Naka Temple (Wat Naka)

Yes, another temple... Wat Naka (also called Wat Nakaram) is probably not one of Phuket's best known temples, and in fact even for the people of Phuket it's more of a landmark used when giving directions. It's found on a very useful "shortcut" road linking Chao Fa road west to Chao Fa road east, close to Phuket Town (see location in Google Earth). Everyone knows where it is, but when I visited a couple of days ago I got the feeling that the temple was a bit neglected, an old temple on a new road.



Just over the road is a weekend market where you can buy clothes, food, secondhand goods. Further along the road to Phuket town is the new fresh market (Talad Sot Mai) just before you turn left onto Chao Fa road and into the centre of town. With the markets, the temple and a whole bunch of small shops along Chao Fa road, it's an interesting area for a walk, and I might just be back there in the next few days.

 

Around the walls are photos of local people who have died. Some old, some young, some recently, some many years ago. It adds a certain local feeling and a spirit to the temple. These people lived and prayed here.




And of course there is Buddha showing everyone the path. The image below shows a standing Buddha image with both hands raised to chest level, which is known as the attitude of calming the ocean. The Lord Buddha performed a miracle by stopping a rainstorm and flooding in the presence of the three arrogant hermits. Having seen the miracle, they submitted to the Lord Buddha and listened to his sermon. The three hermits and their 1,000 followers were so impressed with the preaching that they were willingly ordained as monks. You can read more about Buddha images here: Buddha Images.



• More Phuket Temples

Kata Temple (Wat Kittisangkaram)

Finally, after many years I decided to take a good look at Kata Temple. Just behind the temple is a place called Kata Big Rock, where you can find a pool used by scuba diving companies for dive training. I must have been there 50 times at least, driving through the main entrance to Kata Temple, but never actually taking time to look at the temple itself. I must have driven past the temple 500 times. Kata Temple is located on the back road (called "Patak Road") about 1km from Kata Beach as the sparrow flies, further by road. It seems not many tourists come here, and I can hardly locate any information about the temple on the web, but Kata Temple is easy enough to find - just follow the back road around Kata and Karon and look for the sign and the obvious temple entrance.

• Kata Temple on Google Earth



The main temple grounds have recently been rebuilt so much of the temple looks brand new. Lots of freshly painted walls here, and still some work going on - I saw some workers painting while I visited. There is a school here too. This has also been newly built, which can only be a good thing for the kids.




One small building was higher up on the hill, up a flight of steps that left my legs feeling wobbly (yeh, too much office work). Of course it was shut, but I took a peek inside through the dusty window...



Around the temple grounds I found one of the most serene Buddha statues I have ever seen. Click on the photo to enlarge. Look at the face. Serene.



Also while at the temple I met a volunteer for PAWS - a Phuket based animal welfare charity. She was there to feed the dogs. There are a lot of dogs around the temple! PAWS helps many animals around Phuket - visit the PAWS website for information and maybe to make a donation. The little girl below, whose parents were painting part of the temple wall, decided to feed a temple dog too...



 

If you are passing by, in the Kata area, take a few minutes to visit Kata Temple. Every area of Phuket has it's own local temple. Just a few km down the road you'll find Karon Temple near Karon Beach. Take a look at the temple nearest your hotel, and if you are a temple lover like me, check out some more Temples in Phuket.

English Food in Phuket

If you take a look at the Phuket restaurants section of Jamie's Phuket, you'll see that I mostly enjoy eating Thai food - salads, seafood, noodles, curries and so on. Thai food is great, Thai food is fantastic, Thai food is one of the things that makes living in Thailand so enjoyable, but somewhere deep down I think I have an "English food" gene that occasionaly craves an English breakfast, some bangers and mash, baked potatoes, cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches (with thick crusty bread). This gene is mostly inactive, but I sometimes get cravings. I went through a Branston craving a couple of years ago. Any family member or friend visiting Phuket was asked to bring more Branston. I recently had a pickled onion craving too. And I must say a packet of chocolate Hob Nobs would be most welcome any time. Thanks to the web site Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down for reminding me of Hob Nobs. Oh and Fig Rolls, mmmmm. Damn, can someone send me some Fig Rolls? Wish I hadn't thought about that now. Got another craving.

