The 10 Best Hotels in Phuket...and a few bad ones

So, which are the best hotels in Phuket? I wish I had a dollar for every time I am asked to recommend a hotel in Phuket. Of course, it is a devilishly difficult task unless you know somebody very, very well. Do they want to be near the action? Near shopping? In a quiet spot? On the beach? How much do they want to pay? Is room service important?

Over the years, I have visited most of the hotels on the island and have my own list of favourites. Let me share them with you:


1. Andaman White Beach Resort, Naithon Beach.

Fabulous villa rooms on the beach with private swimming pools, breakfast on a deck overlooking the sea, polite service from unobtrusive staff. If you prefer the beach and bed to nightlife and shopping, this is perfection.


2. The Old Phuket, Karon Beach.
Under-rated older hotel off the main beach, with nicely redecorated rooms and great jacuzzi rooms with private entrances. Love the Sino-Portuguese architecture and the unpretensiousness of this gentle hotel. Smart new wing on its way.


3. Impiana Phuket Cabana Resort, Patong Beach.
One of the few Patong hotels right on the beach. Post-tsunami refurbishment has updated the rooms beautifully, the public areas and gardens are stunning, so is the Salabua restaurant. One hotel you won't want to leave in the perfect Patong location.


4. Tri-Trang Beach Resort, Tri Trang Beach.
Very average rooms in a very average resort, with some rooms requiring a steep upstairs climb. But this is the tropical location you dream of - wide, desolate palm-fringed beach with only a handful of loungers and a restaurant where you can dine with your feet in the sand. Rocky beach not the best, but that helps to keep the daytrippers at bay. Get a taste of the Phuket of yesteryear.

5. Banyan Tree Phuket, Laguna, Bangtoa Beach.
One of the top three hotels on the island - the others are Trisara and Amanpuri - but Banyan Tree gets the nod for its fabulous spa, adjoining golf course and very private villas. Magnificent lobby area with sweeping views across lawns and a lake sets the stage for a great resort.


6. Poppa Palace, Patong Beach.
This small two-star hotel is squeezed into a tiny plot in one of the less salubrious areas of Patong Beach. What it offers is great rates, a tiny swimming pool (but a pool nonetheless), nice rooms, good security and a friendly staff. There's a reason why its always fully booked - it is great value.


7. Royal Phawadee Village, Patong Beach.
Masses of palms and teak-walled rooms in the heart of Patong can only mean you have stumbled on a hidden gem. French-run, you get a great room in a palm plantation, a nice swimming pool, a short walk to the beach and a great steakhouse. To top it off, the room rates are reasonable.

8. Le Tanjong Guest House, Patong Beach. Owned by my friend, this small six-room guest house is perfect if you're after a room with a comfy bed, airconditioning, en-suite bathroom, safety box and satellite television. The best thing about it is that it is kept spotlessly clean. Ok, I am biased, but its still great value for a clean, affordable place to lay your head.

9. Holiday Inn Busakorn Wing, Patong Beach. This hotel, which adjoins the old Holiday Inn, offers a refuge from the hustle and bustle of Patong Beach and the very busy 'mother ship'. You can use all the facilities of both hotels, but the Holiday Inn crowd aren't allowed into your oasis. Superb rooms, great pool area and very professional staff.

10. The Chedi, Pansea Beach.
Without the stairs, this would be the number one hotel on the island. The Chedi has a magnificent beach practically to itself. Simple villas on the beach are just fabulous, but others require hefty climbing up wooden staircases. The view is great, but you may be too puffed to enjoy it. Still, its a wonderfully understated hotel that ranks with the best.

Ten hotels I wouldn't stay in:

1. Indigo Pearl Resort, Nai Yang Beach.
Great PR cannot lift this over-rated dump into the boutique resort they claim it is. Ignore all the awards and recommendations, it's certainly nothing special. Especially at the prices they charge.

2. Diamond Cliff Resort, Kalim Beach.
Been around too long, with too little spent on refurbishment. Being eclipsed by newer rivals all around - and deservedly so. An old dame slowly dying, methinks.

3. Evason Resort, Rawai Beach.
A revamp of a crummy old resort - and it shows. The public areas are spectacular and parts rather innovative, but the standard rooms are tired and the garden looks parched and neglected. This could be a tropical paradise, but it sure aint one now.

4. Club Andaman Beach Resort, Patong Beach.
A wasted opportunity in a great location. I suspect that the lease on this resort is running out soon: I doubt there's any money being spent on it. It is crying out for Hyatt or Sheraton to give it a much-needed facelift.

5. Hilton Arcadia Phuket, Karon Beach.
Too big and too ugly to be saved, even by the Hilton brand. Okay for a conference, but you can do much better for a holiday. With all the land it occupies, I think it's time they called in the demolition team and built a proper resort.

6. Thara Patong Resort, Patong Beach.
Mid-range hotel that has pretensions of being something special. Get past the vaguely swanky foyer and you'll discover a dreary and tired affair. There's little reason why anyone would want to stay here with far better value surrounding it on all sides. Give it a miss.

7. Club Med Phuket, Kata Beach.
It's not that the resort is so bad, it's acceptable; it's just that the Club Med concept is so 'old hat' - and this vast complex dominates the entire stretch of beautiful Kata Beach. It seems that this is another case of too little being spent on a resort that has such a splendid location - but I guess that's why they get away with it.

8. Safari Beach Hotel, Patong Beach.
Close to the Bangla Road gogo bar zone, and totally overwhelmed by its seafood restaurant. I'll admit the restaurant does a roaring trade luring punters off the street. But I don't like the seafood and I don't like the hotel. Real 'cheap charlie' territory.

