Blogs from Phuket, South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 8

There's no escaping, I'm just a city boy. Over the past few years of my travels I've come to realise that there's only so many consecutive days of quiet nights that I can stomach before starting to get antsy for some bright lights stimuli. And so after a week of so visiting Phuket Town and the quieter beaches of Kata and Karon, I found myself hoofing it back to Patong. There's just something re-assuring about having a nearby air-conditioned mall and iced latte and ATMs on demand (thank heavens for Jungceylon). And of course in Patong, with Bang La Walking Street, the nights are never boring. Several nights, I found myself making my way to Illuzion, a seemingly new club (free entrance!) that appears to be attracting the wannabe-sophisticates these days, reliving Koh Phangan Full Moon ... read more

Moving on from the cultural centre of the island back towards the Andaman beaches, I checked out the next two most-developed ones after Patong, namely Karon and Kata, just a few kilometres south of their hedonistic cousin. Definitely not quite the remote, remote beaches that I somehow made my way to in the Visayas in Central Philippines, but Karon and Kata still rank very highly in terms of quality. The very wide beaches are reminiscent of Kuta in Bali, and the sand so fine and clean that it does indeed actually "squeak when you walk on it" as claimed in the Wikitravel entry. Karon and Kata are lower-key than Patong, and away from the full blast of the package Chinese tourists. They're not quiet beaches by any stretch of the imagination, but do allow some kind ... read more

Geo: 7.97501, 98.3515Yacht Haven is a beautiful marina situated in the north of Phuket, it's well protected with surrounding mainland and limestone islands and is close to Phang Nga bay which is stunning.The best thing about this marina is that they actually answer their radio... we get assistance coming in with someone showing us the berth and men at the dock to tie us off when we arrive, you never got that in Langkawi! Every dock has fire safety equipment, ladders to get back onto the dock and recycling bins, ahh it's the little things.A few friends from Langkawi are here too, Jim, Roel, Tony & Sangtong, John & Judy and it good catching up. They have chandelier shops, a local shop and coffee shop, the Haven rest bar, a gym and swimming pool, facilities and ... read more

Test... read more

Hey guys!! Another great day today!! We are knackered now-bedtime being 10.30pm-guaranteed sleep in 10 seconds once hitting the pillow! So this morning we walked to the end of the beach to meet Vanessa, Kevin and the four girls, who were picking us up in their mini bus-taxi. We were all driven about an hour to the south, east side of Phuket to a private beach club called Coral Seekers. Ness and Kevin had arranged a speedboat to take us all out to the Coral Islands and Racha Island, including: Return transfers back to our hotel, all soft and alcoholic drinks, a delicious lunch, snorkeling equipment, towels, and insurance (we have been spoilt by them so much!!) The speed boat left the shore at around 10am, where after about 30 minutes it stopped near to the ... read more