5-Day Phuket Itinerary — Phi Phi Islands, Old Town & Phang Nga Bay

Thalang Road

📍 Old Phuket Town

The spine of the old town: two-storey Sino-Portuguese shophouses in faded ochre and green, built on tin money in the 1900s. Walk it before the heat arrives.

Soi Romanee

📍 Old Phuket Town

One lane north of Thalang — the prettiest street in Phuket and, a century ago, its red-light district. Now guesthouses and coffee shops in candy colours.

Phuket Thai Hua Museum

📍 Krabi Road, Old Phuket Town

A 1934 Chinese-language school turned museum. The best explanation you will get of why this island is Peranakan rather than simply Thai — tin mining, Hokkien migration and the food that came with it.

Kopitiam by Wilai

📍 Thalang Road, Old Phuket Town

Lunch back on Thalang. Order the Phuket-style mee hokkien and the moo hong — pork belly braised in black soy and pepper, the dish the island actually eats.

Jui Tui Shrine

📍 Ranong Road, Old Phuket Town

The busiest Chinese temple on the island and the centre of the October Vegetarian Festival. Bright even by shrine standards — red, gold, and thick with incense at any hour.

Khao Rang Hill Viewpoint

📍 Khao Rang, Phuket Town

Ten minutes uphill from the old town for the whole of Phuket Town below and the bay behind it. Sunset here is a local habit, not a tour stop.

Big Buddha Phuket

📍 Nakkerd Hills, Chalong

A 45m marble Buddha on the ridge between Chalong and Kata. Go first thing — the road up is narrow, the marble is blinding by ten, and you can see both coasts from the terrace.

Wat Chalong

📍 Chalong

The island's most important temple, back down the hill. The 60m chedi holds a bone fragment of the Buddha; upper floors give you the whole Chalong plain.

Kata Noi Beach

📍 Kata Noi

Cross to the west coast for the swim of the trip. Kata Noi is the small southern half of Kata, hemmed in by headland at both ends — calmer water and a fraction of the crowd on Kata proper.

Karon Viewpoint

📍 Between Kata and Nai Harn

Ten minutes back up the coast road: the three-beaches viewpoint, with Kata Noi, Kata and Karon curving north in one frame. It is the postcard of Phuket and it is a layby, so it takes ten minutes.

Nai Harn Beach

📍 Nai Harn, Rawai

A near-perfect crescent with a lagoon and a monastery behind it, which is why no high-rise ever went up here. Late afternoon light is the best of the day.

Promthep Cape

📍 Rawai

The southernmost headland on the island and the sunset everyone drives to. Arrive by 18:00 for parking; the lighthouse terrace on the right is less crowded than the main deck.

Rassada Pier

📍 Rassada, Phuket Town

Where the Phi Phi boats leave. Ferries take two hours, speedboats about 50 minutes — the speedboat buys you Maya Bay before the day-tour fleet arrives.

Maya Bay

📍 Koh Phi Phi Leh

The bay from The Beach, closed for four years to let the reef recover and now capped and boat-free inside the cove. You land at Loh Samah on the far side and walk through.

Pileh Lagoon

📍 Koh Phi Phi Leh

A flooded limestone bowl on the east side of the same island — walls 100m high and water the colour of green glass. Swim here rather than at Maya.

Viking Cave

📍 Koh Phi Phi Leh

Seen from the boat only: a sea cave whose bamboo scaffolding is still used to collect swiftlet nests, with ochre drawings of ships on the rock that give it the name.

Monkey Beach

📍 Koh Phi Phi Don

A short strip of sand under a cliff on Phi Phi Don's south-west corner, with a resident macaque troop. Keep food and phones out of reach — they are not shy.

Phi Phi Viewpoint

📍 Koh Phi Phi Don

If your boat gives you time on Phi Phi Don, this is what to do with it: a 20-minute climb of steps to the view down the isthmus with a bay on either side.

Ao Por Grand Marina

📍 Pa Khlok, Thalang

The north-east marina, and a shorter crossing into Phang Nga Bay than the southern piers. Longtail and speedboat tours both leave from here.

Koh Panak

📍 Ao Phang Nga National Park

The cave island. Canoes paddle through low tidal tunnels into the hongs — collapsed sinkholes open to the sky and walled in on every side. Passable only around the right tide, which is why tour departure times move day to day.

James Bond Island

📍 Ao Phang Nga National Park

Khao Phing Kan, and the 20m limestone needle offshore that appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun. Crowded, brief, and still worth seeing once.

Koh Panyee

📍 Phang Nga Bay

Lunch in a Muslim fishing village built on stilts against a limestone cliff, with a mosque, a school and a floating football pitch the local boys built themselves.

Suwan Kuha Temple

📍 Takua Thung, Phang Nga

The cave temple on the drive back — a 15m reclining Buddha inside a limestone cavern, with macaques on the steps outside expecting to be paid.

Mai Khao Beach

📍 Mai Khao, Thalang

Eleven kilometres of empty sand at the top of the island, inside Sirinat National Park. Leatherback turtles still nest here in winter, and it is the beach the airport approach passes over.

Nai Yang Beach

📍 Nai Yang, Thalang

The casuarina-shaded curve south of Mai Khao, where Phuket goes on a Sunday — grilled-seafood stalls under the trees and calm water inside the reef.

Wat Phra Thong

📍 Thalang

Inland for lunch and the island's strangest relic: a golden Buddha buried to the shoulders that, by local account, has resisted every attempt to dig it out.

Layan Beach

📍 Cherng Talay, Thalang

The northern tip of the Bang Tao arc, with a lagoon behind it and far fewer people than the resort end. Good for a last long swim.

Bang Tao Beach

📍 Cherng Talay, Thalang

Six kilometres of sand and the island's beach-club strip. Whether that is the point or the problem depends on the trip you have had.

Surin Beach

📍 Cherng Talay, Thalang

Small, steep and backed by casuarinas, with headlands at both ends framing the sunset. The last west-coast light before you fly.