Local Life at Rawai Beach

Last month, on the final day of my parents holidays, we took a little drive to the south end of Phuket island, carefully watching the weather as the low season delivered up a day of sunshine and showers. We got to Rawai beach in bright sunshine, had not really planned to stop there, but there were dark clouds to the west, so we figured why not take a little walk around Rawai. The beach here is not a swimming beach, it's very rocky and shallow. Rawai is good for food - most of the beach road is lined with small restaurants - and from Rawai you can get a speedboat or longtail boat to nearby islands such as Koh Bon, Coral Island, Racha Yai island. We did a trip last year from Rawai to explore the small island of Koh Kaew Yai which lies off the tip of Cape Phromthep and is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists - there is a big Buddha statue on the island and a giant "Buddha footprint". Legend says that Buddha stepped onto the island before coming to the mainland of Phuket, where he first visited Rawai. The name of the village is derived from "Rao Wai" meaning (something like) "we pray".

At the east end of Rawai beach is the jetty, and on the east side of the jetty is the fishing village. There are stalls selling seafood and quite a few stalls selling shells to tourists, also some small restaurants. The seawall has broken here. The photo below shows local kids playing in the rubble along the beach.



Further along the beach, things look rather more idyllic, we walked along the beach passing all the longtail boats. You can't have a trip to Phuket without some photos of longtail boats! This end of the beach looks OK for swimming actually, though there's nothing here for tourists, no hotels or bars. This end of the beach is for the locals and the fishermen.



Further up the beach in front of the village, a big tree acts as a natural temple, adorned with coloured cloth, Buddha images and it seems that the Rawai people like to make offerings of red Fanta! Another shrine next to the jetty also had a couple of bottles next to the incense and flowers.



This is not really a rich area of Phuket. Fishing is still important, though for sure some people make a little money from tourists. The fishermen and local people in the area are largely "sea gypsies" who are not the best looked after by the Thai government. The fishermen make their own fish traps and head out on longtail boats, dive down to the traps using home made scuba gear. We found some guys making a new lo-tech fish trap...





When visiting a more local area, I try to quietly blend in, wander about as unobtrusively as possible (not so simple, since I am 6 foot 3!) and get an idea of local life. In the fishing village here in Rawai, there's just a lot of sitting around to be done.. the fishing has all been done by early morning. The kids were all off school (it was school holidays) so they had to find ways to amuse themselves. I'd like to wander around this area some more when I get a new camera, but did get a few nice pictures of the local folks...



(above) this guy was carrying some fresh ice to put on the fish



Not just fish for sale! Phuket people boast of having the best pineapples in Thailand. Sweeter and juicier and not as sour as other pineapples. You can buy little bags of fruit from fruit stalls all over Phuket, indeed all over Thailand, normally you pay 10 - 20 Baht per bag.



Kids were all over the village, the kids above are getting some snacks from a mobile snack stall built onto the side of a moped. The girl below has found a quiet spot for a drink behind the market surrounded by ice boxes.



Rawai doesn't seem to have changed that much since I first went there more than 10 years ago. OK, for sure there is more development inland, and the main road in from Chalong is now 4 lanes with a lot more happening along the road, but the beach, the boats, the fishermen, the little restaurants ... it's still quiet and a good stopping off place for a walk or lunch or dinner. Mum and Dad got a bag of pineapple (below) and with the clouds clearing we headed off to Ya Nui beach, just a 5 minute drive from Rawai.



Rawai Beach Links

• Hotels Near Rawai Beach
• Nikita's Bar at Rawai Beach

Near Rawai Beach

• Phromthep Cape
• Koh Kaew Yai island
• Ya Nui Beach
• Phuket Seashell Museum

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Kin Dee Restaurant - Local Food in the Jungle!

During my recent holidays in October 2011 when my parents visited from the UK, we had the chance to try quite a few new restaurants that had been "on my list". On the day we visited Kin Dee, the weather was not so nice, one of those low season days that has no sun. The rain seemed rather patchy, we figured that if we just drove north we might find a rain-free area! So we had no particular plan for where to eat.. just drive and see where we end up. The east coast seemed rather wet just north of Phuket Town so we headed further and drove through heavy rain with kids moaning about hunger in the back of the car ... we though to head over the bridge into Phang Nga and eat at Samchong Seafood which is a favourite of ours. But as we reached the far north of Phuket I remembered Kin Dee, although could not remember exactly where to find it! We kept eyes open for a sign .... and finally just before the Tha Chat Chai police checkpoint we saw "KIN DEE LOCAL FOOD" - did a u-turn just before the checkpoint and headed down a small side road into the trees, into the rural Phuket that is easily found in this part of the island.



