Karon Beach

So, Phuket is an island on the Andaman coast of Thailand. It’s a huge resort spot. Most of the wealth in Thailand is controlled by people living in Bangkok or Phuket, I’ve read. Despite that, Phuket town itself is kind of crappy. On getting off the bus, we decided to wander around a bit before finding our way to the smaller coastal community of Karon beach.

So, a few notes for future travelers:

1. Lonely Planet’s map of Phuket town is crap. A modest example: there are two streets in town called Thilok Uthit, called Tilok Uthit 1 and Tilok Uthit 2. No idea why this is the case, they aren’t really all that related to each other. But, LP's map only shows one of them, and doesn’t indicate that there’s a difference. This cost us an hour of wandering around with our bags (“Okay that street sign says Tilok Uthit, so that’s right here on the map, so we need to take a right and walk down that way…”). The map we subsequently bought (for 300B) at a very nice bookstore we found is also crap. It shows essentially the same things the LP map shows. The best map by far was one given out for free by the TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) – it’s very detailed and will get you anywhere you want to go.
2. LP also mentions erroneous prices for cabs and tuk-tuks to the surrounding communities. The prices they list for cabs (about 20 – 30B one way) are actually for the public bus, which runs every half hour in the daytime. A cab or tuk-tuk will run you several hundred baht (on getting back to Bangkok, I checked the full LP Thailand volume, and they do get this one right – it was just lost in the condensation for the Southeast Asia book.)
3. Finally, LP, which is usually pretty good about listing vegetarian options (they do appeal to hippy backpackers after all), completely fails to mention that there is a Chinese temple to some vegetarian deity or other, around which are clustered 5 or 6 restaurants that are all veggie or have veggie options. (To be fair, LP does discuss the annual vegetarian festival, which has something to do with this and several other temples, but spends less then a paragraph on it. Also, this is from Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, not from the full Thailand book, which we decided not to carry with us.)

Okay, on finding the public bus (we really are cheap bastards), we sat in it until the previous bus making the island circuit pulled in behind it. This is a truck with benches down either side in the back. We were the only white folks on board, and weren’t really sure where or how to get off (turns out you push a button in the ceiling, then jump out the back, and walk around to pay the driver.) And the beach communities of Kata and Karon beach are close enough together and small enough that it doesn’t really matter that much where you get off.

I might someday see a beach more beautiful than Karon beach, but if I don’t, that’s okay. This may well be a perfectly ordinary beach for this part of the world, but it’s the nicest I’ve ever been on. The sand is so fine that it actually squeaks when you step on it. You look out at the Indian Ocean, which is not quite the temperature of bath water.

I really wanted to go snorkeling while here, but at this time of year, there is a dangerous riptide that prevents this (apparently, drowning is the number one cause of death among foreigners here). While swimming, we could feel this tide, it really does drag you south and to out to sea – you’re frolicking around in the waves at about chest height for a few minutes, and you look up and notice that your beach chair is 10 or 20 meters up the beach from you. So, no snorkeling. Oh well. Frolicking in the surf was plenty of fun (and is the very best way to cool down after a run, I’ve decided. Just pay attention to where your shorts are, as the waves will strip you naked if you aren’t careful.)

The town of Karon beach is very touristy, but since it’s the rainy season right now, more or less deserted. You get a sense that the place is pretty ugly in the high season, though. The bars are geared to white guys meeting Thai women. It’s nonstop loud sports bars with football and rugby on the television, and (this time of year) bored looking, dressed up Thai women sitting around, and occasionally calling out, trying to get you to come in. Three quarters of the couples you see here are a middle aged Australian guy and a Thai woman 30 years his junior. I’m exaggerating on that percentage, but it’s prevalent enough that when you see a western couple walking on the beach, you think “oh, he brought his wife – how nice!” Oh well, I guess I don’t really begrudge the Australian guys their fun, and the locals gotta pay the rent. Just made me a little uncomfortable, is all.

Our guesthouse (like almost every one here) consists of a bar on the ground floor (populated by the aforementioned bored Thai women), and four floors of rooms above it. Our room is a decent size, with its own bathroom, and air conditioned. All for about 9 bucks a night. It has a refrigerator and satellite teevee (with 42 channels in about 8 different languages – we had fun watching a Korean soap opera last night.)

After three nights here, we headed back to Bangkok, on an overnight bus this time, then on to Cambodia.