Phuket hotels collection

Tin made Phuket before the sea did: Hokkien miners dug the island, and the tin merchants built the old town. On Thalang Road, Sino-Portuguese shophouses line up their painted stucco fronts above a covered walkway that keeps off the rain. In the hills of Khao Phra Thaeo, a remnant of primary forest shelters a palm whose fronds, green above, are white beneath. At Rawai, twice a year, the Urak Lawoi launch a small wooden boat laden with carved figures, rice and locks of hair, which carries the village's bad luck out to sea.