Wat Sam Kong Temple

It seems to have been a long time since I blogged a temple. I have a vague plan to blog all the Temples in Phuket, though it could take for ever. A lot of temples in a small area! Some are important, some serve small local communities, some are easy to find, some are hidden away. A couple of weeks ago I visited Sam Kong Temple (Wat Sam Kong) which is only a few km from my house and we've driven past the entrance hundreds of times.

Sam Kong (meaning 3 hills) is in the North East of Phuket Town. The area is an older part of town, and like Kathu just down the road was an important part of the tin mining industry in times past. Like Kathu, many of the locals in this area are Chinese Thais who came to Phuket during the tin mining boom in the 19th century. There is a Chinese Shrine close by too. The Sam Kong temple entrance is about 200m along the bypass road from the Tesco Lotus junction (officially called the Sam Kong junction) towards the main airport road (location on Google Earth).



As usual for a small local temple, not much going on, just a few monks sweeping up leaves. The main building was locked up. A few dogs lazed around the grounds and then all dashed off at once to picked a fight with a visiting stray.





Not a big temple at all, but as always I felt that temple calm despite the 4 lane road a hundred meters away! Flowers had been placed around a tree. The monks had certainly kept the place leaf free. There was a nice lawn in front of the bell tower ("hor rakang" in Thai).





The day before I visited had been Asarnha Bucha Day, one of the most important Buddhist days remembering the first sermon of the Lord Buddha. A few people were still coming to receive blessings.



One of the older monks decided to stop sweeping and have a chat. I think he wanted to practice his English. I asked if he'd been a monk all his life. No! He had never even served as a monk when he was younger. Been too busy getting an education. As far as I could make out he'd worked in the local government in a town in the north of Thailand and now was retired. After working all his life he said he needed some peace and so had come to Wat Sam Kong for 3 months.



After a chat it was time to buy some new brooms from the broom man. Only 20 Baht each.. or maybe that was a temple discount? The temple at Sam Kong is near a busy road, a couple of hundred meters from a shopping mall, only a few miles down the road to Patong Beach. The quiet side of Phuket is never far away.

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The Phuket Photo Walk - World Photo Walk 2009

Saturday July 18th was the day of the "Phuket Photo Walk", part of the World Photo Walk, with groups of photographers getting together all on the same day to take photos of their town or city. According to the Worldwide Photo Walk website, there were 900 walks with over 30,000 participants. I had seen the walk advertised in the Phuket Gazette the week before, so logged in to the website to sign up for the Phuket walk. I am a total photo amateur, but I like taking photos and this blog is always quite image oriented as I am a firm believer that a picture is worth a thousand words. Although that might depend on who is writing. Maybe Wordsworth could compete with a photo, but my prose tends to be less poetic, so I rely on photos.



I had no idea what to expect on Saturday. All the photographers were to meet at Cafe 154, Royal Phuket City Hotel in Phuket Town at 9am. I was expecting a whole bunch of pros with huge lenses. I was worried I'd be feeling a bit inadequate, but was happy to see that most looked like normal folks who just like taking photos and I saw several familiar faces. Phuket is not so big, so if you've been here a few years you tend to know quite a few other residents. There were only a few really fancy cameras around. I have a Canon EOS 20D, which is now a few years out of date. I saw an assortment of Canons and Nikons and even a Hasselblad. I think most of us attending were hoping to learn a few things from this walk. This was the first time I tried using the RAW format for taking pictures rather than just recording jpg images. RAW images do not convert the data received by the sensor, so can be manipulated to create just the right photo. They also take up acres of memory!

 

The walk leader was Kim Khamzin, a proper pro photographer with a huge lens. He lives in Phuket and takes a lot of photos with models. You can check out his photos on Flickr: Phuket Photo Project. It took a while for everyone to gather and then we took the group photo, had a little chat and set off towards old Phuket Town which is always good for photography. It's a couple of blocks from the Royal Phuket City Hotel to the old town. Phuket town is not huge, easy to walk around, I never seem to get bored with camera in hand.



Once we reached the clock tower at the corner of Phuket Road and Phang Nga Road, we all went off our separate ways, although over the course of the next couple of hours we bumped into each other around the old town. It was a sunny morning, we were lucky with the weather as it had been rather wet during the week. Everyone took different routes around town. I think most headed directly to the old town, whereas I detoured a couple of blocks south to a street called Soi Taling Chan where you can find a Chinese Shrine, a Mosque and a Catholic Church within a couple of minutes walk.

