Beaches of Phuket

While on Ko Phuket, we are staying in what appears to be the best known area of the island, as well as the hands down busiest. To be entirely honest, its beautiful and has a lot to offer as far as entertainment goes but isn't quite my cup of tea - I'm definitely more of a laid back beach kind of kid, reminiscent of growing up on the Oregon coast where it is always too cold to actually lay out on the beach!

We did venture south a bit to check out a few other spots along the western coast of Phuket, as well as the to take in the sunset on the southern tip of the island, Phrom Thep Cape.

Patong: A crazy mash of umbrellas, beach bars, towering hotels, throngs of people of all shapes, sizes, nationality and attire (oh, the attire!) and peddlers selling everything you could imagine, Patong Beach is exactly what one would expect from a popular resort beach. Beautiful, but busy to the extreme.

Karon: A few miles south of Patong and things start to mellow out a bit. Still an umbrella clad resort beach, but with a somewhat quite and laid back feel.

Karon Viewpoint: A tiny bit further south is the Karon Viewpoint, giving tremendous views of the several beaches to its north. There were also some folks there with a sea hawk and a sea eagle that you could pay 100 THB (a tiny bit over $3) to hold and take your photo with. Based on Bryan's grin, I'm pretty sure he just hated that experience!

Nai Harn: Of the Phuket beaches and their towns that we visited, I'm fairly certain Nai Harn is the one I would enjoy best. Much smaller and laid back, with a small handful of food carts and open air restaurants set back from the beach among the trees. Definitely more my kind of pace. Just south of that was another very small beach with a great rock outcropping and little cove, where I could easily lose a day in.

Phrom Thep Cape: The southern tip of Ko Phuket, it was clearly a hot spot for sunsets based on the large numbers of both people and vendors, though understandably so. Unfortunately it was too cloudy for us the get that epic sunset that everyone hopes for, but it was still plain that the potential is there. They had a large promenade next to the lighthouse (that I'm guessing is more for show than anything, as it is far too small and set so far back from the actual shore that I can't imagine it working a lighthouse normally would).