Phuket Town
I like biking in Phuket town. I often make a stop at my favourite place for fried bananas (kluai tot). I pay 5 Bath for 5 (0.13 US$) bananas - a delicacy:
Sometimes I have to visit a bike repair shop at Bangkok Road. Here they are very clever. As I have a Swedish bike they normally do not have spare parts for me. But that has never caused me any problems. They are good inventors. They say 'mai pen rai' = no problems:
It may be worth while to visit one of the post offices in the town to by beutiful stamps for cards to be sent home (15 Bath at present). Printed year 2007:
Or why not these larger stamps printed year 2008:
For this purpose I got a nice assistanse from Jo at the office at Bangkok Road:
Worthy to visit is also Robinson - a warehouse like Harolds in London (to exaggerate a little), in the corner of Ong Sim Phai Road and Tilok Uthit 1 Road. A big textile shop you will find at Ratsada Road (north side). A good book shop at Thungka Road. If you want to relax from the city life take Chao Fa Road north to Kho Sim Bi Road, which is winding up to a view point, from where you can look over a big part of the town.
Just south of Ranong Road the Chinese Shrine Chui Tui (even spelled Jui Tui) is situated:
Here I stopped in order to take some photos, when I met two big families - one from Bangkok and one from Kuala Lumpur. They were all very nice and interested of what I was doing. I found out that the Malaysian family lived very near the place where I was living during the years 1975-1976, when working for UN in Kuala Lumpur. Now the the Malaysian father suggested that I should join them to a restaurant in the neighbourhood and eat lunch with them. So I did and had a very nice pause in my biking:
In the middle of the rightmost picture you see the Malaysian daddy Wong Yoon Bing. He is the Managing Director for the Mascorn compay in Malaysia. On the leftmost picture you find his daughter Chiew Ling with her brother Chun Wei. Two more brothers in the middle picture - Chun Hai and Chun Voou. The person sitting to the right of Wong Yoon Bing is the Thai daddy.
One day with my wife in town we saw a lady selling home made chop sticks with holders. Her little son was helping her to clean the pieces:
Craftsmen with their entire workshop are often seen on the pavements in the town. Here Kien is encapsulating Buddha amulets in small bakelite cases. His tools are simple but ingenius. In the foreground his drill with a trapeze handle. When he moves the handle up and down he gives the drill rotation. His customer - Nam - is patiently waiting for his two amulets.
In the town there are several Karaoke restaurants very popular among the local people. My massage girl, who I got to sing during her work, persuaded me to join her and three of her friends to one of these restaurants. Tawan Dang is a large beautiful restaurant with 20 separate chambers:
Here there was a big TV screen, comfortable sofas and a table. We found our places and our taxi driver and the girls started to sing and dance. A waitress served us continually with drinks. This turned to be a night I will never forget. But what I forgot was that I am 80 years old:
On this picture: Jit - our taxi driver - Aum, Ray, Kung and Lam Duan. Kung was best - she reached 100 %, Lam Duan and Jit 97%, while the others about 92. I managed to reach 80 % once. After som exercise I am sure I could improve my records here.
At a later visit at Tawan Dang I brought my wife and my daughter with her family together with four Thai girls from the massage. Even this night was a success. In the following picture you find my son in law Johan, who promised he would not sing, in a singing duet together with Aum:
If you want to go to Phuket Town from the west side of Phuket and have no bike a tuk-tuk (open taxi) is one alternative not too expensive (250 Bath = 6.50 US$) but why not take the bus. It is comfortable and you always meet nice people. Price only 20 Bath (= 0.5 US$):
North-West
of the town there are two big ware houses - Big C and Lotus. One km north of
Lotus there is a big jewellery factory. A visit to this place may result in
buying some of their products. Whether you do so or not the taxi driver, if you
had one, will get 50
When you are in these surroundings you have a good opportunity to visit the fresh water dam Bang Wat Dam which has a storage capacity of 7.31 million m3. But because of last 2 years missing rain this dam is only half full (Mars 2006). It is situated beautifully embedded between mountains and have some nice plantations. I have been here many times but never seen any other tourist. The place is used by the local people for relaxing purpose:
Just
a little bit north of
Through the town runs some channels (klong):
