The Global Slowmad

Phuket (pronounced “poo-ket” – because you might as well ignore some consonants when your language has 32 different vowel sounds) is a cluster of tropical islands located on the west side of the narrow strip of land that connects mainland Thailand to Malaysia on the Andaman Sea, due east of Sri Lanka and about halfway between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. Phuket Island, the largest land mass in the province, is hilly, forested and lush. Sandy beaches and high-end resorts line the west side of the island, while muddy coves and mangrove forests dominate the east side. Smaller islands offshore often are little more than outcroppings of rock that reach toward the sky, many of which gained prominence in popular culture after being featured in movies like The Man with the Golden Gun, The Beach and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (as the Wookie planet Kashyyyk). It’s a beautiful setting.

Historically, Phuket is where Indian, Chinese, Malay and Portugese sailors, among others, met to exchange goods. The island thrived as a hub for the tin and rubber industries. Elephants were used to transport these products on trails through the challenging jungle terrain. Tin fell out of favor in the mid-20^th Century, but Phuket is still one of the world’s leading sources of rubber plants. Many of the remaining elephants are exploited in the tourism industry that now dominates the local economy.

Phuket’s strategic importance as a trading post resulted in a rich melting pot of ethnicity, culture and religion. These days, the majority of locals are Buddhist, but there is a high level of tolerance and respect for those with differing views. Buddhist temples often incorporate Hindu influences, and many restaurants promote halal kitchen practices. Christmas is a big deal here, and everyone seems to celebrate it.

Oddly, no one really seems to know just how many hotels are in Phuket, much less the number of AirBNB and other short-term rentals. The tourism sector has just grown too quickly over the last 25 years for anyone – including those responsible for building out the country’s infrastructure – to keep up with it. And that’s the real challenge with Phuket. It is more expensive than most of Thailand but still relatively affordable by international standards, so it tends to attract an excessive number of budget-minded Russian, Chinese and Australian tourists. It’s the southeast Asia equivalent of visiting the Jersey Shore or perhaps a Cancun mega-resort. The rapid growth has overwhelmed the government’s ability to maintain order, so there is an “anything goes” approach to traffic, retail and housing that can be a little overwhelming.

The chaos begins at the airport. The immigration line at HKT was the longest I’ve yet encountered in my travels, and the entire process was quite slow. When you finally emerge from customs into the arrivals terminal, you are accosted by a throng of unlicensed and sketchy looking taxi drivers competing for your attention and the opportunity to charge you an unregulated fare. Ignore them. You then have to wind your way through a series of ATMs, eSIM brokers and currency exchange shops before arriving at the cluster of “official” taxi booths. Even then, the adventure is not over. A line of about eight taxi agents lean over their counters like carnival barkers waving and yelling at you to choose them. You prepay your fare, are handed a receipt and, seemingly as an after thought now that you are no longer a revenue source, told to go meet your assigned driver. The only thing that matters to the drivers is having a receipt they can turn in at the end of the day to get paid, so I suspect you could get in any taxi you see once you have a receipt in hand.

Phuket town is the commercial center of Phuket province but has no beach or other particularly noteworthy attractions, so I never made it there.

Patong is the most (over)developed beach community and has become legendary for the raucous nightlife on Bangla Road. I spent two nights at a resort in Patong (which conveniently offered a mid-afternoon chocolate tasting right before happy hour at the swim-up bar) to recover from my overnight flight. I found Bangla Road to be a little underwhelming. Aside from a few questionable looking establishments hidden down alleyways and up dark stairwells, it’s just another location where people like to drink overpriced beer, get bad tattoos and participate in open-air karaoke. The streets are lined with dodgy tuk-tuk, massage, tailor, tour company, street food, BB gun shooting gallery and kickboxing promoters. I went to the mall twice, just for the air conditioning. In the end, Patong feels less like a party and more like a tropical Waffle House. Way too many Speedos and tank tops. Even the stray dogs look like they’ve seen some stuff they’d like to forget.

Freedom Beach is only a few miles away from Patong but feels like another world altogether. It is frequently named as the best beach on the island and is only accessible via a small boat or a difficult hike. My apartment for the remainder of my week in Phuket was less than a half mile away from this little slice of paradise, but it was such a challenging journey I only visited once due to the crazy humidity (only 87 degrees early in the morning but with a heat index of 105) and the steep stairs down the roughly 450-meter descent to the beach.

My apartment happened to be located at the bottom of a steep hill off the main road, so it honestly was a chore to get anywhere. Fortunately, I had a really nice view of the ocean from my balcony and caught some great sunsets. I also enjoyed watching the sea birds fly around and hearing the nearby elephants demand their breakfast every morning. You can’t quite make it out, but there is an elephant “sanctuary” hidden in the tree canopy on the other side of the fence in the first picture below.

Other Phuket beaches reportedly strike a better balance between the frenetic energy of Patong and the seclusion of Freedom Beach. Bang Tao Beach, Kamala Beach and Karon Beach (moving from north to south as you leave the airport) almost certainly are better options than Patong, but I would pick just one and plan on staying put to enjoy your off-brand White Lotus experience.

It’s impractical to hop around on Phuket, as there is not much in the way of public transportation and I seriously question the judgment of anyone who willingly operates a vehicle of any kind in Phuket. Traffic is intense, and the drivers are aggressive. Most locals either ride motorbikes or pile shoulder-to-shoulder into the bed of a pickup truck – I saw as many as 15 at a time – as a makeshift carpool. I saw one gentleman on a scooter with a steel barrel between his legs and a full-length ladder leaning against his back, and my imagination ran wild trying to figure out what he was up to. Tuk-tuks and scooters careen between vehicles and regularly veer into oncoming traffic. No one pays attention to road signs, lights or crosswalks. Adding to the scene, it is not uncommon to see people riding elephants down the secondary roads. It’s a lot.

A guided day trip likely will satisfy whatever desire you may have to leave the friendly confines of your chosen resort. I took a boat tour with approximately 4 million other people to check out James Bond Island and kayak through caverns and lagoons at some of the nearby islands. In addition to being crowded and touristy, it was a much longer and louder journey than I anticipated (90 minutes each way via a group taxi-van fitted out with lights and speakers and cursed with unnecessarily loud beeping from a fasten-seat-belt sign that stayed on the entire trip). I spent most of the day talking to an older couple from Iran and a pair of young newlyweds from Israel. None of us are very happy with our government leaders right now.

I may devote a separate post to that awesome-but-exhausting adventure someday, but I’ve rambled enough for now. Suffice it to say that I’m glad I visited Phuket and was able to see so much of its iconic natural beauty, but I don’t have any desire to go back.*

James Bond and his island. Golden gun sold separately.

* Unless, of course, Darla says I can no longer peruse the produce aisle at my local grocery store clad only in my Speedo and a crop top to show off my misspelled tramp stamp while enthusiastically belting out 90’s boy band hits with a beer in one hand and a BB gun in the other. Because that’s how I roll now.