phuket magazine

Scores of hotels and bungalows to choose from

Before booking a room check to see if you will enjoy what this beach offers – it is very different to the rest of the island

Patong, and its rollicking nightlife scene, is one of those places that people either love, or want to get far away from.

It is important that one understands Patong well before booking a room here. Patong itself is a classically beautiful Andaman beach, with soft coral sands and clear, warm waters – the very thing that virtually every visitor has come for.

But Patong is also the vibrant centre of tourism in Phuket, the beach where the greatest number of visitors do choose to stay, even if it is not for everyone. The area behind the beach is a colourful and riotous bazaar, jam-packed with restaurants, shops, hotels, street markets, food vendors and nightlife. In Patong the visitor does not find solitude on a secluded beach, but he does find the colour and flavour of Asia here.

The nightlife in Patong, often bawdy, is famous, or infamous, depending on your view. Open-air beer bars line most side streets, tended by hostesses who attract the male set. But there are also all manner of bars, a-go-go places, discos and cabaret shows. The ‘kratoeys’, transvestites, who prance and dance in the middle of the main bar street, Soi Bangla, are perhaps the single most famous night-time attraction. Tourists of all ages and nationalities stop to watch, click photos with them and enjoy the outrageous costumes and antics right on the sidewalks.

Patong’s nightlife is such a draw that virtually all tourists staying at other, quieter beaches come to Patong for at least one night out during their visit. And, indeed, it certainly adds spice to the regular diet of sand, salt and suntans that remote beaches offer.

If Patong appeals, you will find a huge choice of hotels and bungalows spanning all budgets here. A main road runs along most of the beach, and right across from this is a long line of hotels facing the ocean, most of 3 or 4 star standard. Moving away from the beach the hotels get cheaper, and there are scores of smaller guesthouses back here. Some are several hundred meters back from the beach, so check our map for locations.

At the northern end of the beach the road moves away from the beach, and some small hotels, and one resort, Phuket Cabana, have lucky positions directly on the beach. Other resorts have chosen hillside locations at both North and South ends of the beach, allowing them close access to the action of Patong with enough distance for tranquillity; the Novotel at the Northern end, and Amari Coral Beach at the Southern end.