A restaurant with a Sang Som advert is a sure sign of a local restaurant. Sang Som is a Thai brand of rum, pretty cheap and doesn't taste too bad mixed with coke or soda. We pulled into the small car park... nobody else there.. was it open? Thankfully yes, otherwise kids would have been distraught! The restaurant is built of wood, bamboo and with a canvas roof. It's built on stilts right in the trees and certainly looked very nice.



So we took the "best" table and hungry bellies scanned the menu. It struck me right away that this "local restaurant" was not priced for locals - most dishes were 150 Baht or more, and as we are.. how to say ... cheap discerning local residents we were a bit surprised. Looks like their target audience might be customers from some of the nice resorts in the north of Phuket like JW Marriott, Sala Phuket, Holiday Inn or Indigo Pearl to name but a few. If you are staying there, 150 Baht will be cheap and of course I recognise that 150 Baht is only 5 Dollars / 3 Pounds / 4 Euro and thus it's cheaper than eating out in England, but we are not tourists :)



For anyone who is not as cheap as us, I do recommend Kin Dee! A very unique little restaurant, very green, quiet and natural, there's a little river / mangrove creek below and there are orchids everywhere. The view from our table...



One reason I have enjoyed doing this blog - it stops me (and my dear wife) from being lazy! Sure we have our favourite places to eat, but sometimes we try new restaurants either because they look interesting, or they have been recommended by a friend or just "for the Phuket blog"! I forgot the food photos at Kin Dee - my Mum had a green curry, the kids devoured their fried rice, and I ordered their "Kin Dee salad" which was rather good.



A good eating experience, I am not sure if we'll go again, just priced a bit high for us - the bill was over 1500 Baht for 4 adults and 2 kids (and we did not order the more expensive dishes!), which for sure some will think is cheap. Actually while the food was not local price, the drinks were just about the same as other restaurants. A beer was 60 Baht, which is pretty standard. The Kin Dee restaurant has character and I reckon most people would love it.

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Ya Nui Beach

Ya Nui beach seems to have remained pretty much unchanged since I first saw it more than 10 years ago. Quiet, undeveloped, easily missed if you don't know where it is - squeezed into a small bay in between Nai Harn beach and Phromthep Cape. Ya Nui is a different side of Phuket compared to the main beaches. Ya Nui has no big hotels or shops, not much at all except one small restaurant and a few shacks which serve as little groovy bars. There are some nearby bungalows, invisible from the beach itself and if you were to stay in this area, would be best to have your own transport. The view below shows Ya Nui beach, photo taken from the viewpoint just to the north where you find the big wind turbine. Nice views from up there!



I don't remember the last time I stopped at Ya Nui beach. Never seems to be enough time to visit old hangouts. We used to like it. We have good memories from many years ago. A photo of our daughter when she was about 3, pretending to play drum on a wooden stall at the little cafe. We visited with my parents, this must have been in 2004. Later that year, Ya Nui was hit hard by the tsunami. We found new places to hang out, had another baby and I can't seem to recall stopping at Ya Nui for years now. Should go for often to all these nice places, but .. I am not on holiday here, I normally work 6 days a week. However, last month, right at the end of my holidays on October 12th, I went back to Ya Nui beach with Mum and Dad. Looks like we should have gone the next day for free beer :)



The weather on that day was a real mixture of sun and sudden showers. We walked on the beach in the sun at first. Ya Nui is a small beach, quite rocky at low tide, and in high season the snorkeling is said to be good here. They do put beach chairs on the beach sometimes, which uglies things up a bit.. there's just the one restaurant, run in very casual local style :



We wandered the beach for a while trying to find an interesting photo of rocks and waves - it was still low season and the sea was pounding away. Mum enjoyed getting her feet wet - you can see the sky behind her (below) - blue skies and sun, with a side dish of dark clouds and rain. The kind of low season day when you can get sunburn or soaked, and we played "dodge the shower" all day.



We were almost alone at the beach, only a couple of young ladies there at the same time. Crowded Phuket? Get out and explore and lose the crowds. The photo below, with added foreground interest, is looking more to the south over the jumble of rocks at the south end of Ya Nui. It's only 1km from here to Phromthep Cape.



Oh, there was one other guy at the beach - a good old fashioned beachcomber, armed with metal detector....



