If you're looking for bright lights, crowds and pounding music
on all sides, then head for Patong Beach. What, until 20 years
ago, was a little fishing village on one of the loveliest beaches
in the world, has evolved into a rollicking resort city. Aside
from a huge range of restaurants of all sorts, you have a choice
of beer-bar clusters, go-go bars, discotheques and transvestite
cabarets. Or you might opt for a quiet piano bar at one of the
resort's classier hotels, like the Novotel
Phuket Resort or the Holiday
Inn Resort.
Some of the other beaches have more subdued, less extensive nightlife
centres. Dinner with music at the Regatta Bar and Grill, at the
Phuket
Yacht Club, on Nai Harn Beach, for instance, makes an unforgettable
evening. The
Boathouse, on Kata Beach, has an amazing wine cellar, an excellent
Thai kitchen, another incomparable setting, and first-rate music
-- unobtrusive and highly professional. For a more casual evening
out, you could try Chalong Beach, where Jimmy's Lighthouse overlooks
the yacht anchorage and serves an extensive range of tasty dishes.
Tuesday nights there are pool tournaments, open to all. On Sundays,
there are often fun yacht races. Kan
Eang, on the same beach, offers very good Thai food at reasonable
prices.
Other things to do at night include classical Thai dance and
music performances with your dinner. Just a couple of ideal venues
are Sala Thai, at Marina Cottage, Kata/Karon, and Old Siam, in
the Thavorn
Palm Beach Resort, on Karon Beach.
Or head into Phuket Town to check out some of the music pubs.
Places like the Timber Hut, the PRC (Phuket Riders' Club) and
the Candy Pub offer fun atmospheres with live rock 'n' roll and
Thai food if you want it. Another option is the Thai-style "coffeeshops"
-- nightclubs where ladies in fancy dresses take turns getting
up to sing Thai songs while customers eat and drink and, occasionally,
entice singers to join them at their tables. Later at night there
are sometimes farcical skits on stage and other types of entertainment.
If eating, drinking, listening to music, and dancing aren't enough
for you, then there are other sides to Phuket nightlife. Try night-fishing
for sharks, for example, or the catapult bungee in front of the
Expat Hotel, on Patong Beach. You could also combine a Thai dinner
and a night dive off a beach.
Phuket Town now has several department stores, which make it
easy for visitors to find the essentials. Hundreds and hundreds
of little shops and street stalls, meanwhile, sell cheap and often
very nice beach and sportswear. The department stores usually
have fixed prices. You can bargain in the smaller shops. Don't
forget that a smile always smoothes the process of negotiation.
Never show any anger or real frustration.
Cultured pearls are one local industry, and a number of shops
have jewellery for sale. You can find shops specializing in Thai
handicrafts around the island, though many of the crafts or designs
are from other parts of Thailand.
