- Phuket Island
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- Phuket Island |
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Phuket Island:
"The Pearl of Thailand" or "The emerald upon the elephant's trunk" is the way to describe Phuket with respect to the rest of Thailand.
Phuket is the largest island of Thailand. It is connected by bridges to southern Thailand and surrounded by 32 smaller islands with a total area of 570 square kilometers. Approximately 1.75 million Rai of the area is forest land.
Situated on beaches that offer some of the most spectacular scenery in Thailand, from brilliant white sand beaches and coral islands to sheer limestone cliffs and forested inlets.
About 70 percent of Phuket is mountainous; a western range runs from north to south from which smaller branches derive. The highest peak is Mai Tha Sip Song, or Twelve Canes, at 529 meters, which lies within the boundaries of Tambon Patong, Kathu District. The remaining 30 percent of the island, mainly in the center and south, is formed by low plains.
Phuket town itself is notable for its Sino-Portuguese architecture. The main attractions in Phuket Town are the old Sino-Portuguese buildings, the elaborate Chinese and Thai temples, and the public markets. Most of the buildings in Phuket’s city center were constructed nearly a hundred years ago. These building show mixed Chinese and western influences in their architecture called Sino-Portuguese. The buildings are characteristically much longer than they are wide, and the entry ways have fancy latticework. Many lovely examples can be found on Dibuk Road. Phuket’s Town Hall, Provincial Court, and Nakorn Luang Bank are also good examples of this style of architecture. Phuket’s Town’s oldest public structure, Government House, is a wonderful example of architecture from earlier this century. .
Patong Beach
This is Phuket's central tourist and night time entertainment district.
The famous bay and 4 km. beach is know as a centre of entertainment with restaurants catering to every nationality. Live music can be found in most pubs and bars. Accommodations range from budget to five-star.
Ang Thong Mational Park:
For the ultimate pure nature experience, Ang Thong National Park offers a series of 40 small islands, with hidden lagoons and remote beaches.
Andaman Sea Islands:
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The Andaman coast is a different world compared to the rest of Thailand. Steady rainfall nourishes a huge variety of tropical fauna, with the lush canopy in some areas reaching as high as 80m. In many places, scenic rubber and coconut plantations have been carved out of the jungle by the locals.The Andaman coast is also adorned with awe-inspiring limestone cliffs. These sheer, multi-coloured monoliths, scarred with caves and crags, are also capped with thick vegetation.
Phuket is the main starting point for most visitors to Andaman Sea
destinations. The popular trips to islands lying to the south and east of Phuket
about 30 minutes to 2 hours away by motor boat, including
Ko Phi Phi’s ancient
cave drawings, Phangnga’s exotic backdrop, which appeared in a James Bond
film.
Krabi Province’s Phra Nang, often called the most beautiful
beach in the Andaman.
Coral Island (Ko He)
which offers a dive all year round and has very beautiful natural scenery;
Ko Racha, which have dives of up to 30 meters; Shark Point, a favorite sleeping
spot of leopard sharks and stingrays;
Ko Dok Mai which offers an impressive wall
dive and a series of cave dives; and Ko Phi Phi where you can see white tip
sharks, stingrays and moray eels besides colorful reef fishes.
Khao Lak offers a coral reef a few hundred meters
off the beach and a spectacular wreck of a sunken tin miner.
Further south, the remote, rarely traveled beaches
of Lanta and the islands of Ko Tartutao National Park offer more amazing
natural beauty.
Truly
world class diving sites are located farther away including Ko Similan, Ko
Surin,
Ko Tarutao and Burma Banks. Despite their long distances, tours are organized by
some agencies in Phuket regularly during the dry season. All the first three
island groups are marine national parks which offer magnificent coral gardens.
Burma Banks being the farthest and newest, is in the best condition as a diving
site.
Diving - Discover the fantastic underwater world
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Thailand’s underwater natural heritage is a breathtaking complement to the beauty of its islands.
One of the major assets of Phuket as a flourishing vacation resort is its abundance of diving destinations both in its vicinity and off islands several hours boat ride away, all offering a fantastic underwater world of tropical fishes and coral formations, so exotic and colorful.
For scuba divers Phuket is certainly the
crown jewel of the Andaman Sea, one of the most renowned
diving regions in the world. This island paradise lies only
8o north of the equator, enjoying a tropical
climate with average water temperature of 24oC
(78o F) with an unmatched variety of aquatic life.
Phuket is the diving centre of the Andaman Sea, and especially excellent for the beginner who would like
to learn diving first-hand in the sea that the beginner can move to the expert level without ever
leaving the island. Its dive experiences as varied as the
surrounding islands themselves.
