For our Thailand trip, we saved the best for last. The beaches in Phuket!

I had been in China since September, so  for my vacation in February I wanted to get out of the country. The first thing I thought was , wouldn’t it be nice to be tanning on a beach in Thailand? And from there things took off, I messaged my  Trinidadian friend that lives in Korea and she was down too. So basically this whole trip started because I wanted to go to one of those paradise like beaches.

To get to Phuket we took the night train once again from Bangkok, but this time it wasn’t as easy. Although the train ride itself was okay, after 16 hours we had to hop on a bus for another 5 hours to get to Phuket town. The way it works is , the train will take you to a certain point and then there are buses waiting right there to take you to the different parts of the island. I was unaware of how big Phuket actually is, I mean I had seen it in maps but I was not expecting a  5 hour bus ride to get to our hostel.

When I did my research about where to stay in Phuket, we booked a hostel in Patong but due to some changes on our trip we ended up switching the bookings and staying in Phuket town.

Phuket town is the administrative centre of Phuket and I would say, it’s not everyone’s first pick on where to stay. This place feels more like “mainland” Thailand rather than “party and beaches”Thailand, so definitely don’t stay here if you are looking for a lot of partying and easy access to the beaches.

Phuket town is peaceful and has beautiful sino-portuguese architecture . Locals go about their lives without so many tourist getting on their way and its restaurants are cheaper than anywhere else in the island that I went to.

The old town is perfect for snapping pictures and eating delicious food! On Sudays there is the “Sunday Walking Street Market”  where you can find all sorts of delicious dishes not only Thai, and they even have Karaoke, which the locals love. I highly recommend hitting this market if you are there on a Sunday. We realized it was very local, there were only a few tourists and we were only there because we happened to be walking around, we didn’t even know about it before hand! We got to try different dishes, fresh fruit juice (passion fruit is my fave!)  and even some homemade cupcakes.

Our hostel in Phuket was “Backpackers hostel”. It’s not a party hostel but there is a bar and pool table and you can still meet other travellers, just get a pint of Chang beer and you are good to go.

I liked Phuket town, and I’m happy we got to see a more local and “real” side of the island. The highlight for me was definitely the night food market which in my eyes seemed to be from locals catered to locals, not tourists , so that made it even more awesome.

Having said that, for my purpose of the trip which was mainly hitting the beach everyday, it would’ve been better to stay on a different part of the island.