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• Beaches
  • Patong- the active heart
  • Karon - 4 kms beach
  • Kata - beach in a bay
  • Naiharn Beach
  • Bang Tao Beach
  • Kamala Beach
  • Nai Yang Beach
  • Rawai & Chalong
  • Cape Panwa -the Southeast
  • The Far Northern Beaches
  • Layan Beach
  • East Coast- Few Beaches Here

Long, Quiet, Up-market...

Six hotels share five kilometres of sand, lots of space and lagoons, without the built-up razzle-dazzle of mass tourism

Located in the middle of Phuket’s string of famous West coast beaches, Bang Tao is both central and long – about 5 kilometres of sand backed by casaurina trees. Despite that six large hotels are built along here, this line of trees appears as an almost unbroken green beach trimming from the sea. The hotels, happily, have all been built low and into the environment.

Bang Tao is set in a shallow bay, with low headlands visible at each end. Apart from the resorts, there is little development along this part of the coast, and the beach here has an unhurried feeling. Anyone wishing to be alone on this beach only has to walk, either north or south.

Five of the six up-market resorts on Bang Tao are quite famous as the Laguna group, or Laguna Phuket. The Laguna resorts are most famous for the fact that the lush environment in which they lie was once a desolate and cratered moonscape of environmental destruction, a wasteland left by tin mining. Here is a situation where tourism has completely restored a beach environment destroyed by industry, and turned it back to something both beautiful and useful. The swamps and ponds left by the miners were once acidic and dead. Today water birds flock here, along with other birdlife that the thousands of new, nurtured trees encourage.

Each of the five Laguna hotels caters to a different market, from family to exclusive luxury, though all are of four or five star standard. Distinguishing features of this resort complex are space and water - lots of space - with a lagoon network that allows boats to ply between all five resorts, taking passengers back and forth between them. Aside from walking on the beach, it’s a great way to move between hotels that allow guests to sign bills in any facility within the group.
 

The sixth hotel, close by, but not within the Laguna Phuket complex, is the Rydges Royal Park, a four star property facing right onto the beach with lots of open grounds that make it a great resort for children.

Behind Bang Tao beach is a wide, flat plain covered by rubber plantations, rice fields, villages and grassy swamplands. The local inhabitants are an equal mix of Buddhists and Muslims, with the biggest mosque on the island found in nearby Cherng Talay. There are also some attractive Buddhist monasteries here that welcome polite, sensitive visitors. The two religious groups live in separate but adjacent villages, in near complete harmony.

Lining the back of the resort area is the Banyan Tree Golf course, one of the four on Phuket. It’s open to visitors from all resorts. While the land here is relatively flat, the course is marked by numerous ponds and water hazards.

Visitors staying in this resort complex are assured a good measure of peace and quiet, for here is none of the razzle-dazzle of the tourism business that commands Patong. But most visitors will want a little entertainment, some variety and experience of things ‘Thai’ in their stay. For this one should rent a car and go. Our pages on driving tours give a lot of hints on places to go and things to watch out for. But essentially, all of Thailand is safe for foreigners to travel about in, and one should not hesitate to see wider horizons.

At the back of the Laguna hotels, just outside the main gate, is a small but growing commercial area with some good restaurants, bars, antique and souvenir shops. A few of the bars here, like the Wispering Cock (patron John is English), cater largely to resident expatriate foreigners which makes them good stops for a cold beer and a chance to meet interesting characters and hear some wild stories.


For accommodation details on the hotels here see our pages on HOTELS/Bang Tao
 

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