Jamie's Phuket 2008 - The Best Bits

Time is money, so they say, but I disagree. Time is life, time is love, time is all you need. And there is never enough. Not enough time to do all you want, not enough time to spend with loved ones, not enough time to spend with friends, and not enough time to update blogs! Thus, on the last day of January I will make a review of 2008.

What appears on Jamie's Phuket depends on what we do, where we go and how much of that precious time I have. I would love to blog full time and write something new and exciting every couple of days, but family comes first, and work takes up most of the week, so do bear with me. I hope that over the last 2 ½ years this blog has been of some help, the original aim, and still the aim - to show the real Phuket, not only the beaches and tourist hangouts. 2008 was a good year, and 2009 promises much. So let's look back at what was blogged last year...

In January, my favourite Phad Thai shop was blogged.. and this little roadside local shop has now made the Lonely Planet! Thai food is great, but I admit to being English, and sometimes need some English Food too...



I have a vague aim to blog all Phuket Temples... 2 were added in January - Kata Temple (on the back road near Kata Beach) and Wat Naka (near Phuket Town).

February - a rare treat at a very nice restaurant called The Ninth Floor in Patong, not our normal kind of place, it was a company dinner. Great food... Next up - a visit to Chalong Temple Fair (which has also been on for the last 10 days).

The floating restaurant at Bang Rong on the east coast of Phuket was blogged - one of our favourite quite places... as is Buddha Mountain, where the Big Buddha is slowly nearing completion. We wrote our names on a piece of marble which I assume is now part of the statue...



March - we visited the Weekend Market which is near the aforementioned Naka Temple on the edge of Phuket Town. We also visited the Phuket Food Festival held at Sapan Hin in the south of town.



There was a little piece about Phuket Weather, although for much more information on the weather, then my Phuket Weather Blog is the place to look.

I was making a point to blog different parts of Phuket Town during 2008. In April I headed to Sapan Hin for a look around...



And then... highlight of April has to be Songkran! I have learned over the years that you have to be in a Songkran mood to enjoy the day. So we enjoyed it!



Phuket has more bloggers you know! In April there was an honorable mention for the Phuket Bloggers - if there are more, do let me know!

May - we left Phuket for a while - holidays! My wifes family is in Chumphon, on the east coast about 400km from Phuket. Further up the coast is the very nice little town of Prachuap Khiri Khan, which I enjoyed visiting. Must blog Chumphon one day too!

Back in Phuket we enjoyed the views from Rang Hill... and found a great restaurant on the north side of Phuket Town - Pak Nam Seafood.



June - meant to be low season but of course the weather is mostly nice. A couple of places to mingle and exercise with the locals - Bang Wad Reservoir and Suan Luang Park.



Phuket is trying to head more up market. Yes, it's got a lot of package tourists, but the luxury market is expanding... Nothing left for the budget traveler? Wrong! I wrote a little something about Phuket for Backpackers.

July - we started with another little local temple - Wat Thepnimit (which is just outside town), and later in the month I blogged Wat Sawang Arom, which is close to Rawai Beach.



Also at Rawai Beach... Nikitas Bar is a Phuket legend. On the beach, small and friendly, good prices. We like!

In July, using TripAdvisor as a guide, I wrote about the Top 10 Hotels in Phuket - this page has become one of the most visited on the blog.

August. At the end of August, Phuket Airport was closed for a day and a half by the PAD. We did not think at the time that the same idiots would do the same in Bangkok. It was a very confusing few days at the end of the month. I tried to do a kind of "live blog" with updates for a few days.

Earlier in the month, the Big Chicken restaurant was blogged - and we have just been there this very evening!

I also took some time to look around Kata Noi Beach.



Oh, back in January I mentioned the Phad Thai shop being in the Lonely Planet - in August I did a little review of the Lonely Planet Phuket Encounter Guide... and was glad to note they mentioned this blog :)

Our kids love the Phuket Butterfly Garden - we've been a few times. It's on the edge of Phuket Town.



