We’re spending four days in Phuket and while it’s lovely to spend a couple of them on the beach, it would be remiss of us not to explore a little. So we take a tuk-tuk taxi across the island on an overcast Sunday morning to Phuket Town itself, to explore its old district.
We get dropped off at Wat Mongkol Nimit, the only royal temple in Phuket, which is sadly shut today. The other major Buddhist site on the island, the Big Buddha on a mountain affording views over all of Phuket, is also currently closed for renovations and as we are soon to discover, it’s a metaphor for how the venal pleasures on offer in Phuket far outweigh any spiritual offerings.
The temple is at the top of Soi Romanee, one of the historic streets in the old town, whose buildings display Sino-Portugese stylings showcasing the cultural heritage of this part of Thailand. While the ground floors tend to be a parade of souvenir shops, clothes stores and coffee-houses, the upper floors have little balconies and shuttered windows, many in pastel colours.
Wandering the small grid of older streets we stop at Ngor Kah Khee for iced coconut coffee and a passion fruit smoothie, and investigate the Shrine of Serene Light, a Chinese temple whose guardian barks at us not to take any photos. However after about 45 minutes we’ve seen pretty much everything of note, so we decide to check out the Blue Elephant Restaurant and Culinary School, a Michelin-starred restaurant set in a beautiful mansion hidden away from the main streets.
Luckily, despite it being the weekend, they are able to squeeze us in for lunch so we decide to treat ourselves to a gastronomic experience. Seated in the garden terrace we are served an amuse bouche of sweet pineapple and coconut salad with a tasty mushroom and galangal soup. A lychee ginger mojito and passion fruit margarita find their way to our table, along with a delicious garden green curry and spicy Paenang red curry with brown berry rice, served from a basket.
The food and drinks are exquisite and while expensive by Thai standards are still only about a third of the price of a similar meal in London. As we leave we buy a couple of their curry pastes to bring home with us. Yet the sophisticated glories of the Blue Elephant don’t seem to attract tourists from the British Isles. The restaurant’s clientele is mostly Asian, Russian and European diners, the British focusing themselves more on our next destination.
Patong Beach is notorious for its nightlife, and is also on our way back to Kamala Beach from Phuket Town, so we decide to stop off there and catch an early evening performance at the famous Simon Cabaret, one of the biggest and best theatre shows on the island.
The taxi driver drops us right on the beach, which is a large expanse of white sand, busy with sun worshippers. The whole town is packed with people and it’s a non-stop parade of fast-food joints, shopping malls, sports bars, souvenir stores, cannabis shops and endless hotels. We wander along a road noisy with traffic, tourists and pumping music, and arrive at Bangla Walking Street, the heart of Patong’s “entertainment” district.
In addition to the aforementioned establishments, Bangla also boasts lots of strip shows, massage parlours and night clubs, with various bars showing football on the TV screens while older western men chat up younger Thai women. Groups of sunburnt lads on the prowl mix with prostitutes, pimps and gangsters, while being invited to buy drugs or have a go at one of the many shooting ranges that seem to line the street too. It’s all a bit seedy and sleazy and it’s still only 4pm. We drive past later after darkness falls and the action is in full swing.
With the mid-afternoon sun blazing down we stop at the Blue Lotus Bar for a refreshing beer and to people watch the tourist parade in front of us. The bar leads to an alley called Freedom featuring such dens of iniquity as Sin City, Tipsy Bar, Stunning Lady Bar, Bachelor Bar, Bangla Sexy 9 and more, all currently empty and waiting for night-time to spring into life. There’s also a nightly lady-boy cabaret, with a dodgy looking poster advertising its attractions, but who are we to judge… we’re on our way to Simon Cabaret, the most extravagant transgender cabaret show in Phuket.
Beyond Bangla Walking Street we continue towards the purpose built auditorium where the performance takes place, turning down the frequent and persistent attempts by sex workers to lure us into the numerous massage parlours on the way. It’s a relief to enter the freezing air-conditioned venue and take our seats for the first of three shows that take place every night. The crowd is a mixture of western and Asian tourists, but the vast majority seem to be Russian coach parties bussed here en-masse as part of their hotel bookings.
The show is very entertaining, despite a few cast members seemingly dialling it in to save their energy for the later performances that night, and features OTT routines to Bollywood numbers, traditional Thai dances, Marilyn Monroe songs and high-energy choreography to tracks by the likes of Madonna, Whitney, Britney, Mariah, Shania, Donna Summer, Barry Manilow and more… all badly lip-synced by the performers.
There’s a not-so-subtle political subtext to some of it, seemingly directed at the Russian audience, as one routine very prominently features the colours of the Ukrainian flag, even down to the insignia on the dancers’ knickers. And another sees Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ given a heavily Slavic make-over, with scantily clad male dancers in the colours of the Russian flag, kissing each other.
It’s a provocative and bonkers show, with very high-end production, and ends with all the performers lining up outside for the audience to take selfies with for £1 a pop as we exit. It makes up for the fact that no photos or videos are allowed inside the auditorium, so I just screenshot them from the promo video on YouTube.
There are taxis and tuk tuks lining up outside the venue so we beat the rush and grab one to take us straight back to Kamala Beach. It drives along Patong Beach’s promenade giving us a taste of the nightlife pumping and blaring out in all directions before continuing its way to the more tranquil environs where we are based.
As tastes of Phuket go, we’ve had our share. Next up is the final destination of our Thai adventure, the chilled out bliss of beautiful Krabi, just a few hours away.