Should you go swimming at Ya Nui and get into trouble, don't worry, be happy.. There is a Lifeguart on hand. Nobody was swimming that day, but in high season when the sea is almost always calm, you can certainly swim here, or snorkel or dive - I have a friend who likes to dive here, starting at Ya Nui and swim round the corner (about half a mile) to Nai Harn then get a tuk tuk back to Ya Nui.



The rain did come that afternoon for a while, so we sat in the restaurant, had a beer and then went for another little walk. At the far north end of the beach I found several memorial plaques dedicated to loved ones who had died in the tsunami. That seems a long time ago, and yet very recent.



The southwest corner of Phuket is good for a day out - including Ya Nui, Nai Harn, the windturbine viewpoint, the Karon viewpoint, maybe a sunset beer at the After Beach Bar or dinner at Phromthep Cape restaurant. A very nice part of Phuket.

(added later) Found the photo - our daughter age (nearly) 3 at the cafe, Ya Nui beach in July 2004. For this reason, the place has an emotional attachment and seeing the tsunami plaques brought it back. Ya Nui is rebuilt of course, it happened 7 years ago. We were there before. We are here now.



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Baan Chinpracha House in Phuket Town

Phuket Town is full of gems. Much as I love looking at beaches and seaviews, over the years it's the culture and history of Phuket which has fascinated me more. I guess most visitors don't realise that Phuket has a history, and think of Phuket as just a holiday island that didn't have much going on until tourism arrived 30 or so years ago. I also never thought about it for the first few years I was living here, mainly because I was too busy diving. Nowadays, I admit that I'd rather go for a walk in old Phuket Town than on the beach. Always something new to find and it's a great area for photography. There are loads of old buildings - much of the old town was built about 100 years ago in the days before tourism when Phuket was making it's money from the huge tin mining industry. The mining attracted workers and traders from China - many Chinese moved to Phuket during the 19th century and some of them got rich from mining. Many of the "big" families in Phuket trace their family back a few generations to Chinese immigrants. Such is the case with the Chinpracha family...



Prapitak Chinpracha was born in Phuket in 1883, son of a Chinese family who had moved to Phuket in 1854 and who also had business dealings in Penang, Malaysia. Baan Chinpracha (Baan is the Thai word for house or home) was built in 1903 - at the time the house / mansion was on the edge of Phuket Town - the photo below shows the owner with his car in the driveway and no other buildings around.



The house is still owned by the same family several generations later. A very nice lady called Khun Daeng still lives there. Her husband passed away a few years ago which caused a problem, as he left the house to her, but part of the land to another family member, who promptly sold the land to a developer who built some new shophouses right in front of the old house. Apparently, a legal case is still in progress. There is talk that the shophouses might have to be removed. I do hope so! Chinpracha House is located on Krabi road, just a block west of Thalang Road, and is open to the public, or at least part of the house is open (not all, since people do still live here!). Entry fee 200 Baht. I had been once before while on a Phuket Town tour with Phuket Heritage Trails and I wanted to go again to take more photos, and this time with my wife and kids ...





You can't get a great view of the front of the mansion due to the shophouses... and the garden to the side is a bit overgrown. It's quite a big house, but is actually dwarfed by a mansion next door that was originally built a few years later by the same family and is now the very expensive Blue Elephant restaurant. I love these old buildings, the way they are built so that inside the house you still have a bright outdoor feel - the main room has a large skylight and an indoor pond with fish, and the water is kept decorated with fresh flowers. I also love the old inlaid floor tiles.





The whole ground floor is open to the public including bedrooms, kitchen and dining room, the walls are full of old photos of the family, the rooms are filled with old furniture, much of it original Chinese. My son tried to have a quick play on the piano - this seems to be purely decorational, as it was totally out of tune.



There were a few other visitors, including this girl in yellow exploring the old house. Note in this photo below, the doorway has a raised doorstep/threshold which you should always step over and not on... and check out those wonderful old floor tiles!



Also visiting the house - a happy couple who were having wedding photos taken...



This is a real slice of Phuket's history. The photos on the wall are worth a close look, check out the faces, the clothes, the family portraits. When Baan Chinpracha was built, no foreigners were coming to Phuket looking for beaches and massages. The house was built with money that came from tin mining, which made Phuket into a relatively wealthy province. For sure tourism is now Phuket's big earner - there is no tin mining now, but rubber is still a big money maker, so is fishing, prawn farming, pineapples, cashew nuts ... More than just beaches and hotels. We like to explore and learn, and always enjoy a walk in old Phuket Town.