 

If you have a camera and want to see something of the real Phuket, not the tourist beaches.. get to Phuket Town, take a walk. I had an enjoyable couple of hours wandering, crossing paths with other photographers, stopping for drinks in cafes (it was a hot morning), sampling temples, old Chinese shops and getting plenty of smiles...



 



A few of my favourite pictures from the walk... These doors are on Soi Romanee, a little street in the heart of old town.

 





(Update) The photo above has been reprinted in the Phuket Gazette hardcopy edition this week - see a photo on my Twitpic page.



Many more photos on my Flickr page. I signed up for Flickr a few years ago and had not uploaded anything for over 2 years until this week! Click on the second link for the group page on Flickr for the Phuket photo group, most of the recent photos are from Saturdays walk. There were about 40 people in all, some locals and some resident foreigners. There's a good mix of photos on the Flickr group - it's always interesting to see how different people view the same subject, the photos show what different photographers find interesting.

• My Phuket Photo Walk Photos on Flickr
• Phuket Photo Flickr Group
• Phuket Photo Walk Video on Youtube

After about 2 hours, a bit before midday, I was getting hot and headed back to Cafe 154. On a hot day in Phuket, I do like to see signs saying "Special: Draft Heineken 99 Baht". Yes, please!



As everyone drifted back to the cafe, there was a general passing around of cameras to compare photos and ideas, and it was decided to have another meet up on the 30th July at Cafe 154, Royal Phuket City Hotel starting at 7 - 7:30pm. If you are in Phuket and interested in photography or just want to chat with people who live here, do come along. Kim has asked people to bring CDs or USB sticks with their "best" photos to the meeting. It should be a good chance to learn something, or at the very least a good chance to drink draft Heineken :)

A few more pictures from Saturday...





 

And finally, I saw this little fortune sticker on a small shrine outside a house in the old town. I'll settle for happy.

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Phuket Tourist Information by the Tourists

If you're thinking of a holiday in Phuket, or visiting Phuket as part of a longer trip, you will surely be looking for information on hotels, things to do, places to eat, the culture, festivals and so on. Every tourist wants something different. Some people are very happy to be immersed in Patong with all the shops and touts and fast food and bars. Some people want a quite resort with a less crowded beach. Some want the ultimate honeymoon getaway. Some tourists book tours, others explore on their own. This blog is open to anyone, but will certainly interest the more independent traveler/tourist. I tend to look at places a bit more off the main route and don't mention Patong much, or the normal tours (elephant rides, speedboat snorkel trips, Fantasea show, snake shows etc..). Hey, the idea of the blog was to show another side to Phuket rather than just the same old things you can find on any website.

BUT of course, this leaves a hole. This blog can't cover everything, so where to look if you want to know about Patong? Tours? Get a hotel recommendation from someone who stayed there recently? Well, you can try other blogs about Phuket (see some of the links on the left side of this page), but again, like this one, they are written by people living here. I think if you are coming as a tourist it's good to get a tourists point of view. Where to start?

I joined TripAdvisor some time ago and it has a very busy Phuket forum. New questions being asked hourly, and there always seems to be someone with an answer, be it a recent visitor or a regular visitor to Phuket or maybe one of the "Destination Experts" for Phuket. I recently got given that title, so now tend to look at the forum more often and help with questions, but it's often already been answered, as there are so many people using the forum!

• TripAdvisor Phuket Forum
• TripAdvisor Phuket Hotel Reviews

So, that's a good place to start, but it was through the TripAdvisor forum that I found several Phuket experts, regular visitors to Phuket rather than residents, and they have very good information to share. Have a look at these websites:

• Cathy and Gary's Phuket Pages
• Bob and Janette's Travel Pages
• Tina's Phuket Pages on VirtualTourist

The VirtualTourist website also has hotel reviews and a forum - I should take a closer look sometime. I see that Cathy and Gary also contribute a fair amount to that site. There's just not enough time to surf the whole web!

Also on the TripAdvisor forum I found Richard (using the nickname kiwilad37) offering to send people his Phuket Tips sheet. I contacted Richard by email. He's been to Phuket many times over the last 15 years and started making a tip sheet for friends or family. Lots of information, but it's not online. You can contact Richard by email (rfdunedin@ymail.com) and ask for a copy. Actually, rather more than a "sheet" - it's a 25 page pdf file, like a mini guidebook!

