Food and markets, Phuket

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When you are on a half day or whole day city tour, included in the Package is a visit to a cashew nut factory as southern thailand is famous for it's large plantations of cashew nuts and there are a few cashew nut factories in Phuket and one of the biggest is the Sri Bhurapa Cashew Nut Factory at the outskirts of Phuket Town. I will have a different shopping tips on their store.

The Cashew nut factory shows you how they harvest cashew nuts using th old traditional style (but they have a larger machine operated modern area for harvesting commercial quantities of cashew nuts). They also don't throw away the cashew fruit but instead they process it into cashew juice (has a slightly bitter taste) and let you have a free taste of the cashew juice and assorted cashew nuts flavored with an assortment of things like honey, nougat, pad thai taste, chili taste, barbecue style cashew nuts and more.

Opens: 9:00 am to 7:00 pm everyday

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Lots of people say the resorts of Phuket are "not the real Thailand". So if you are in a resort in Patong how can you get to see some of the "real Thailand" without too much disruption to the sun bathing schedule?

My tip is an early morning visit to the market in Phuket town. I say early morning as that is when the Thais do their shopping, by 11.00am some of the stalls are already closing/closed.

You can get to Phuket Town by bus, but my preferred option is to get a taxi who will take you there and bring you back. At 2011 rates this should cost about 1,000 Thai Baht including an hour waiting time at the market.

Of course my suggested driver on Phuket, Mai will be happy to do this. See transport tips.

A number of stalls provide some options for breakfast, tasty fish cakes, mild crab curry with vermicelli make a nice change to the egg and bacon options in your hotel.

I love food being freshly cooked in front of me. These sausages are all made of pork and are very good. Street food is often shunned by visitors. It's a real shame. Sometimes I see street food that looks risky to eat, but most of the time it is fine. We eat it very often and have never had a problem with it.

Go on, visit Rawai and try the freshly cooked sausages. They are called Sai Krog I-sarn. Sai Krog means sausage and I-sarn means it's in the style of the province in the north east of Thailand.

RAWAI and SURIN

RAWAI is on the other side of the island that have
beach restaurants from both sides of the road
with local markets
SURIN a very quiet beach that have many
restaurants close to the sea

LAEM SINGH is a hidden beach south of surin,that someone can enjoy watersports,sunbath,swimming and some of the best beach restaurants in phuket(my favourite there is the last one that is called ALI)also there is a small fee for parking

When I first saw the size of the oysters in Phuket, I was convinced that they would be strong flavoured and either tough or have an awful texture. I did not want to try them. Lucky for me, I have a partner who did - and good thing too, he told me I'd like them and I so did, they're sensational!

The first time I tried them was at a seafood restaurant and the second time (where this picture was taken) was at the Wat Chalong Festival. They were selling 4 oysters for 100 baht! These oysters are 2-3 times the size of a regular oyster. There's no swallowing these ones whole!

The flavour of these oysters is so clean, fresh and mild tasting. They truly do smell and taste like the ocean. An absolute treat, don't miss out if you like oysters!

Bangrong Canal is located on the North-eastern side of Phuket. It is a small fishing village which also runs agro-tours from the boat hire/restaurant located on the canal. It's a lovely spot to have lunch and spend a couple of hours relaxing. You can even hire canoes and go for a paddle around the canal or hire a larger boat and go for a cruise.

We visited here after the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre, as it's just a few minutes' drive from there. As we arrived at the village, we were met by a group of Macaque Monkeys that were running around being naughty. There is a nice little restaurant at the bottom of the steps to the canal which has the freshest seafood you can possibly get - it's still swimming until you order it. There's a fish cage in the floor of the floating restaurant that is sunk into the canal.

The restaurant is such a relaxing place to sit and watch the beautiful scenery. I highly recommend visiting the very picturesque Bangrong Canal.

If you're on a budget like me, don't eat the seafood along Patong beach....walk through Bangla road...you will see night bazaar stalls...as well as some seafood stalls.....They're much cheaper and the food isn't bad at all.

At the Tesco Lotus Shopping Centre you will find some great stalls between Tesco and Home Pro. They are full of different products from rice biscuits to spring rolls, fried fish (delicious!) and hand-made lollies. The stalls change every few days.

One stallholder that really caught my attention when I was there was a guy who created all kinds of things from melted sugar. I was very entertained by watching him create monkeys, roses, dragons and even a kangaroo with joey in our honour.

There are these markets behind the Holiday Inn Hotel and they are great.
There are about 10 lanes of people selling everything from paintings to clothes and shoes to ornaments.

The prices are cheap (if you are willing to bargain) and after coming here you will wonder why you bothered going to Phuket Town.

This was one of the highlights of my holiday as I am a real shopaholic and this was a dream come true.
There were rows upon rows of fake brand name clothes, shoes, bags and wallets.
Even my partner enjoyed it as there were heaps of really cheap mens clothes.

This place is not to be missed.