Update... someone did bring me some Fig Rolls. Thank you! See here: FIG ROLLS!

Update 2... and somebody brought me Hob Nobs! See : I've Been Nobbled!

    

Now, I know some expats who hardly eat Thai food at all, and there are many restaurants in Phuket catering to foreigners and expats, selling English food, German food, Swedish food, Italian food etc... I am happy with Thai food almost all the time, but this last week I have had some cravings, and have twice visited the Pineapple Guesthouse in Karon for large servings of that most wonderfully English, greasy spoon cafe special - Eggs, Bacon, Chips and Beans. A food so wonderful that a blog about it won an award in 2006 - See eggbaconchipsandbeans.





The Pineapple Guesthouse is English owned and Steve has just finished moving everything out of the old "Pineapple 1" into the newer "Pineapple 2". Finally he got a couple of tables outside and some big beach umbrellas to shade customers from the unrelenting lunchtime sun, so now I think I will be round there a couple of times a month to preempt my cravings. I've just been today. I think this nicely balances the days when I have the local Phad Thai, or a big curry at Mama Noi - and all these places are just a few minutes from work! Well, I guess I'll be back on the Phad Kana Moo Grob tomorrow. That's a real plus point about living in Phuket - you can easily switch between local food and "farang" food. Whatever you want you can get it here!

Phad Thai

Phad Thai is a very common Thai dish made from noodles, egg, chili, tofu, normally some shrimp, maybe some chicken, plus onion, fish sauce, nuts, lime... ingredients can vary. You can order Phad Thai in 10 different places and get 10 different tasting meals depending on the amount and variety of sauces added, the size and type of noodles used, type of meat added and so on... Phad Thai can be bland sometimes or it can be spicy, it can be dry or saucy. You get a lot of variety out of one dish! If bought from a street stall or roadside restaurant you're normally only going to be paying 20 - 30 Baht for your lunch - it's a cheap dish to make and thus a popular lunch all over Thailand, nearly as popular as Noodle Soup.

Close to where I work in Karon Beach, on the back road near the Baan Karon hotel, there's one of the most popular little lunchtime restaurants I have ever seen in Phuket. Every day workers in the local area flock here for lunch, and the most popular dish is Phad Thai. The restaurant does not really have a name except "the Phad Thai restaurant". They also do noodle soup with chicken or beef, a good Phad Gapraow with beef, a popular fried rice with crab. The menu is expanding - when I first ate here a couple of years ago they had only Phad Thai or Noodles and beef stew.

• Location on Google Earth





It's only a little place but it can be packed at lunchtime. You can get Phad Thai to eat there or take away - the take away is wrapped in a banana leaf. The cooking is all done by one guy, with others helping to serve noodle soup - you can see the huge bowls full of chicken and beef below - these are ladled over the noodles. The Phad Thai is cooked with quite a bit of chili, and you have extra bowls of chili sauce, prik nam pla and dried chili on the table in case it's not spicy enough for you.

 



I ate my Phad Thai in the restaurant today. Bear in mind that by Western standards this is not really a "restaurant" - a collection of tables in the dirt by the road outside someones house... but this is real local eating here in Phuket. If you want to mingle with the people, get on the back roads and get some Phad Thai right here! I tend to get food from here at least once a week as it's so cheap and close to work.... oh and very tasty!



UPDATE - 2010 - the place has been tarted up with a concrete floor and nicer tables, but still the same food and same price (40 Baht). Just before the Baan Karon Resort on the way from Karon to Kata on Patak Road. It's not a big obvious restaurant, folks, just a small local place. Do try to find it! Yes, I do need to update the photos! If in doubt come to see us at Sunrise Divers first. Only a few minutes away...