On the subject of guidebooks... now normally I would say a guidebook is likely to be out of date, maybe good for general information, but there is nothing like getting information right from the horses mouth. However, there are a couple of good Phuket guides, both updated in the last year. I have reviewed them on this blog. If you are coming to Phuket and must carry something on paper, these are worthwhile:

• Travelfish Phuket Guide
• Lonely Planet Phuket Encounter Guide

If anyone knows of any recommended websites in a similar vein to those above, please do add a comment below. I believe you can learn a lot from reading the experiences of other visitors and getting "insider tips". Having the right information can make a visit to Phuket much more rewarding. I hope this blog helps a little! :)

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Paradise Beach Phuket

Finding a quiet beach in Phuket is not so hard really. Get away from the main beaches (Patong, Karon, Kata) and none of them are too crazy. Hey, in the summer season (May - October) even the main beaches are not always too jammed! The busiest of all Phuket beaches is Patong. I tend to avoid Patong wherever possible. Not my cup of tea. But just about 4km away from the south end of Patong, over the little bridge and past the entrance to the Amari Coral Beach Resort, along the winding road that leads past the Merlin Beach Resort, then over a hill on a narrow, steep path, wide enough for a car (just about!)... then you come to Paradise Beach.



Slightly corny name, but we like Paradise Beach. We used to go quite often, though I think our last time may have been a few years ago now. The land is privately owned and I am amazed the owner has not sold out to a resort. It's been kept simple. Some beach chairs, some shaded areas where you can sit and eat, a small restaurant, a volleyball court ... I hear that any visitor is now charged a fee of 100 Baht to enter, it used to be that for beach chair hire, but we normally went to eat, and never paid an entry fee.



There was an old mooring buoy hung from a tree. My daughter loved swinging from that! Not sure if it's still there now.



In low season, it's very quiet. We mostly used to in low season. During the high season, they do have a deal with one Patong resort to bring guests over, but even still, since there is no busy road, no hawkers, no jetskis, no tuk tuks, it's nice enough in high season too. It's well kept, beach is always clean.. only the toilets are a bit lacking. If you want to rinse off after a swim in the sea there is a pipe connected to a tap hanging over a rock at one end of the beach.



We often used to go and meet friends there and a few hours would pass quickly with some cold drinks. The food is decent, not expensive, although we moan that it could be cheaper! You can sit in the shade and the kids can play safely on the beach. My kids liked to go hunting for little hermit crabs which they kept in bottles (and would set free again later).



From Paradise Beach you can just about see one end of Patong across the bay. The water is normally quite clear, you can snorkel here. Swimming is OK, but you have to be aware that at low tide it can be a bit rocky underfoot. At high tide, it's great.





Even if it's true that you have to pay a 100 Baht entry fee, that's not ridiculous if the place is well kept. I hope they manage to keep it simple and inexpensive, there is always the temptation here for land and restaurant owners to cater to people with more money than brains. Tourist prices don't suit us - we are not on holiday here! So far, Paradise Beach has retained it's independence, they do things their way and I wish there were more little spots like this. Well, there are a few - here's some other quiet places we like:

• Layan Beach
• The Beach Bar
• Bang Rong Floating Restaurant

Paradise Beach - Location Map


View Paradise Beach, Phuket in a larger map

Original post 2009, updated January 2013

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Restaurant Tip: Nice Food Good View

Actually I am not sure of the real name of this little restaurant which is located along the quiet road leading down the west side of Cape Panwa towards the Novotel and Ao Yon where lots of yachts can be found. There are some signs along the road that say something like "Good Food Good View" or similar.. if we drive that way again soon I will pay attention and update! Anyway you can't miss the restaurant, it's a little thatch roof place with about 6 tables right by the road and with good, very good, great views over Chalong Bay.

Along the same road a bit further south is a place called The Beach Bar, but this closes during low season. I took the kids to Phuket Aquarium at the weekend and we decided to stop at the Good View restaurant for some simple lunch. I think I have eaten there once before, certainly the kids have and I know my parents have stopped there at least once. It's a simple family run place, no delusions of grandeur, which is the kind of place we like. Yes, it's right by the road, but that road is very quiet. The kind of road that local dogs sleep in the middle of during the daytime.



Now for a simple restaurant like this I was actually surprised to see the food prices. Simple places should have simple prices for simple folk like me. Fried rice is normally 35 or 40 Baht in a little restaurant in town. Maybe 50 Baht. So add a bit for the view, but 80 Baht.. really? It may sound petty and you are saying, hey that's only 1 pound 40 or 2 bucks or whatever, but .. yeh OK so I am petty, you pay a bit more for the view. And a coke was only 20 Baht so there you go. Not a place I'd go for a big meal, but a simple lunch while exploring the Panwa area, perfect spot.





• More or our favourite restaurants in Phuket

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