September 2008. The year seems almost done... Now and then I add a recommendation for a Phuket Hotel. So in September I added Burasari and Katathani.

I finally blogged something about the Similan Islands, which really was the reason I stayed in Phuket. Great diving.

And then... my absolute favourite Phuket festival started at the end of September. This is something unmissable, something totally unique. The Phuket Vegetarian Festival. Every year I try to see something new, I started with the food...



And into October... the Vegetarian Festival is awesome. If you can be in Phuket at the right time, BE HERE! You cannot see anything like this anywhere. I was in blog overdrive for a week...

• Kathu Shrine
• Jui Tui Shrine
• Vegetarian Festival in Kathu Village - including face piercing



The firecrackers when the procession left Kathu village were earbursting. This is an experience...



And I took more photos of the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket Town. I love it! I also posted some videos of the festival...



As if October could not get any better.... we flew to Phi Phi. Yes, flew to Phi Phi. There are seaplane flights with a company called Destination Air, and I was asked to write something for them. No payment but at the last minute I was able to get the whole family along for the ride. A great afternoon.



November - into the high season for us divers... I took some videos at Phuket Aquarium, praised the abundance of Fruit Stalls, and we celebrated Loy Krathong...



I took my daughter to school - well, an old school which has been turned into a museum in Phuket Town - Thai Hua Museum... and on the edge of town, not far from our house, we found a great new noodle shop specialising in Kuay Jap style noodles.



I have learned something - there are always new adventures to be had, new places to explore close to your own doorstep. It's too easy to turn on the TV, easy to eat at your favourite restaurant, and I am guilty of this too. I thank this blog for making me get off my sofa. Phuket is a great place, but is often rather misunderstood. I love it here, and have no plans to leave.

December - I admit to being far too busy to write much save for some stuff about high season weather in Phuket and a review of the very nice Amari Coral Beach Resort.

The end of December marked a turning point. It has now been more than 4 years since the tsunami... What did I write? Fear not for the future, weep not for the past. Bring on 2009. It has already been brought. Hope January has been good for you. Hope the next 11 months are good too. Keep reading Jamie's Phuket!

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Phuket 91.5 FM Radio

Back in England I used to listen a lot to the radio. My favourite shows were hosted by the late great John Peel, and by "Whispering" Bob Harris, along with a blues show hosted by Paul Jones on Radio 2. I also liked Mark and Lard in the mornings on Radio 1.. good for listening on a drive to work. Yeh, I used to be a radio fan. Indeed (little known factoid) back in 1988/89 I even hosted a 2 hour Saturday evening show from 6 - 8pm for about a year on U.R.Y (University Radio York). Holy Cow... I just Googled URY and there is a website with my name in it! Had not thought about that for many years!

• University Radio York

Anyway.. enough about the old days! I will admit that I have been very much a CD person for the last 20 years. I listen to the music I choose. My computer has 11,000 tracks to choose from. Radio? Pah!

But last week I received an email that made me turn the radio on again. Yes, good marketing! There are quite a lot of radio stations you can listen to in Phuket, but largely for local people rather than foreigners or local foreign residents.. of which there are rather a lot in Phuket. So, the email from Phuket 91.5 FM had some effect - a new website, live streaming so you can listen online.. well, I had to click! And turned on the radio on the way home (I drive about 25 minutes each way). Rather oddly, the first song I heard in the car was Always look on the bright side of life.. from Monty Pythons Life of Brian. You know... If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten - and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing!



So I have tuned my car radio to 91.5 now. Yeh, some music is not my style, but in the last few days I have heard old rock, Thai rock, jazz, dodgy old pop songs, makes a change from my CD collection! You can click on the banner above to open a "mini player" and listen online to Phuket 91.5 FM

I contacted the radio station as I was interested to have a look around their studio, which is located in Patong on the "back back" road winding along the hillside, officially called Hasip Pee Road. Good views over Patong from up there.





