I began my day with a visit to Rang Hill viewpoint and once I was done with that, I decided to walk down the hill.
But not before I bought a cold mango shake to cool off (it was very sunny!)
How I got down and walked to Old Town is in my vlog* (video blog), which you can watch at the end of this blog post. But it is possible to walk from Rang Hill viewpoint to Old Town in around 30 minutes.
Old Town is renowned for its distinct architecture
The Sino-Portuguese architecture is present in almost all the houses here, many of which have now been painted in a variety of colours
Phuket island used to have a rich history in tin-mining and many who came to work in the mines in the 18th century were from China, Malaysia and India. Then the Europeans came and the result of all these influences is what you see in Old Town’s architecture.
Although the buildings are not very big, many of them have now been converted to cafes, restaurants, shops and hostels
Much of the activity in Old Town is by Thalang Road
I had lunch at this restaurant. China Inn is an old house renovated and now primarily serves as a restaurant.
This trip began because earlier in the year I won a contest organized by Thailand Tourism where the prize was a two-night stay at a luxury resort in Phuket. I initially kept it thinking me and my brother could treat the rest of my family to an international vacation but when those plans did not pan out, I decided to make use of the prize myself.
I took advantage of Go Air’s direct flight from Bengaluru to Phuket. A ticket I got for Rs. 9k.
It was my first time flying a budget airline to Thailand from Bangalore. I had exclusively flown Thai Airways up until now.
The flight was 80% full but luckily, my row was completely empty 🙂
The flight was supposed to depart at 2:15am but there was a slight delay
I tried to sleep but it wasn’t too long before I saw the sun rise
It was hard to keep my eyes closed as the view kept getting better…
… and better
Hello Phuket
This would be my third visit to the island. My last visit here was in 2012 with a friend.
The flight landed on time at 7:45am
I had downloaded the visa on arrival form, printed it out and filled it up in advance. The queue at the visa on arrival counter was mostly all Indians who had landed along with me and as usual, many had not filled up the form in advance, nor did they fill up the arrival card given to every passenger on the flight. I did both. Since I was also alone, I got my form inspected and done with everything in less than five minutes. After that, immigration didn’t take long.
The plan for today was to rent two bikes and ride all the way to Promthep Cape, a popular viewpoint at the southern tip of Phuket island. But after breakfast, we first walked towards Patong beach.
It wasn’t too crowded and we got our feet wet for a whileThe skies weren’t the brightest today, and we decided we would hit the waters when it got warmer
We then went around looking for bike rentals. I had already read up on scams in Phuket and one of the most common advice handed out were to avoid the vehicle rentals on Beach Road.
I don’t remember if it was originally ฿300 baht for 24 hours, but we ended up renting two of these Honda Click bikes at ฿150 each. We told them we would return them by 7pm-ish.
Be careful when you rent any vehicle in Thailand, especially Phuket. Vehicle rental scams are common here and don’t go by the cheapest rate being offered. The scammers make money by claiming you scratched the vehicle upon return, when in reality, the scratch was always there — you just didn’t notice it when you took it. The going rate for a Honda Click and like are around 200-300 baht a day. The place we rented from was right next to our hotel and she insisted I hand over my passport (original) as security. I usually never agree to that, but she gave me a form to fill up stating she would return it upon giving the bike back, and provided there are no damages/scratches on the bike. It’s an agreement I had to sign and she put my passport in a password-protected locker.
You may find other places that just request a passport copy, but we bargained it down to ฿150 because we didn’t need the bike for 24 hours. So handing over my passport was something I had to agree to as part of the bargain. I also took photos of the bike from all angles in front of her. Something I always do before even starting the engine.
I carried a map of Phuket and Ramesh had Google Maps on his Nexus. We drove down Walking Street, which is open to traffic during the day.Walking Street was awfully quiet as all the bars open lateWe were going across the hill over to Karon beachI hoped the skies would clear upAnd sure enough, it did
