There are two types of holiday you can have in Phuket: you can lie on the beach, eat exquisite Thai food, have several suits made by skillful tailors for bargain prices and go on day-trips that lead you to a magical wonderland of such peace and beauty -- a soul-searching experience. Alternatively, you can lie on the beach, eat fish and chips, watch bar-girls perform anatomically defying tricks and get out of your head on cocktails at US$1.60 a throw.
Since Britain's Foreign & Commonwealth Office announced that they had intelligence reports to say that Phuket could be a future terrorist target, both types of holidaymaker have been reconsidering their plans. At the end of last month, the beginning of the high season, many people working in the tourist industry were saying it was the quietest November they could remember. Hotel occupancy, usually around 80 percent or more at that time, was down to 50 percent to 60 percent. In one case -- the Baan Sukhothai hotel in the heart of Patong, Phuket's brashest and noisiest town -- it was just 25 percent.
Larger hotels have been more affected as big groups have cancelled. One hotel manager told me he'd had 3,000 room nights of cancellations since the warning, including the whole cast and crew of a film. It's not just the hoteliers who are feeling the pinch, it's the stall-holders, tailors and bar-girls, too.
On a Saturday evening earlier this month in Patong -- which many people see as being the equivalent to Bali's Kuta Beach, and hence the most likely target if there is one -- the elegant and expensive Baan Rim Pa restaurant is fully booked. The cosy open-sided building is perched on cliffs over the sea and serves great cocktails. The food is tourist-Thai and not as good as the setting, but business doesn't seem to have been affected -- you still need to book in advance.
After dinner, I take a walk around town. At 9pm, in the throng of the nightlife area, the high-rise, 248-room Royal Paradise Hotel has two singers performing to an empty bar. Around the corner, in the pedestrianized Paradise-Gay street, a row of bars with outside seating, loud music and flashin7g neon lights has barely a single customer. Young men, some in drag or shirtless, beckon me to take a seat.
"We don't have any customers," says 30-year-old Lay, who earns US$80 a month plus "little little" in tips.
However, off of Bangla Road -- the girly-bar area -- the little row of open-air bars on Crocodile Road is heaving with European tourists sitting at tables and gawking at ladyboys dancing on a podium. But past the first few tables, the other bars further from the dancers are empty. A doorman at one of the bars, said "It's not good business this year. Everyone's afraid there'll be a problem like Bali."
A few yards away, past shops selling cheap CDs and fake Gucci bags, a man on the seafront road sells life-like rubber masks. Bush, Saddam and Bin Laden are the top-sellers. Opposite, outside the Banana Night-Club at 10:30pm, Sean Whitehead, 32, and Carmel Gearon, 26, both from Swindon, England, are drinking beer and waiting for the club to get lively.
"This club's highly recommended by Lonely Planet," Sean said. However, the guidebook is wrong about it not getting busy until 3am. Since last year, all clubs in Thailand close at 2am.
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