One of the owners met me. The studio tour was fairly rapid - this is not the BBC! The main broadcast studio was a computer and one control panel. Changed a bit since my days as a DJ - we had faders and turntables and tape decks and CD players - now it's all done by computers!



The station has only been running for about 9 months, and they are aware of the need to expand the music library - I was assured a major expansion is coming soon. Also, more live shows are coming soon - at the moment there is a lot of computerised broadcasting. I visited on Sunday morning.. but right now there is no breakfast show. The studio was empty, but broadcasting nonetheless! They also have a small production studio for making ads and voiceovers and promotional videos. Even though it's new, 91.5FM is "the" radio station for Phuket. Have a listen right now!

• Phuket 91.5 FM Radio Website
• Phuket 91.5 FM Facebook Group

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Uptown Restaurant (Phuket Town)

I admit to getting stuck in eating routines sometimes. We have a half dozen favourite places to eat (if we are not eating at home) and sometimes it seems I have lost all sense of adventure! Well, on Friday night, my wife and I managed a rare evening out without the kids and we ate at the Natural Restaurant in Phuket Town, we will go back and it will be blogged! Then on Saturday, we went with the kids for lunch at the Uptown Restaurant also in Phuket town.



Uptown is a popular lunch spot for locals, the menu is quite extensive but they specialise in noodle dishes. There were a lot of tom yum noodle dishes and other soups without noodles - we had one of these, called Kao Lao.

 

Uptown Restaurant is on the street corner opposite the indoor Expo market, near the old Thavorn Grand Plaza Hotel, about 400m south of the bus station. We noticed it was popular with local office staff, there was a crowd in from the nearby Kasikorn bank and a couple of families having a Saturday lunch out just like us.



Here's some of our lunch. I had a Phad Thai Hor Khai, we had drinks (ice tea, ice chocolate), kids had some fried chicken, total bill was... 270 Baht. That was for 5 dishes plus drinks. I do believe we'll be back soon!

 



I admit we have been a bit lazy and not really explored new places to eat recently, but it's time to try some new restaurants. There are a couple of new places up on Rang Hill for example, and the well known Dibuk restaurant in the old town. Phuket Town is the place to find more local food. Some places we like in town include ...

• Kopitiam by Wilai
• Rimtang
• Naowarat
• Tunk Ka Cafe

• More restaurants we like in and around Phuket

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Sala Phuket Resort at Mai Khao Beach

The Sala Phuket Resort, located way up in the north of Phuket on Mai Khao Beach, miles from the crowds only opened just over a year ago but seems to have gained a very good reputation very quickly. Luxury, elegance, tranquility, an all-but-private beachfront... er it's not for backpackers by the way. Sala Phuket is one of the new breed of Phuket resorts looking for guests who really do want to get away from it all and be very well looked after, and certainly don't want to be mixing with the hoi polloi on Phuket's busier beaches :) Sala Phuket is already mentioned in my Top 10 Phuket Hotels which was based on Trip Advisor reviews of Phuket Hotels.

I decided to write a bit more about Sala Phuket after seeing that the Phuket Wan online newspaper had declared Sala Phuket to be it's resort of the year for 2008. Someone poetic clearly writes for Phuket Wan... "The villas ... are set well back from the beach rather than overpowering it, the way resort designers once thought they were obliged to. From that premise of co-existence flows a gentle design that delivers greenery, shapes and entrancing perspectives in every aspect of the resort.

With rubber trees dappling paths and occasional Alice in Wonderland oversized surprises in odd spaces, the Sala's Thai design team has broken with resort boredom."

I think that translates as - it's really very nice indeed, something a bit special, not just another hotel on another beach. I don't suppose I'll ever stay there - unless the GM is reading this and wants to offer a free night? :) That's one reason why I like to mention Trip Advisor - you don't have to believe me, you can read plenty of reviews by happy guests and get a feel for any minus points at a hotel. I am sure most savvy hotel managers will read the reviews too!

