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Phuket sits at the top of the Malay Peninsula, a teardrop-shaped island connected to mainland Thailand by two bridges across the Sarasin Channel. At roughly 570 square kilometres it is Thailand's largest island, and the Andaman Sea surrounds it on three sides with water that shifts from deep jade in the wet season to the kind of translucent turquoise that made this coastline famous long before mass tourism arrived. The interior is a different proposition entirely: forested hills, rubber plantations, and the remnants of a tin-mining economy that once made Phuket one of the wealthiest provinces in the country.

The island's prosperity left a visible legacy in Phuket Town, the provincial capital on the eastern side, where Sino-Portuguese shophouses line Thalang Road and Dibuk Road in faded ochres and greens. This is the part of Phuket that rewards slower attention. The architecture reflects the Baba-Nyonya culture of Chinese merchants who settled here in the nineteenth century, and the neighbourhood around Soi Romanee has been carefully preserved rather than rebuilt. Most first-time visitors gravitate instead to the west coast, where Patong remains the island's most commercially intense beach strip, while Kata and Karon to the south offer a slightly quieter register. Kamala and Surin, further north, attract a different crowd again, drawn by calmer water and a more residential atmosphere.