Karon - The Biggest Tourist Trap to Date

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After Lonely Planet had implied that the transport in Phuket was difficult to navigate, we checked with reception about getting a bus to one of the nearby beaches and just stressed not to miss the last bus because a tuk tuk would be at least 500Bt to get back! Which is pretty expensive considering we got all the way from Phuket to Hat Yai for 360Bt and that is a 7 hour journey! We jumped on the bus which waited outside 7/11 and departed once full. The buses in Phuket are great! You just clamber in the back and sit on the sideways facing benches – the bus has no sides or back and if there is no room to squeeze in you just cling onto the back for dear life. Its not a long journey to Karon, but the bus is pretty slow over the hills. We had no idea where to get off so we stayed on until Karon and as we leapt out of the back we hoped we could easily flag it down again later, otherwise it would be a looong walk! Our first impressions of Karon - busy. Brimming in fact; Thai people were few and far between. We made our way down to the beach, where umbrellas sprouted up as far as I could see. I certainly wasn’t taken aback by the beauty like in Phi Phi – very average, I thought, it looked like somewhere in Spain. I cooled my hot feet in the sea and remarked about how golden the sand was, but we soon left..





The streets were lined with shops and stalls, every few paces guys were trying to drag Ste into a suit shop. I picked up some odd looking and expensive fruit from a little stand, hoping it was the fruit we had sampled the previous night. We popped into a shop and bartered for a writing book to keep my Thailand travel diary – the cheapest we could get it was 5 pounds which wasn’t exactly fantastic, but she wanted it for 11 quid at the opening. As she had duped us out of our money, we insisted she let us video the rather scary taser guns that they had at the front of the shop. The was taser disguised as a mobile phone that let out a horrific crack when she turned it on! We both laughed “dangerous” we shouted and she just nodded and smiled like it was completely normal! We were about to vacate when she whipped out the daddy taser gun; this thing was the length of your forearm. She flicked the switch and a tremendous blue light shot out of the end which made us all jump, we all laughed in disbelief! “Very dangerous” we said “goodbyeee.”
We never actually made it to Kata beach because the last bus was waiting just around the corner and we didn’t dare risk missing it. The journey back took over an hour as we curb crawled the entire way, I guess the driver was hoping that if we went slow enough people could just jump on the back. I didn’t mind though, it was like a mini sightseeing tour with the commentary.





Back at the hostel I got researching Thai fruit as I munched my way through the whole bag of fruit which I have dubbed the “whiskey fruit” due to its alcoholic taste. People were raving about Mangosteens on various forums, so we rushed out to find some, bearing in mind it was now about 11.30 at night Ste was pretty doubtful we would find any fuit shops open at this hour. We roamed the streets for a good 30 mins before almost giving up, but then I saw a slighty busier lane and we headed down it. And what unfolded before our eyes, nothing other than a fruit utopia! An entire market of fruit and Veg! “What are the chances” we both laughed. We ahd no trouble finding the Mangosteens, but had no idea how to test the ripeness or what a good Mangosteen looked like. I just picked up a bag and stuffed about ten inside, the vendor weighed them and we were surprised how cheap they were, only 25Bt. But I noticed on another stall they had some much bigger ones and as soon as I laid a hand on one, the vendor was opening it so we could try. We then felt obliged to buy a load more; he initially wanted us to buy 1kg! We then picked up some jackfruit which I’d previously tried in Malaysia – this is the largest fruit to grow on a tree in the world! And they can weigh up to 36kg! They taste like juicy fruit chewing gum with a spring onion aftertaste. Not like any other fruit I have tried.





The Mangosteens were worth traipsing about town for in the dead of the night. They are about the size of an orange, aubergine in colour, round and have a green tomato-like stalk coming from the top. You can break them open by crushing and twisting them in your palm and when open, they have a deep red thick outer casing and in the centre around 3 segments of pearly white translucent fruit. The taste is sweet and refreshing and they are super juicy. They could be my new favourite fruit. The Mangosteen is notoriously difficult to grow and so apparently, once upon a time, the Queen offered a large sum of money to anyone who could bring her a fresh Mangosteen over to the UK, but no one was able! Bizarre. Some people call it the Queen of fruits and I think it is more worthy a Queen than the Durian is a King.

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Photos

Karon Beach
The beach is wider than Kata Beach so it doean't appear so full

Beachfront Bars
Elvis impersonators performing nightly!