As if to reinforce this idea of Phuket as a luxury destination, I found an article in the New York Times online published a few days ago : Luxury Destination of the Year... It's going to be a good 2009.

Sala Phuket - Booking & Reviews

• Sala Phuket - Rates and Reservations at Agoda.com
• Sala Phuket - Hotel Reviews at Agoda.com

Sala Phuket - Photos









Phuket Hotels - More Information - Online Booking

• More of Jamie's Phuket Hotel Suggestions
• Top 10 Phuket Hotels
• Phuket Hotels - Book Online at Agoda.com
• Thailand Hotel Booking at Agoda.com

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Liveaboard Diving from Phuket

So it was back in 1999 that I came to Thailand to dive. The decision to give Thailand a try was based on reports from many people I had met while traveling in other countries who had been to Thailand. Nobody seemed to have a bad word to say. And, since I was already a dive instructor and Thailand has lots of diving, it seemed like a good option... But Thailand is a big country. And there are lots of places to dive, so where to choose?

Phuket ended up as the choice because Phuket was the gateway to the Similan Islands (Khao Lak is too, but 10 years ago Khao Lak was much less well known), and Phuket is home to liveaboard dive boats. A bit of research on the internet was enough to steer me towards Phuket. The Similan Islands sounded fantastic, and liveaboards were the way to get there. So my aim was to get work on a liveaboard, diving, cruising the seas and thinking to save some money and maybe move on after a year. Or two. Or a lot more, as it has turned out!

Why liveaboards? Well, I had been teaching beginners dive courses for a year or so, and fancied a change from that. A liveaboard is a custom built boat, where guests can stay for days at a time (anything from 2 to 10 days or even more). The boat has cabins (well, some cheap ones just have "sleeping areas"), a crew, you eat on the boat, sleep on the boat and move from dive site to dive site. It's all about diving! The liveaboard life is basically dive-eat-sleep, plus of course a good lot of chat and getting to know your fellow divers. This seemed like just what I wanted to do, just dive and talk diving!



My first Similan Islands trip was in February 2000, though before that I did a couple of liveaboard trips into Burma, and got to know the local dive sites around Phuket. From the first second of the first dive in the Similan Islands, I knew coming to Phuket had been a good idea. I stayed on a liveaboard boat called the "Koon" for a few months until the end of the dive season. Great life on the boat, great diving. The Koon was a smallish wooden boat, taking maximum 16 guests, had a great local crew who loved "their" boat, nothing too fancy, just right for me!



Over the next couple of years I went on many other liveaboards like The Junk, Mermaid 2, Faah Yai, Scuba Adventure, Le Mahe and more, but after my daughter was born I did less, as I did not want to be away from home for long periods. When you have kids, every minute is precious! Since 2001, liveaboard diving has become even more popular from Phuket and Khao Lak, there are lots of newer boats.. yes there are still cheap ones, but the average boat is certainly better now than back in 2000. Many offer en suite cabins, airconditioning, and on all you get well looked after by the boat crew and by the dive staff. For the Similans or for the remote Mergui Archipelago in Burma, it's the best way to dive.

I think there used to be a tendency for divers to think that liveaboards were only for experienced divers, hardcore divers, "real" divers... but really the Similan Islands offers diving for everyone. Sure there are some currents and deep water, so it is certainly not ideal for newly certified, nervous divers, but I tell you - on a 4 day liveaboard you normally do up to 14 dives. A fairly new diver gains a great deal of experience in a few days. The boy becomes a man, the tadpole is transformed into the frog, a diver is born. I have seen it many times and I have enjoyed every liveaboard trip bar none. So, if you're a diver and heading to Phuket.. the word for today is "Liveaboard". Happy Diving!

Liveaboard Diving from Phuket with Sunrise Divers - more information:

• Phuket Liveaboards - overview of some of the better boats
• Last Minute Deals and Special Offers
• Similan Islands Dive Sites

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