Views from Khao Kad View Tower at Cape Panwa

I first blogged Khao Khad Viewpoint back in 2006, updated with this post in 2010. The viewpoint is still the same, built at some expense with a tower, car park (where I have never seen more than half a dozen cars) and a little shop selling drinks and snacks. Owner looking rather bored. The Khao Kad View Tower is not too hard to find if you follow the road down Cape Panwa. We detoured up to the tower last weekend on the way to The Beach Bar, it was late afternoon and I'd like to be up there for sunset sometime as you look west across Chalong Bay towards the hills including the Big Buddha. There is a 360 degree view from the top of the tower, looking west across Chalong, north to Phuket Town, east across the sea towards Phi Phi and south across several islands.

The tower and facilities were obviously built with the idea that hundreds of people would flock here for the views. But Cape Panwa remains a quieter area of Phuket, which is why we like it so much! The tower is about 20 meters high atop the hill (Khao Kad.. Khao = Hill). Steps lead directly up to the tower or there is a network of pathways through the trees...





At the top, plenty of fresh air and views.. this is looking across Chalong Bay:





And this view looking South, you can see several islands the nearest (little) island is called Koh Thanan, behind that is Koh Lon, which is around 4km from end to end and the highest point over 250m above sea level. Behind Koh Lon is Coral Island (hill in the center of the picture) and in the far distance is the highest point of Racha Yai, about 25 kilometers south of Phuket.



Zooming in to the west.... this is the Big Buddha, it's about 5 miles away as the eagle flies:



And this view, zooming in to the east - the island lit up by sunlight is called Koh Doc Mai (15km away), and beyond, despite the hazy day you can make out Phi Phi which is over 40km from Phuket.



An eagle cruised around the hill as we enjoyed the views. My 300mm zoom lens was just about good enough to snap some photos. Marvelous birds, eagles. After a few passes, it headed off south - much of Cape Panwa is still forested and natural, a good home for an eagle family. (Update: It's a Brahminy Kite, actually).





Cape Panwa is a world away from the main tourist areas of Phuket but has been developed quite a bit in the last 5 years with several new resorts opening. Good place to stay if you like peace and quiet. Hotels include the Cape Panwa Hotel, Panwa Beach Resort and Sri Panwa. Cape Panwa is also home to Phuket Aquarium.

Khao Kad Viewpoint - Location Map


View Khao Kad Viewpoint (Cape Panwa, Phuket) in a larger map

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Pizza at the Thai-Italy Restaurant in Patong

Update 2013 - This place has new ownership and is no longer recommended by me or my Italian friends!

I do like a bit of pizza now and then. Yes, I know this is Thailand, and I assure you that Thai food is my main diet, but this is Phuket, a great gathering place for tourists and expats from all over the world, and you can find just about any food you want here. I am not an Italian food expert, but have been a couple of times to Italy, where a friend used to live on a small farm in Tuscany, and food was always fresh and plentiful, much of it being grown or made at the farm - breads, cheeses, vegetables, local wine, olive oil on everything, and they had a pizza oven too where we could cook our own pizza. Thin, crispy and fresh from the forno. Perfecto.

Although not an Italian food guru, I would say I am a pizza snob :) I am sorry, but "Chicago Style" with half a loaf of bread as the base? Oh dear. No, I'm a thin and crispy guy. Got to be fresh, got to be made in a proper pizza oven. Phuket has quite a lot of Italian restaurants, quite a lot of Italian expats, and friends tell me of favourite places for pizza, so we might try some others sometime, only my wife does not eat pizza, and (for our pocket) dining out at a more touristy restaurant can be a bit expensive.

The "Thai-Italy" restaurant is one of the few restaurants I would visit in Patong, being that Patong is not our kind of place. Thai-Italy is on Nanai Road (the back road) - coming from Karon Beach, turn onto Nanai road, over the slight hill, past the right turn that heads uphill (Hasip Pee Road), and on another 500m to the Mae Ubon Market on the left side - it's in there. Easy to see.

It's not a big place, my friend Diego says it's really like a little local restaurant just like you'd find in a small Italian town. It's well known among expats, and most of the customers tend to be Italian, which is a good sign if you are looking for a good pizza or proper just-like-mama-makes-it pasta. The restaurant is normally only open in the evenings. We (the family) met Diego and family and a few more friends for dinner last Friday. Pizza was the top choice, but the menu has something like 4 pages of pasta options too. Prices very reasonable for this kind of food - my pizza diavola was 170 Baht. First to be served was Diego's Mama. If Mama likes the food, I can assure you, it's got to be good.