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Restaurant at Cape Phromthep

So, hopefully most people know where Cape Phromthep is? Right at the south tip of Phuket on the west side, touted by many guidebooks and websites as the place to watch the sunset. We have been many times in the past for the sunset, for nice views, and I finally hiked down the path to the end of the cape earlier this year - first time I had done that after living here for more than 10 years! There is also a restaurant here. I had not really paid it any attention before, but saw a review online that caught my eye. Looked like a great view and (important!) the review did note that the restaurant is not too expensive! So it was added to the "things to do on holiday" list. The restaurant has been there for years, I guess for 10 years or more.. but again, something new for us after all this time!

Cape Phromthep has a big car park, from which you climb some steps up to a big open area with views, a shrine, a lighthouse and firedancers at sunset! The entrance to the restaurant is to the right of the steps, or you can climb as we did, to the top to get some views first, then follow the small road round to the restaurant.



We went for lunch and there were only a few tables occupied. I think at sunset it would be much busier and we will go again sometime for what would be a great sunset dinner.. and we have our table staked out already! Right here:



That table was far too hot for lunch, but some tables are more shaded, and we had a choice of almost all of them. We found a very shady spot with enough space for 6 people to sit. Service was quick and friendly and we soon had cold drinks served while waiting for lunch.



I had a beer with lunch... no surprise there! The bottle came with a glass that looked more like a small flower vase.. I'd normally just drink straight from the bottle (oh, how uncouth!) but had to try the smallest beer glass I'd ever used...



We very much enjoyed sitting in the shade enjoying the view, the fresh air and the sunshine (we'd had quite a lot of rain during the week before). A very happy lunch enjoyed by all. And the food was not expensive.. I like that. At a place like Phromthep, there is certainly the option of ripping people off for a small fortune to enjoy food with a view, but the price was OK (and OK by my standards is cheap by most people's!) I ordered the catfish salad (Yam Pla Duk Foo) which was good, maybe not the best ever but combined with the shaded table, the view, the tiny beer glass and the company of my family, great.



Success! After many years, we do admit to being set in our ways.. we like to eat somewhere that we know, somewhere we can be sure of good food. Nice to try a new restaurant and be happy... we do sometimes try restaurants that don't get mentioned on the blog and are quickly forgotten. Cape Phromthep restaurant will be revisited and can certainly be recommended. We'll be back for a sunset meal soon.

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Thanoon Seafood

We had some holidays around the end of September and early October. It was the kids school holiday and also my parents were over from the UK. The weather during that period was less than great. A bit too much rain and we tended to limit ourselves to quick half day shower-dodging excursions around Phuket. We got lucky on September 29th - pretty much a rain-free day. I had a few things on my "to do" list (or better to say "to blog" list) - including several restaurants that had been recommended by friends. Thanoon Seafood is not in Phuket, but it's very close! Just drive over the Sarasin bridge that connects Phuket with Phang Nga province (the mainland) and the restaurant is on the beach just on the Phang Nga side less than 100m from the bridge. Sarasin Bridge has recently been rebuilt, and the old road bridge is now a pedestrian bridge where you can enjoy a walk and a view. We parked in Phang Nga, and then walked to Phuket and back before lunch.



Above - view under the bridge on the Phang Nga side looking east where there's a small fishing community. More photos of the bridge to come later. Below - view of Thanoon Seafood restaurant from the bridge. There was only one table occupied when we arrived - it touts itself as a "sunset" restaurant and it may well be worth going again in the late afternoon on a sunny high season day!



There is seating under cover or out on the beach. It was a bit windy really to sit on the beach, a bit too exposed with the west wind blowing directing through the channel towards the bridge. Would not be an issue in high season when winds blow from the northeast. Anyway the kids decided they would take their own table, just outside on the grass in front of the beach...



We ordered plenty of food. Prices were not super cheap but not too bad.. a touch more than we normally like to pay, but would I am sure be considered cheap by most tourists. I think our bill including drinks was total 1500 Baht for 4 adults and 2 kids, although these days the kids eat pretty much adult size meals. In fact our daughter I sometimes call "2 plates", due to her tendency to ask for 2nd helpings!





Above - a couple of dishes from Thanoon Seafood. My favourite Thai salad, called Yam Gung Siap, made with crispy smoked prawns, and some prawn cakes (Tod Man Gung). There was plenty more food too. The kids table was well stocked and they ate everything!



Success! We found another nice quiet restaurant with an interesting view, away from the crowds. And despite the proximity of the bridge I did not notice any traffic noise. The kids and I took a little wander on the beach after lunch. You can walk up to the bridge. Don't think about swimming here though, currents can be strong in the channel between Phuket and the mainland.



