Holiday in Patong, Phuket - again!

I had another holiday in Phuket in January 2014. I was not impressed with Patong this time around, however, I went further afield to see the Big Buddha, the Phuket Sunday Night Market, Central Festival shopping mall and visited Khai Nok island. All in all the trip was a success but Patong had grown considerably since the last time I was there and a huge number of hotels, cafes and other businesses had proliferated. It's a shame the streets and footpaths had not also proliferated.


Patong Beach

A big part of the problem was the Russian tourists. The men seemed humourless, potentially aggressive, disapproving, uncommunicative and mean with money. This is just the opposite of the local Thais trying to make a living providing service with a smile. The Russian women were younger and often very pretty but just as humourless. Many shops and cafes now had many signs in Russian and the staff struggled with the Russian language. Many cafes offered Russian food - no experimenting with Thai food for these tourists!

Good Wi-Fi is not so easy to find. The two hotels I stayed in had inadequate signal strength and the modems were often overloaded. At one hotel I was shown where the modem was behind a panel in the corridor so that I could reboot it myself when it froze!  At the other hotel, I could seldom get my iPad to connect and had to sit around the foyer of the hotel. Cafes often boast Wi-Fi but it was usually very slow.

I had a look at a few condominiums for sale. Some, of course, had not been built yet. However, the sales people inspired distrust as much as enthusiasm to buy.

Perhaps I'll go back again. Perhaps I'll go to Vietnam next trip.