Kata Beach, Phuket, Thailand: Get around, eat and chill

I think Thailand is a must see place at least once in your life time. Among all of the nice holiday destination in the country, Phuket Island is one of the best locations. This relatively big island facing Andaman Sea is located on the south west of the country. It is very easy and relatively cheap to transfer to the island from not only Asian countries but also all around the world thanks to Phuket International Airport (HKT). I personally had a very pleasant flight from Bali, Indonesia by AirAsia Thailand. It takes more or less 3h30 above millions of  islands and Malay peninsula. If you are lucky and have journey with clear sky, you will thoroughly enjoy your flight.

After that nice journey, landing in Phuket Airport was even nicer with the runway right after and perpendicular to a golden beach as you can see above. It was also a nice experience to see, if you are an aviation fan, the approach lighting system sunken in the sea.

Phuket Airport is quite convenient one for a small island's airport. It looks quite modern with its kind staff (including the border police), nice ground transport options and restaurants (especially for departure).  The route from the apron to the exit of the airport is quite short. On the way, you have clear immigration. The border police is quite nice. Here I would like to remind you that you have to fill an immigration form before hand. So don't forget to get it from the fight attendants and fill on the plane. After the immigration you will immediately see the luggage belts. When I arrived, there were GSM card salesmen. That was a free GSM card with 3G network and you can buy the top up card in 7elevens.I recommend you to buy it because the ones that I was trying to find and finally had to buy were much more expensive than this one. In order to get to your destination in the island, there are some options to enjoy. You have the taxi option for yourself, which was around 800 baht to get to Kata Beach, more or less the farthest point you may go in the island. There were a limo option and luxury van as well. I didn't check the price of them but they were definitely more expensive than the taxi. However, what I checked was, thanks to the screaming people trying to sell the bus tickets, the mini bus service which takes you directly to your hotel for a price of 180 baht. That was the cheapest and the most convenient option for me and it will most probably for you as well. There was only one crazy thing on the way. After they got out of the airport region, they stopped the bus, made all passenger go out and asked for the hotel names. First you might thing that it is a fraud, which I though to be honest. But then I realized that they agency explains the detailed routes to the drives who was not able to speak a word of English. The guy dropped every passenger to their hotels one by one and of course I was the last one. Finally, I arrived to my lovely hotel: Kata Beach Center Hotel about which you can find the detailed review on my blog post.

Kata beach is a very calm neighborhood of Phuket Island, especially as compared to its crazy neighbor Pathong Beach. Yet there are many things to do around. For example, you have to check out the golden beach with a great sun set you cannot miss. There are many restaurant where you can taste nice Thai food as well. On top of it, the street food along with fresh tropical fruits is also nice option you can check out. There are two market places you can make grocery shopping. One is located on the Patak Road between Taina Road and Patak Soi. That one is open everyday but as pricy as the hawkers on the Kata Road in the center, not recommended! The other one is the local vendor's open  market which opens every Sunday and Thursday. It is open all say long and you can find anything and everything for very good prices. I highly recommend you check thr place out. It is established on the isle in front of the Kata beach center. On top of those, I highly advise you to have the breakfast at Kata @ Sports Bar at Taina Road. You can have delicious 5 items out of the international breakfast menu for 150 baht. For the dinner, I strongly recommend you all you can eat Thai BBQ. It is served in a restaurant located at a short dead-end on Taina Road. Thai BBQ is basically do-it-yourself type of food. The waitress just places a clay pot full of burning coal and close it with an aluminum dome shaped lid. It has a saddle shape around so that you can pour water to boil your veggies and noodles. The dome has many small hole to let heat penetrate to your meat and fish you grill on top. The place I checked out was 180 baht/person and must try stuff. You may a bit of discomfort due to the hygiene of the place but get over it! I guess I had food for at least two people and nothing really happened.

When you come to Kata beach, the first to check out is the golden beach. You can get to the beach on foot. The pedestrian is by a small creek, not stinky but dirty for sure. Don't forget to tip the local beggar!

Then forget about everything because you are in paradise.This is roughly a kilometer beach whose shore is mostly shallow till more or less 100 meter away. Then it gets deeper. You can rent a lounge chair and an umbrella for around 100 bath per day. There are some restaurants on the south end of the beach. I highly recommend you to try the Thai restaurant. They have very nice Thai dishes around 100 bath. Among all of those thing, you must drink the official beverage of the beach: cold coconut juice. Another tip which I mentioned in more detailed on Diving in Kata Beach post is don't go to the diving centers close to the beach they are considerably pricy compared to the ones in the center, beware!

I hope the video of preparation of fresh coconut juice below increases your appetite for Kata beach and its tropical attraction. Have fun!