Good to get out and find new places to eat sometimes. We have a little list of "safe" places - restaurants that we always enjoy, but sometimes we feel brave! We tried several new places during our holiday. Next few blog posts will also be restaurants. Thanoon Seafood, thumbs up, guess we'll go again one day for a sunset meal - it's a bit of a drive of course, being off Phuket - about 40km from our house. A good place to try if you're staying in the north of Phuket or if you have a rental car. I realise this blog does tend to show restaurants off the beaten track and not on main beaches so much - well that's the idea! I do try to show bits of Phuket that might not be well known. Want to see the real Phuket? Get out there and explore, it's a big island!

Update March 2013 : I had not been back to Thanoon Seafood for ages, but we stopped recently on a Speedboat Tour around Phuket and it was very nice, relaxed, lovely late afternoon sun .. some photos on Flickr.

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Crossing the Bridge for Purification

OK, one more post about the Phuket vegetarian festival ... On the very last evening of the festival, October 5th, we all headed into Kathu village again. We'd just been there on the morning of the 4th to witness faces pierced by swords, guns, skewers and long metal rods and a procession through a million firecrackers. The noise and the bizarre rituals are part of the festival, but there's a lot more to it, a very deep tradition and history which I am sure can't be fully understood unless you are really part of it. We are just observers. The evening of the 5th, with a light rain falling showed what the vegetarian festival means here. It seemed like the whole population was there, queuing round the streets of Kathu village waiting to get into the shrine and cross the bridge for purification.



The photo above shows the ladies queue. I'd not been to see this ceremony before and it too a while to realise the was also a men's queue which was on the other side of the shrine. The men and ladies entered the shrine by different doorways.



Waiting patiently in the rain. Everyone was wearing white. I know that during the festival, many people wear white, but on a normal evening at the shrine during the preceding week, not everyone is in white. On this last night, to cross the bridge, you have to wear white. I had not found "the bridge" yet. It seemed difficult to get through the crowd and close to the shrine. I was not even sure if we (non pure) people would be allowed near. I imagined a bolt of lightning striking us down, away ye impure people!



(above) Mum, are we there yet? Not yet ... Patience is a virtue in any language or religion. You may see in the pictures, each person is holding a little package of what looks like some spring onions. I have read that this is wrapped in some paper with the persons name written on it. I need to ask someone the exact significance of this, but it's all to do with purity and carrying a bit of greenery into the shrine make sense.

Here's the front of the queue (almost). The last few yards, up the steps and into the shrine. It was quite a crush actually! But everyone was good natured. Lots of smiles. I'm not going to argue with the doubters and the cynics. The "Land of Smiles" may have been adopted as a tourism slogan, and you may well find some worn out smiles in the main tourist areas. But I think most people can sense when a smile is real. Smiles in the shrine were real.





But what is "The Bridge"? Well, I managed to sneak up some side stairs outside the shrine, though the entrance was gated, I gave my best "sorry, can I take a photo" smile and a big Wai to the old man who seemed to be guarding the entrance. From this viewpoint, and by leaning around a marble pillar, I could see this...



One of 2 ceremonial "bridges" set up inside the shrine. One for men, one for women, each one flanked by half a dozen Ma Song, the entranced devotees who are said to have the spirits of the gods inside them during the festival. The Ma Song bless and hand each person a piece of string symbolising good luck. The atmosphere in the shrine is smoky and noisy with drums being played in the background. Those crossing the bridge bow and pray. Dad (or grandad?) carries his boy over the bridge. Not sure the young boy appreciates it just yet. I am sure he will.



This evening in Kathu was very interesting, very enjoyable, there was a real sense of community and togetherness here, the people believe in their traditions and believe that crossing the bridge will give them luck. I saw a couple of foreigners crossing the bridge too. I am thinking next year that my wife and I will take the festival a little more seriously, no meat, no beers, make ourselves clean, and we'll cross the bridge too. In the grounds of the temple before we headed home we met a man who we'd talked to 10 days earlier at the opening ceremony. We'd also seen him striding out of the village just as we arrived on the 4th October, he was the lead Ma Song in the procession. He'd been pierced by a number of spikes, nothing too scary. And on this last night he showed his scars which would quickly heal up, but the memory remains and next year we'll see him again.



More stories from the 2011 Phuket Vegetarian Festival

• Piercings and Firecrackers October 4th


• Vegetarian Procession and World Photo Walk October 2nd


• Face Piercing at Sam Kong Shrine September 30th


• Procession for the Birth and Death Gods September 29th


• Opening Ceremonies September 26th

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