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Continuing The Pattaya Otter’s holiday on Phuket Island
Day 3 of our stay and forsaking the sea we hired a car for a trip round Phuket island itself.
As has been mentioned The Pattaya Otter was last on Phuket nearly 20 years ago and part of the purpose of this tour around was to see just how much it had changed in that time, but also to explore some parts not previously visited.
But we started in familiar territory as he headed off by first driving over the headland that led from Karon to Patong beach, and driving the length of the beach road there, which didn’t look any more attractive by daylight than it had the previous evening.
Passing through there as rapidly as possible we headed North along the coast road until turning inland and to a road junction actually a traffic island surmounted by a statue known as the Heroines Monument.
The story tells that these were two sisters, Chan and Mook, who in 1785 when the island was being invaded by the Burmese, persuaded all the island’s women to dress up as men, thus fooling the invaders into believing that the island was too well defended and causing them to withdraw (nowadays in certain resort areas there is more likelihood of seeing men dressed up as women).
From there, our journey took us back down South, travelling the main inland road which was being extensively widened (as were many roads in the island) and then taking a turn back in the direction of Patong but only to go a short distance to the island’s most popular waterfall at Kathu, more or less in the dead centre of the island.
Waterfalls in Thailand often promise much but fail to deliver anything really spectacular and this one proved no exception.
After parking our car and crossing a footbridge over a small stream, we found a series of well constructed stairways which led up to a large pool at the far end of which was the waterfall .
A number of children were playing in the pool and obviously enjoying themselves but this modest fall didn’t over impress us. Then we spotted that the staircase led on up further and so in expectation of finding a greater fall we continued our climb, heading up and up and becoming hotter and hotter.
Were we rewarded for our exertions? No – all we found at the top was a small stream that eventually became the fall we had first encoun tered.
Heading back down to the bottom we paused at a small restaurant for a cold refreshing drink before continuing our journey.
We retraced our path back to the main road and continued our journey South and after a short distance came to the largest temple on the island, Wat Chalong.
The temple is associated with three revered monks, renowned herbal doctors and setters of bones. One of them, Pho Chaem, had ample opportunity to demonstrate his skills during the tin miners rebellion of 1876 when a great many bones were broken.
Gilt statues honouring him and the other two monks stand in the sermon hall.
A large number of worshippers were gathered in all parts of the temple compound but as we were not appropriately attired (long trousers required) it was not possible for us to actually enter inside any of the temple buildings.
Instead after looking around outside we resumed our trip making the short distance to Chalong circle, a roundabout with 5 road junctions that actually works (Pattaya take note).
Taking the last exit there a short distance led us to our lunch stop at The Green Man pub and restaurant.
This incongruous looking building more at home on an English village green, looked as genuine inside as it did outdoors, apart from the Thai waitresses who for some unknown reason wore dresses surmounted by a sash bearing the colours of the German national flag. Indeed several other German flags were draped around the interior and as mine host was clearly of English origin the reason for this remained a mystery.
However there was nothing mysterious about the grub being a true English Sunday roast (well it was Sunday, so why not?) topped with an enjoyable pint of Guinness.
Well sated, we resumed our travels once again easily traversing Chalong Circle this time taking the road to Rawai Beach on the South East tip of the island .
This turned  out to be a fishing port with several tradional Thai longboats drawn up on the shore.
Pausing to walk through the small beach side market we found mostly stalls selling fresh fish of all shapes and sizes.
From there, our jouney took us along the Southern edge of the island until we came to Promthep Cape, the Southernmost point.
There the road led up to the top of a small hill offering a superb view all around and surmounted by an ornate lighthouse.
We stayed there quite sometime admiring the view and debated whether to wait for the approaching sunset there as this had the potential to offer a real spectacle.
However sunsets are often hit and miss and the generally hazy outlook didn’t promise much so we decided to head on, and next came to Nai Harn Beach.
Actually ‘next came to’ hides a journey going round in circles before we eventually found this small, very attractive beach in a relatively remote corner of the island
With the light starting to fade we paused only briefly there, noting this as a place to explor e in more detail at a future time (and maybe even a resort to stay at if a quiet restful time is required) and followed the road climbing up once again to another marked viewpoint where a number of vehicles had stopped.
Joining them at a small tower, we climbed up to gain a view, albeit in the gathering gloom, looking North up the whole Western edge of the Island, first into the two small Kata bays and then in the distance the long Karon bay where our hotel was situated (no, we couldn’t quite make it out).
From there it was only a short journey down the hill, through Kata village and thence back to our hotel, our day trip completed.
With the prospect of another early start the next day for out second boat trip, we dined at the hotel that night, having a good value set Thai food meal.
Staying awake only to watch Man U beat(?) Arsenal, we slept the sleep of the just until the alarm woke us at 6 o’clock ready for our last trip out.
Which will be reported on in the next article
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