Wed, Jan 01, 2003 page12

• Bargains abound in Phuket after Britain's warning

  SERVICE SECTOR The explosion in Bali, Indonesia, last year triggered a warning from the UK government that Phuket, Thailand, may be the next target for terrorists

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  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.

  

  A food vendor strolls past empty beach chairs on Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand, at the end of October last year. Thailand reassured tourists that the country was safe despite warnings from western nations such as Britain, which said on Tuesday threats to westerners on Phuket island had increased sharply.

  PHOTO: REUTERS

  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.

  Sean and Carmel have been travelling for several months and are unaware of the government advice.

  "It wouldn't have mattered even if we'd known," Sean said.

  By midnight, the club is pumping and the dance floor is full.

  But Phuket isn't all neon and noise. At 570km2, it is Thailand's largest island. Away from Patong's clubs and bars, there are tranquil hotels with private beaches where the ivory sand is soft and the gently lapping sea is warm and blue. Coddled in a luxury world of spas and private swimming pools in hotels with security barriers at the driveway, it's impossible to feel anxious, even if you're of a nervous disposition.

  "I didn't want to come to Phuket but my girlfriend persuaded me," said 34-year-old Maile Rehnberg from Jackson, Wyoming.

  They were spending three days in Phuket, staying at the small 40-room, upmarket resort of Amanpuri, considered by many to be the best on the island.

  It costs from US$700 per night, room only.

  "I'm not going to go on any day-trips," his girlfriend says. "I'm just enjoying the safe haven here."

  If, like all other holidaymakers I come across, you're happy to go on day-trips, there are some very special ones. A starlight trip with John Gray's SeaCanoe is a spiritual experience. After an hour's boat ride to the weird, overhanging limestone karst islands of Phang-Nga bay, you paddle around the islands in inflatable canoes and squeeze through tunnels into a forgotten world of jade lagoons in the middle of the uninhabited islands. If you wish, you can do longer trips and camp on empty beaches with a Thai guide and a cook.

  Amanpuri is almost as peaceful and beautiful an experience as the canoe trip, but despite being remote from Patong, people have still cancelled.

  At other hotels around Phuket, the story is the same. At the five-star Dusit Laguna, on the long, sweeping bay of Bang Tao, where no buildings are visible from the beach and the sunloungers are just one row deep, only 10 people occupy the 92 pool-side loungers.
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