Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Travel: Beyond Phuket

Southern Thailand is full of lesser-known but intriguing islands and resorts
62190_l

"If you Google 'Takuapa' you'll get basically nothing," said an Irish expat in the town of that name on Thailand's Phang-Nga peninsula, north of Phuket.

How wrong he was. In fact Google spits out 690,000 references to Takuapa or Takua Pa - even if a majority are pitches for the luxury resorts that have recently taken root along this western shoreline of mainland Phang-Nga province.

But his point was that this long-established town, known for its historic Chinese-shop houses and handsome teak buildings introduced during the tin-mining era of the 19 th century, is not Phuket. In fact, an hour to the south we had left Phuket Island, with its spectacular beaches and tourism scene, for this lesser known area of southern Thailand.

Well, we did return to Phuket to dine at Baan Ram Pa, a celebrated seafood restaurant in the swinging Patong Bay area. Seems that the Baan Ram Pa, sitting high on the rocks, lost some of its protruding balconies in the tsunami, while adjacent sea-level eateries, Joe's Downstairs and Da Maurizio, were partially or entirely destroyed.

Then, for the time being, we left Phuket behind.

From Takuapa we continued north to Khao Lak and a resort called The Sarojin (named for a mythical Thai woman). The Sarojin proved an enticing spread of well-appointed residences and myriad indulgences. But what intrigued me (here I go again) was the fact that the low-lying resort, set among salt-water estuaries and mangrove forest, had been ready to open one week after the earthquake-tsunami hit on Dec. 26, 2004.

One wave washed right through the site (it opened 11 months later). And while no one was killed at the resort, this low-lying Khao Lak region was particularly hard hit, with more loss of life than on Phuket. Embedded into a nearby hillside is a huge police boat that was buffeted what seems like a kilometre inland. It remains a memorial to the more than 5,000 people killed in Thailand alone.

While the nearby Similan and Surin Islands are famous dive sites, we drove on north to the mangrove swamps, where a local boatman (absolutely no English spoken here) took us for a spin. Our smallish long-tail boats glided or sped through a dense tropical forest rich with overhanging flora, flocks of unfamiliar birds and otter-like marine creatures.

Dinner back at the Sarojin was a spectacular affair on the beach, with waves washing underfoot and chefs manning a series of food stations serving, well, just about anything you wanted. Afterwards, we lit and released huge paper lanterns, and watched as they appeared smaller and smaller, before burning out in the cosmos.

From the Royal Phuket Marina we travelled by speedboat to the Andaman Sea's Phang-Nga Bay, known for its shapely monolithic limestone (or karst) islands. The boat skirted the cliffs, caves, tidal channels and overhangs strung with stalactites. We zipped around Koh Tabu (better known as James Bond Island, where the 1974 Man with the Golden Gun , starring Roger Moore, was shot). Elephants are said to live in the island's forest and swamps, as does a species of monkey that feeds on crab.

Back out in Phang-Nga Bay, we stopped at the island village of Panyee. Entirely built on stilts in what is a tidal area, this all-Muslim village was founded by Indonesian fisherman two centuries ago. Today it has roughly 2,000 residents.

And while it still relies on fishing, it turned to tourism on the basis of Bond movie fame. Walkways are lined with stalls selling typical merchandise. Mostly female vendors wear headscarves; a call to prayer is heard from the mosque. Wandering further into the village, we saw open-sided living quarters and people doing everyday chores. I noted an "evacuation route" sign - part of an elaborate warning system introduced after the tsunami (although Phang-Nga Bay, including Panyee, was not severely affected).

But the destination, during our Phuket-based visit, that most appealed to me was our accommodation on Mai Khao Beach on the northern end of Phuket Island.

Said to embody historic Sino-Portuguese architecture, this resort, called Sala Phuket, seemed to me more like minimalist Scandinavian design. Compact (rather than, like so many resorts, sprawling and footprint insensitive), this is a series of high-ceiling suites in a two-storey concrete complex (there are also villas with pools).

Upstairs suites are entered up private lamp-lit stairwells, decorated with Asian touches. Inside they're all contemporary furnishings, towering oblong windows and lots of natural light. Depictions of exotic birds are embedded in the plaster ceiling.

From my oh-so-chic (and air-conditioned) room I stepped into a steamy balcony with a huge day-bed, round bathtub too large to fill with precious water (or so I thought), superb shower and other facilities. Yes there were flying beetles, but who cared?

Pathways of patterned concrete, through which grass grows in ever-varying thicknesses and configurations, suggest major or minor routes through the resort. At night, the entrance, its walkways framed by shallow pools filled with perfectly round rocks, was so subtly illuminated that I worried about walking straight into the water.

And neither the Sala Phuket nor The Sarojin is hopelessly expensive: deluxe rooms can be had from $200.