The pizza is of course properly cooked - thin and crispy - those are the keywords. The Thai/Italian chef team prepare and cook all night...





And then the pizzas started coming in thick and fast. Does not take long to cook in a proper wood fired forno. Excuse me while I post some photos of pizza! You can see that these are for people with a healthy appetite. The calzone is about a foot long. The pizzas about the same. One pizza could serve 2 people, were those people smaller than myself...







All washed down with a few cold beers of course! And then coffee - I remember one time being in this restaurant, and an American customer ordered coffee. So, they brought him an Italian coffee, just like the one below that we had after our meal. American guy not impressed by tiny cup. He was all, hey what's this? It's coffee sir, real coffee. No, he wanted a cup of coffee, a big ol' cup of Americano.. Sorry, wrong place, this is little Italy, to order a Nescafe would be an insult!



And the coffee was followed by a Sambuca, and then a Limoncello.. I turned down the Grappa (my belly does not like really strong alcohol). Ah, perfecto, full of pizza, a little buzz in the head from the sambuca, I do indeed like a bit of Italian. The Thai-Italy is busy every evening thanks to "word of mouth" advertising. No webpage, no mentions in guidebooks, but good food! Oh, just a note - it's closed on Mondays.

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Hike from Karon Beach to the Big Buddha

The Big Buddha is now a much visited tourist attraction in Phuket, even though it's not finished. We have been going up the hill for many years, since work first started in about 2002 or 2003. I have blogged about the Big Buddha many times since this blog started in 2006, showing the progress of the building and the great views from the top (about 400m above sea level). There is of course a road up to the top, which is almost all complete. The road starts from Chalong, about 1km after the Chalong traffic circle, or about 8km from Karon Beach.

Now I know another way up! You can start from Karon and walk up to the Big Buddha! I heard of this quite a few months ago from Steve, owner of the Pineapple Guesthouse in Karon. He'd walked up with a Finnish guy who lives in Karon and had found (by trial and error) a way up. The hills in Phuket are criss crossed with paths used by locals working in rubber plantations or landowners to look after plots of land. The last hike I made up to the highest point in Phuket used a lot of such trails.

We started early to avoid the heat of the day. It was around 7:15am that we left the Pineapple Guesthouse - myself, Steve and Henrik (who was staying at Pineapple and diving with Sunrise Divers). The hike starts up a small side road just opposite and a few meters to the north of the Siam Commercial Bank in Karon, which is just 10 meters from the Pineapple. The road heads up into the hills, easy to follow, passing houses along the way. Kai (our guide, the guy from Finland) lives up here so we picked him up on the way. Some of the steepest sections of the walk are near the bottom. I've been up this road quite a few times. After a while you reach a junction and a sign. Turn left at this junction...



If you turn right, the road loops around and down and comes back to the main road opposite Karon post office. Turn left and you keep heading up, past some new houses and a few still being built. By this point you already start to get a bit of a sea view. There are some steep sections here, and then the trail turns to dirt and heads into the trees...



This trail gets narrower, but we were surprised to meet a moped and a pick up truck on this section when were heading down again. Lots of rubber trees up in the hills here. As the trail narrowed, we passed a spirit house on the left next to a rubber tree, and a few meters after this, a turning to the right - the first right turn you come to - we took this turning up a narrower path. Now we were really into the trees. Not exactly jungle.. I mean, a lot of the hills have been used for rubber or bananas for many years. We passed plenty of rubber and banana trees although some sections of trail were very "jungly"...





Some sections of the trail here had obviously been recently cut back, and in places the trail might not be 100% obvious, but Kai knew the way! By this time, we had some great views back down to Karon Beach...



At one point here, the trail splits and you have to turn hard left - someone had pretty much barred the way in the other direction by covering the trail with branches. We then walked more or less along the hillside with a steep drop to the left without gaining much altitude for a few hundred meters. Then, you may see this tree on the left.. big roots, cloth tied around it...



Just after this tree, which you see on the left, you turn right. At this point there's not really a trail for about 50 meters, just head UP (it's steep, you may think you are on the wrong trail, have faith).. and you come out on a very obvious path...



