After traveling a fair section of the Island (yes Phuket is an Island) with the constant flow of roadside shops you’d be forgiven for not recognising where the urban sprawl stops and the real Old Phuket starts.
We’ve discovered a little gem of a place to stay. Samkong place is the same hotel we stayed at last time that we visited Phuket. It’s a simple 5 minutes to Old Phuket Town and if your a good motorbike rider it’s a quick 15 minutes from Samkong to Patong over the hill.
We discovered a great little cafe that Elena read about in a magazine onboard our flight over.. That pocket in front of you has more than an air sick bag and safety instructions..
Situated on Rassada Rd at the western end is Gallery Cafe. This place is small and very popular with the expat community. If you have a bit of a sweet tooth you have to try the banana pancakes with maple suryp and the coffee is pretty good too.
Get here early and have breakfast then head to the other end of the street paste the roundabout to the main bus terminal.
Now when I say terminal, don’t go looking for a big building full of greyhound busses. Here the busses pull up on the side of the road outside the markets. The blue trucks have the details of where they are going on the front, but amongst the craziness the locals will be every so helpful in getting you on the right bus.
Old Phuket Town is quiet and a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of the tourist side of the Island. Here your name is not Tuk Tuk and you’re left alone to be more free with you looking through the many stalls and little streets. You won’t find all the massage hype of Patong here, but the massages here are better as they tend to deal with locals. So if you want to experience a real Thai massage come to Old Phuket Town.
For those who really want to shop till they drop you and head to Central Festival Shopping Centre Phuket.
This modern centre is an air-conditioned, fully equipped one-stop shopping mall lying just outside of Phuket Town. If you are coming from Patong, Central lies on your left, before the main crossroads as you enter Phuket. Rightly regarded as the shopping hub of the island, Central plays host to over 120 outlets selling products ranging from silk to sushi, from Levi’s to laptops, from books to barbecues – if it isn’t on sale at Central you probably didn’t need it anyway. It’s literally possible to spend a full day here – shopping, catching the latest movies, and dining out at the range of international restaurants that offer erything from French cuisine to Japanese to local Thai outlets.
Central has free underground parking in case you have wheels, but if you arrive by taxi or bus it’s simple to alight outside and use the main entrance.
Don’t be too eager to get here too early, unlike Australia this shopping centre is open from 10.30am until 10pm daily. Yup that means late night shopping every night, but for early birds like us the morning we arrived we had a half hour wait.
With Elena’s Russian heritage we just had to stop at Spice House for lunch. With Russian and Asian cuisine a bowl of pelmeni (Russian ravioli ) cost 200thb for 15 pieces.
What Old Phuket lacks in the way of beach life it makes up for in its quaint quiet part of the island that gives you a pleasurable experience of the more traditional shopping experience surrounded on old colonial buildings and bygone heritage.
When we move here in the every closer future, this is the part of town I want to live.