The Best of Jamie's Phuket 2007

Happy New Year to everyone. Thanks for reading Jamie's Phuket. This blog started in April 2006, and is still getting bigger. The idea? To show the "real" Phuket as opposed to the more popular tourist attractions. This is my Phuket, I tend to write about the places we go as a family, and places that interest me. Thanks for people who have written emails or sent donations, I hope that during 2008 this blog can continue to grow - plenty more temples to blog - sorry if you don't like temples... I do and this is my blog. Among other things, I want to write more about Phuket Town, get some photos from Chinese New Year festivities and I have said to my wife that we need to try some new restaurants as we have become rather middle aged and keep going to the same places.

The Best of Jamie's Phuket 2007

January was when we found The Beach Bar, a small local restaurant on the beach at Cape Panwa. We have been back many times in the last 12 months. Also in January, I had a look at Patong temple, a real haven of peace near the busiest tourist zone in Thailand!



In February, I finally blogged the Kata Viewpoint, probably the most famous view in Phuket. We must have been here 30 times - any time someone comes to visit we say "hey, want to see a great view?"... We also visited local temples around the Kathu / Ket Ho area where we live.

In March, my mother came to visit, I had a small holiday and we did as much as possible! Mother is in hospital at home right now, I like to see the photos of the happy times we had in March.

We visited Naithon beach - one of Phukets many quiet beaches, we visited temples and we took a longtail boat ride around Phang Nga Bay - an unmissable sight if you are coming to this part of Thailand





In April I took a long walk around old Phuket Town and must do it again one day! I still want to blog the Chinese Shrines and the market area. April 13th is of course Songkran day - waterfights, turtle releases, and a lot of fun! Same again in 2008!



In May, we stopped for a look at Boat Lagoon - step into another world.. Compare this to Rawai beach... same planet? Yes, it's all Phuket, it's all right here.





June 2007... as the summer started, which is "low season" in Phuket, we went to Paradise Beach a few times. Just along the road from Patong, but another world.



Also in June, Koh Sirey featured on the blog, a quiet part of Phuket to the east of Phuket Town with small restaurants, sea gypsies and a hilltop temple.



July 2007 featured (among other things) the best milkshake in Phuket at Mama Noi, Buddha Mountain, where a 45m high Buddha is nearing completion, and an early morning visit to Chalong Temple, Phuket's largest temple.

 

In August we visited Phuket Zoo (again). The kids love it. I am not a zoo fan, but cannot deny my kids the chance to see a tiger, elephants, monkeys, crocodiles, a "Twocan Toucan", deer, camels...



As the low season dragged on in September, we took a visit to the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project and Bang Pae Waterfall, and I also took some time to write about Karon Beach and some information on Buying a House in Phuket.



October is the month when the seasons change.. the high season and low season fight a battle and the high season wins, though the low season always has a few last minute surprises (see my Phuket Weather Blog for more).... In October we tried the Dino Park Mini Golf.. yes it's a bit touristy but hey.

October was the highlight of the year for me - the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. I took photos on 2 mornings of the street processions in Phuket Town. You have to see it to believe it. This is real. This is something special.





In November, we finally went back to Layan Beach, a lovely quiet spot in the north of the island, and we also made our Krathong for the Loy Krathong Festival, one of Thailand's most important traditional events - you float your Krathong for good luck, happiness and to give thanks to the goddess of the water.





As the year rolled to a close, in December I tried to introduce a bit of tradition with an article about our Buddha Shelf, I added a thingy about LateStays - a great place to find Phuket Hotels at the last minute, and the year ended as it began with a visit to The Beach Bar which had been closed for half a year and I am very happy to have it back!

Happy New Year, I hope 2008 (or 2551 in the Buddhist calendar) brings you happiness and success. Please do keep reading Jamie's Phuket!

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