9. Mom Tri's Boathouse and Villa Royale.
The Boathouse has a great location and a lovely restaurant, but it's way too expensive for what it is. When I last checked, the rooms needed more than a renovation - they needed a total overhaul. And there's nothing "royal" about their overpriced Villa Royale suites. Sack the designer now!

10. Mangosteen Resort and Spa, Rawai Beach.
Whoever built this resort in the middle of the expat zone, with the nearest beach kilometres away, needs their head read. It's not an expat haunt, it's not a holiday paradise, it's not even suitable for business executives. This one falls badly between the cracks. And that's where it belongs.

Off to the Fat Farm

Of all the people one might expect to find on a health and wellness retreat, I must rank as one of the most unlikely. I am just not the type to fall for the marketing scam of the millennium: pay a fortune to not eat anything. That's like going to a cinema to stare at a blank screen. Or swimming in a pool without water.

Well, I have news for you. My dear friend Helen (from Joburg) and I are off to the fat farm. Yes, we are taking the plunge and have booked to spend a week at a health retreat on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand at the end of the month. But this is not your run-of-the-mill spa where you sip fruit juice and eat raw vegetables. Here you really starve and undergo colonic cleansing twice a day. To put it politely, nothing goes in and lots comes out!

How we will manage to survive for seven days without a slice of cheesecake, yet alone a rump steak and chips, is going to be very, very interesting. Apparently, they feed one all sorts of supplements and tablets that takes away the craving. And, in between all the massages, exercise sessions and consultations, you have little time for anything else. And you get very tired and irritable.

I'm nervous of the yoga classes - and am too scared to even think about the colonic irrigation sessions! I could end up crippled for life! Thank goodness Helen will be there to laugh along with me - and keep me on the straight and narrow. We have opted for the premium accommodation - a two-bedroom villa with private swimming pool. That should make it a little easier.

On the other hand, isn't it a shame that we will be stuck in a lovely villa on a gorgeous tropical island and not able to enjoy a delicious mango milkshake as we lounge by the pool. I have heard of people who sneaked out of this health farm at midnight and caught a taxi to the 24-hour Burger King on the other side of the island to stuff their faces. Isn't that just ridiculous? Who would even think of doing something like that....?

Helen, I know you have 100% faith in me, but it may be best if you sleep with the front door key under your pillow at night!


PS: I do not appear in any of the photographs on this page....

A chat in the smoking room

What would you do if a doctor told you that you only had six months to live? Every time I hear of a patient being handed a 'death sentence', I wonder how I would react in the same situation. I imagine most people believe they would go out and "have a ball", running up their credit cards and doing all the things they had only dreamt of doing. However, I have always suspected that the more likely reaction would be to rather focus on staying healthy and fighting the disease.

Well, I met someone facing a life-threatening disease last week. Strangely, we encountered each other in the smoking lounge of the Phuket airport, hardly the most medical environment. A middle-aged Thai man sitting opposite me looked up and asked me: "How much do you weigh?" Before I could even answer, he said: "Do you enjoy sex?" I was startled and wondered if the directness of the questions was because the man was speaking in a second language. Luckily, he never gave me a chance to answer before he launched off into his tale.

He said he had just returned from a trip to the new Venetian Resort in Macau. Describing how you can "go by boat to your room" and how lavish the suites were, he said that he had been gambling heavily recently. The week before he had been at the Genting Resort in Malaysia. "I've been there," I jumped in, but he rambled on about how many women he had bedded, how much he was drinking and what a time he was having. He said he was determined to spend as much of his wealth and enjoy himself as much as he could before he died.

He then pulled up his shirt and showed me a large scar running up his stomach and chest. He told me he had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given six months to live. He had undergone the operation in a bid to get rid of the cancer, but the surgeon found that it had already spread throughout his body. Now there was nothing they could do.

I was wondering how much of this story I could believe when he passed me his business card, explaining that he was the owner of one of the big Thai groups operating on the island. "If you want anything, give me a call," he said, and then ambled off. I was stunned. If it was true, why would he volunteer this information to a complete stranger. Through the glass wall of the smoking room, I saw him joining his family; a middle-aged woman I presumed was his wife and three young women, with two babies. Another man came into the smoking room and, almost bizarrely, pointed out the man who had just left and said: "He's one of the richest men on the island."

He and his family were seated in the business class cabin alongside me for our flight to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai. I couldn't help watching him and wondering about his life. Before the meal, he swallowed a handful of tablets. Then he insisted that a little girl of about four, probably his granddaughter, sit next to him. She curled up in a ball and fell asleep. He tucked a blanket around her and sat with his arm over her for the rest of the flight. He just sat there, gazing through the window.

On reflection, I guess the man was going through one of the stages that people go through in these situations: one is denial, others are anger and acceptance...I guess he might have been in the denial phase. One thing I do know is that no person is in a position to judge another in a case like this. If gambling away some of his fortune made him happy, so be it. Let him bed-hop and cut a swathe through every casino in Asia if it makes it easier to accept his doctor's verdict.

The whole episode gave me cause for reflection. What would I do if I was in the same situation? Go on a mad spending spree? Live it up in the best hotels? Return home to South Africa? Go wild in Thailand? And who would I want to be with? My nearest and dearest? My long-time friends?

Or would I prefer the company of those who know nothing about me? Like this man, would I end telling my story to strangers in airport smoking lounges? I wonder...