Just at the point you come out is the start of a line of small palm trees.. worth making a marker for the way down at this point. When you hit this path (photo above), turn right, heading up, and it's not too long before you meet the road...



The last kilometre of the walk is up the road. We stopped to pose for some photos before the top. Was about 8:45am when we hit the summit. At this time of day, there are few (if any) visitors. We were the first at the Buddha. Getting up early is often worth the pain.





We spent a while at the top. Henrik (who had not been up there before) managed to let out a "Wow!" at the sight of the 45 meter high marble covered Buddha. I do wonder when work will ever be complete here. Could be a few more years I think. We all hope it won't be allowed to get too tacky - there are already plenty of stalls selling souvenirs, thank you. Well, at least we got there before anyone else - any tourist attraction looks better without the tourists! Even Patong Beach looks OK at 7am!



Lots of building still going on around the main Buddha image, I noticed some major changes since last time I visited - a large area of dirt behind the Buddha has now been concreted and another layer of 5 meter high lotus blossoms added around the base. The views are still great, and always will be. The view below looks across Chalong Bay.



Up top I met Glenn, who I had hiked with to the 540 meter plus summit of Phuket in September.. We'd half planned to meet for this walk.. but unfortunately had met at different starting points.. we might do this Buddha walk again in the coming week. Glenn was fresh from a hike in the north of Phuket where he'd been attacked by a gibbon!

On the way down, Steve, Henrik, Kai and I stopped for an early beer at the Nakkerd Seaview restaurant near the top of the hill. There are now quite a few little restaurants open along the road - the Nakkerd Seaview was the first and we still like to eat here sometimes with views across Karon and across the Andaman Sea. Refreshed and slightly wobbly (I do NOT drink beer at 9am normally!) we headed down, back to Karon Beach where I enjoyed an English breakfast at the Pineapple guesthouse. The hike was a bit easier than I had imagined. I mean, it's a climb to 400m above sea level, starting at (more or less) sea level, so yes it was a bit sweaty, but starting early helped as we were hiking on the east side of the hill, out of the sun almost all the way up. Good exercise, and great views and of course walking is free - your average tuk tuk will want 800 Baht for a round trip.

I hope to do this one again soon and have (sort of) arranged to do a much tougher hike with Glenn in the near future over the hill from Tonsai waterfall to Bang Pae waterfall in the north of Phuket.. and there you really do find some proper jungle!

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Sala Bua Restaurant - Karon Beach

My day job - manager of Sunrise Divers, a PADI dive shop at Karon Beach. The shop is tucked away in a little square called Karon Plaza, about 4 minutes walk to the beach. Next door to our shop is a family run hotel called Karon Place, and they have a restaurant attached called Sala Bua, open only in the high season from about mid October to end of April. Due to the very convenient location I find myself eating lunch there at least a couple of times per week.



The prices are not as cheap as the local restaurants nearby, but about on par with Mama Noi, just around the corner. Thai dishes go for between 89 - 129 Baht. They do also serve some pasta, burgers, sandwiches etc. - normal tourist fare. I tend to eat the Thai dishes - and there is a big menu to choose from. Having just eaten a big plate of Penang curry with Tofu, and having taken a few photos of my lunches the last couple of weeks, it's time to blog about Sala Bua!



It's normally quiet at lunchtime, busier at breakfast and in the evening, as the guests at Karon Place will often eat there. Although I do like to eat lunch at cheap local "hole in the wall" type places, I have been eating more at Sala Bua as the food is good quality (the cheap local places do often use cheaper meat cuts especially) and I am yet to get a bad meal there. Curries of all different kinds, salads, noodle dishes.. some of my favourites include those below :


(above) They call this the "Indonesian" salad


(above) chicken with cashew nuts in a noodle basket


(above) Khao Soi with chicken

I mentioned that I had a tofu curry today - there are quite a few vegetarian options on the menu and the owners are adherents to the strict vegetarian diet during the annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival. I like the variety of their menu, and the staff are always friendly - it's largely a family restaurant and the staff are the same now as 2 years ago.. family run places are often friendly as everyone feels that it's "their" restaurant and they don't employ young waitresses on minimum wage who look like they'd rather be home watching Ching Roy Ching Lan. See you at Sala Bua!

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