in entirely the wrong location. Still, it has all the amenities we need, though when we find out breakfast is from 08.00-12.00 we realise exactly the sort of crowd being catered for. The rest of the day involves unpacking, and eating dinner at a local Italian place where the food is pretty good but we vow not to return to due to the arrogant and rude owner – something you’d think he couldn’t afford to do with only half a dozen customers! The next day we’re up late and we head out to explore. We’re about 10 minutes walk from the centre of Kata, not a bad distance as the place itself is pretty lively, though nothing like Patong. We head to the beach and walk along it from one end to the other. It’s not really what we’d want – it’s pretty much like all the busy European resorts, huge numbers of sunbeds lined up tightly, and very busy with people. To be expected really, Phuket is a popular package location from both Europe and Asia. Personally, I’m a bit saddened – Thailand is an amazing and beautiful country and it feels like a bit of a waste to come all this way then sit on a crowded beach. Linda reminds me that everyone’s different but even so... We head back and get everything sorted for our dive trip to Koh Phi Phi tomorrow.
We’re up early for the dive trip. It’s going to be long and busy days – four dives today, then overnight on Phi Phi, followed by three dives tomorrow. The weather is a bit overcast but it soon clears. We get to the pier and the boat is really nice – probably one of the nicest we’ve been on. We also realise it’s going to be uncrowded – there are a total of three boat crew, two dive instructors, and five divers: us, a couple of Germans and an Italian. The Germans are with the German instructor while the rest of us are with the Belfast-born Kerry. We’re basically heading south to Phi Phi hitting dive sites on the way, ending with a night dive just outside Tonsai Bay, the main bay on Phi Phi Lei. The diving is pretty good, visibility varies from dive to dive, starting better and generally getting worse throughout the day. There are a few problems: we have to abandon the first dive as Linda has equalisation problems (due to her very persistent cold!); our Italian co-diver, Alessandro, is a bit of a novice and has zero concept of spatial awareness WRT other divers (and his finning technique needs improvement!) – but overall it’s a good day, and the weather has been excellent. The night dive is also pretty good, though I think Linda still needs some convincing about these. We hit the mainland of Phi Phi around 19.30 or so and walk through the main town to head to our hotel which is at the far end of the beach. Phi Phi was hit VERY hard by the tsunami in 2004, but has recovered very well since then (Phuket was also hit pretty hard too) – Kerry has some friends who were diving when the tsunami hit and they ended up in a hotel swimming pool! It’s also the place where the film The Beach was filmed, and since then tourism here has boomed. The town is pretty busy but is quieter than anywhere else we’ve seen in Phuket – we’d originally considered coming here for a few days during our early planning of the trip and we think in retrospect that it might have been a good idea having seen Phuket now! Our hotel is very nice – we’re in a bungalow overlooking the bay – but given the tiring day and early start tomorrow we’re pretty soon asleep. The next day brings poor weather – it’s rained heavily overnight, and there’s still very heavy weather lingering around. We head out fairly early towards the first dive site – the sea is very choppy with heavy surf and swell – we’re really bouncing around on the ocean, which is unnerving given the size of the dive boat we’re on! The dives today are also pretty good, but visibility is worse today – inevitable given the weather conditions really. Over the course of the two days we’ve seen some pretty good stuff – black tip reef sharks, pipefish, tubefish, moray eels, barracuda, lots of schools of rabbit fish, jack fish and others, plus lots of nice macro diving stuff: tiny seahorses, nudibranch, shrimps etc. It’s been good, but vis has limited photo opportunities unfortunately. Given the choppy conditions most of us are happy to get back to Phuket late afternoon.
The next few days are a mix of chilling out, a little bit of travelling, and a little beach time. We eventually hit Patong (we’ve got dive paperwork to complete for our liveaboard). We decide to spend a little time wandering around Patong, maybe get lunch. We change our plans very quickly. Frankly, it’s a shithole, full of touts trying to sell timeshares, tuk tuk drivers desperate to get business (maybe you should reduce your fares – 400 baht for a few miles is taking the p*ss, but then it’s inevitable given the spineless authorities do nothing to crack down on the ‘tuk tuk mafia’) and shop owners trying to flog dodgy DVDs and overpriced fake tat. We’re there for one hour and we decide to leave – it’s really that bad. Kata seems like bliss in comparison, well, until we get hassled by more timeshare touts anyway. Phuket is not making a great impression on us! The weather in Phuket has been pretty bad – it’s supposed to be the cool season but it’s rained heavily every day since we got back from Phi Phi. We finally get a reasonable day and actually hit the beach eventually – only for a few hours, but we do some snorkelling and it’s not bad, but the beach is strewn with litter and debris, not nice really. The sea is also relatively calm, which it hasn’t been for a few days – we passed through Karon on the way to Patong and this beach has terrible rip currents: red flags were up as we went past but the sea was still full of people, I’m guessing that’s how Phuket manages an average of 20 drownings each year.
Finally we pack ready for our liveaboard in the Similans. We’re both looking forward to leaving Phuket, although we’ve still got a couple of days on our return from the Similans (we’ve booked into a much quieter place up north!) Phuket has been a real eye-opener for us – it’s much busier than any other beach place we’ve visited and neither of us really like the vibe of the place – we agree that if we hadn’t been here for the diving we’d have left and gone somewhere else pretty quickly. It’s very disappointing for a number of reasons: Thailand is an amazing place and Phuket really doesn’t feel part of that; we’ve just come from some great places and Phuket just feels like a real step down; but, oddly, I think it’s because we both had very low expectations and it still didn’t manage to meet even those. I think I prefer Pattaya, as at least it doesn’t have any pretensions to be anything special – Phuket pretends to be a special place and it really isn’t. This is our first visit here and it’ll definitely be our last – prior to this, if someone had told me they were heading to Phuket I’d have been jealous – now I’d just warn them off. Overdeveloped, overpopulated, overpriced and overrated – that sums Phuket up for us.