From Phuket, all sorts of diving tours are organized lasting from half a day to 2 weeks. The nearest are sites off the west coast where you can explore soft and hard coral reefs, with a large variety of tropical marine life. There are good close-up photo opportunities with dives up to 35 meters. Diving sites now figure prominently in the popularity of Andaman islands, with its areas rated among the best in the world.
In spite of its strategic location and long maritime history, many areas of the Andaman Sea remain largely unexplored. This underwater frontier continues to yield exciting new dive sites that are only now being made available for sport diving. You may enjoy the added pleasure of being one of the first ever to dive in many sites. Start with a lazy drift dive through vast gardens of coral, or try swimming through some of numerous caves and grottos, exploring a ship-wreck, or maybe embarking on a multi-level dive along a sheer granite wall with a different creature in every nook and cranny.
Explore the Koh Similan - A Group of Nine islands in the Andaman Sea
One of the best-known island groups , largely because of the wonders that wait beneath the clear blue waters that surround it.
"Similan" is derived from the Malay sembilan, and means "nine". Each of the Similan Islands has a number as well as a name. These are, running from north to south: Koh Ba Ngu (No. 9), Similan (No. 8), Payu (No. 7), Miang (No. 4, No. 5 and, in some opinion, No. 6), Payan (No. 3), Payang (No. 2), and Hu Yong (No. 1). Hin Pousar, or "Elephant Head Rock", is alternatively designated No. 6 by some. Koh Bon, lying 17 nautical miles north of Ba Ngu, is part of the Similan National Park and may be granted honorary status as No. 10.
Ironwood and gum trees are among the larger trees, while jackfruit, rattan and bamboo form part of the denser undergrowth. The islands are home to crab-eating monkeys, dusky langurs, squirrels, bats, lizards and a good variety of birds (though the monkeys are shy and rarely seen by the casual observer). But the most striking feature of these islands, at first glance, are the huge boulders that litter the western and southern shores on several of the islands.
Another highlight, as the visitor soon discovers, are
the white coral-sand beaches, splendidly picturesque and often
deserted. The most interesting sights, however, are to be found
beneath the waves. Some of the most spectacular coral growths in the
world can be found here - and the same boulders that scatter the
shores have turned the waters around the Similans into an adventure
playground for divers.
A
variety of forces have given shape to these islands. To begin with,
the Similans were intrusions, upwellings of hot magma that found
their way through weak spots in the Earth's crust 100-150 million
years ago, working their way through thick layers of sedimentary
rock already laid down at least 100 million years earlier still.
Then, unimaginably powerful movements in the crust cracked the
granite substratum into blocks, preparing the way for experiments in
sculptural form by wind and wave.
Today, piles of curious stones, some of them as big as houses,
lie as though collected and later abandoned in careless heaps by
some ancient race of beachcombing giants. Even Sailing Boat Rock,
the distinctive formation teetering high above the cove on Koh
Similan (Island No.8), has been shaped in this way. And boulders
just like these spill in jumbled piles down beneath the surface of
the sea to 35m and beyond, where submarine peaks, canyons, caves and
passageways provide scuba divers with some of the most interesting
submarine prospects in the world. (On the west side of the islands,
currents have kept the formations clear of sand; on the
coral-covered sandy slopes of the east side, the boulders have been
largely buried.)
Underwater, meanwhile, all sorts of marine creatures have helped
establish the reefs and the sandy beaches. When you climb up to
Sailing Boat Rock, consider the brilliant white sand below. This
beach is in large part a product of diligent scraping and nibbling
away by organisms such as the parrotfish - an average individual of
which species may excrete more than 16 kilos of sand in the course
of a year's lunching on hard corals. And there's plenty here to eat.
The conditions for coral growth are ideal, with a minimum prevailing
sea temperature of about 28oC and exceptionally clear
waters. More than 200 species of hard coral alone have so far been
identified in this area, while these islands have the greatest
profusion of reef fish in Thai waters.
In fact, in terms of both marine life and bottom topography,
there's more variety than you'll find in most other dive
destinations around the world. The Similans has almost everything -
coral walls (if we count Koh Bon, to the north, as one of the
Similans), big rocks, huge sea fans and barrel sponges, caves, swim-throughs, and plenty of shallows for snorkelling as well. For,
although the fringing waters around the islands average from 30-45m
dropping down to 70-80m between islands, you'll find coral gardens
in as little as six to seven meters.
Thailand Soft Expeditions 2001 & 2002:
Thai Cultural & Historical Expedition (TRX No. TX01)
The Pearl of the Andamam Sea - Package A (PJT No. PA0A)
The Pearl of the Andamam Sea - Package B (PJT No. PA0B )
The Pearl of the Andamam Sea - Package C (PJT No. PA0C )
The Pearl of the Andamam Sea - Package D
Background information:
Amazing Thailand - The Land of Smile
The Grand Palace - Panorama Views
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