These photos are from around town in Kathu which is a central area of the province of Phuket. Phuket is an island. Kathu is north-south-east-west center of the island. East-west it is about 4 miles to the beaches of Patong or Phuket town. There is a huge mega mall in Kathu the likes of which you may never see again... and it just doubled in size. Traffic around the mall is heavy, partially because it's on the major north-south thoroughfare from the airport. Huge busses travel around the island. I don't know how they manage to navigate the tiny lanes of the streets without crashing. I've shared photos of some of the traffic that are common in Kathu.

Sites

Insights

We lived in three different places in Kathu during our 3 year odyssey in Thailand. One was near the waterfall on the north side. One was near a major Buddhist temple campus and the last place was near the Prince of Songkla University. The last place had a pool. Before we had our own private pool we used to visit a huge public pool which is pictured on another page of this site. Down the street near the university there was a beautiful lotus pond. The plants and flowers were beautiful and plentiful in the pond. There were also a couple of exotic looking geese that lived there.

The iceman in the far right picture is an interesting feature of the Thai life. Restaurants do not typically have freezers so ice is delivered. Restaurants are in every other house. So the ice truck is everywhere. I think the ice is mostly for refrigeration of food items at restaurants and the market. Thai people seem to buy beverages already chilled when they're not drinking water. Ice in drinks is mostly for tourists and expats. There is a large expat community in Kathu.