Apart from being a South East Asian and an Australasian tourists destination, with a totally different culture, weather and religion, Phuket and Gold Coast do have something in common. Both of them have beautiful long, white sandy beaches, beautiful sunshine, and friendly people. Also they are both very popular destinations among travelers around the world.

Why travelers around the world, including Australians love to visit Phuket while Thai and South East Asians love the beaches and sun in Gold Coast? Here are the top 5 travel experience travelers can have either in Phuket or Gold Coast and tourists should travel to these 2 hot tourists spot with 2 different approaches to have 2 separate travel experience:

1. Phuket is best for singles while Gold Coast is best for family. You can stay up late until even next morning in Phuket for endless and lively night life. Bars, dance clubs and restaurants are open until late at night especially in Patong Beach. If  you feel hungry in the middle of the night, you can always find something to fill. On the other hand, Gold Coast’s lifestyle is more relax and ‘healthier’. Most shops and restaurants close very early at night. Nightlife in Gold Coast is very limited. However, if you visit if your family, there are so many themes park for family and your children in Gold Coast. Being the Theme parks capital city of Australia, your family would love to visit either Warner Bros’ Movie World, Sea World,
2. Gold Coast is best to drive around while Phuket is best to hike a Tuk-tuk. Perhaps it’s just my perception, I feel much safer and easier to drive in Gold Coast than in Phuket. Motorways are more systematic and motorists are more behaved (though not necessary at weekend night) in Gold Coast. The best part of driving in Gold Coast is to be able to drive up to the Hinterland and soak with the beautiful mountain scenes and vineyards. On the other hand, Phuket’s taxi or Tuk-tuk are so convenient that you better don’t risk yourself driving through all the trunk roads;
3. Phuket’s food is cheap while Gold Coast’s wine is cheap. Quite a straight forward calculation. Aussie Dollars is much stronger than Thai Baht. Living standard in Australia is much higher. Thailand holidays is famous of its cheap but fantastic local cuisine. However, if you are a wine drinker, drink a lot of Australian wine in Gold Coast where they are cheaper than a Coke in Phuket!
4. Gold Coast is best to stay higher. Phuket is best to stay lower. Why? Gold Coast has many high rise apartment along its 57Km long beaches. Staying higher at one of those apartment can have a wider and better view over the vibrant city. There isn’t many high rise apartment in Phuket and their best accommodation type is beach resort (perhaps it would be better for a city which experienced Tsunami attack before);
5. Gold Coast is cool and windy while Phuket is hot and stuffy. My favorite time to visit Gold Coast is in March or Autumn when the weather is cool in the region of 18°C but still have plenty of beautiful sunlight. What about Phuket? Gosh. When I was there in October last year, it was really hot at day and stuffy at night. Without any wind blow, it felt even warmer than in Malaysia!

So be prepare when you travel to one of these 2 popular beach destinations in the world. They should be explored differently in different approach and travel experience you are going to have in both places are simply unforgettable. Good travel! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

What do I do most on my travel to Phuket other than sight seeing and pressing my camera shutter? Eat. Eat. Eat. What do I eat on my travel to somewhere I’m not familiar with? Local foods. I love trying out delicious local foods at all places, be it restaurant, cafes or even street. I tried some local Thai foods at food court in Jungceylon which was good. I’ve also tried some local seafood at local seafood restaurant along Rat-U-Thit Road that was worth trying. But what to me was the best local food that we had in Phuket? Not the specialty food. Not the lobsters. Not the fragrance rice but the Tom Yam noodle selling on the street! Let’s find out how we discovered the street food while wandering about Patong Beach.

We actually went to morning market in Patong Beach on our 3rd day travel in Phuket. Walking along the Rat-U-Thit Road, we spotted a steamy motobike with a few of local Thais standing around the bike that tucked in the alley between shops.

Looking like we have found some local favourites, I decided to have a look closer. A bowl of soup noodle. It’s a mobile noodle stall!

Interestingly, this Thai was pouring some kind of sauce and started mixing the noodle himself. This vendor is selling noodle soup with fish ball and crispy pork skin.

It looked delicious and I wanted to give it a try. I asked the patron how much did he pay for a bowl, he showed four fingers to me, which meant 40THB or USD1.25 only. Sounds good. “Give me a bowl please.”

This hawker asked me whether want the pork skin and which flavour we like, Tom Yam or fish ball?

We ordered 2 bowls, one Tom Yam and one fish flavoured soup noodle with fish ball and cripy pork skin. It looked YUMMY!

Jean and Bobo. “Who wants to start off first?”

‘You taste the noodle, I taste the Tom Yam soup…’ Umm, it is delicious!

Who cares how we look?

Faster! Faster! Where is my other bowl?

Fish ball soup noodle finally came. Jean tried it first also. Now you know who was our taster in Phuket trip!

The best photo to show how much we loved the noodle soup, though it was only street food.

“Honey, stop snapping!  Come on and try some of it! I’m going to finish it all!” OK OK. I’m coming…

(Click this link to see all photos of Phuket taken by me using my Nikon D60.)

This mobile  noodle stall can be spotted along Rat-U-Thit Road opposite the Cristin Massage parlor and Patong Resort. Subscribe this travel blog to receive free updates of my travel stories around the world via email. Until then… – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog

Good news! Travel photo wallpaper calendar for June 2010 is now available here to download FREE! If you still haven’t got the April and May 2010 wallpaper calendar, Download it first. As usual, 2 sizes are available here: 1920 x 1080 px for Full HD wide screen LCD and 1280 x 1024 px for conventional computer screen (or neither size is fitted nicely on your computer screen? Please let me know…). Choose either one to fit your LCD and download it here for FREE. Or you may want to download both. No problem. They are for my readers!

Download this widescreen version of 1980 x 1080 px

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This travel photo was taken in Patong Beach, Phuket. 2 parachutes in the sky has added some lives to the scene in the evening hours. Patong Beach has one of the most beautiful beach that I’ve ever been to and it reminds me of Kuta Beach of Bali. Both beach towns have many identical characteristics such as long sandy beach, happening nightlife and also shopping heaven. Read my series of posts on my travel experience in Phuket for more interesting stories of Patong Beach.

Again, this travel photo wallpaper calendar is free to download from here and there are more wallpaper calendars for other months coming up next. If you like it, please support me by dropping a note to say ‘hi‘ in the comment section of this post, or preferably, subscribe to this travel blog feeds via RSS or email for free updates, or, you may buy me a cup of coffee by

I bet this is the hottest topic now. Is it still safe to travel to Bangkok or Thailand now? I think this is also the toughest question to be answered. Over 11 Millions of travelers around the world visiting Bangkok each year, not far less than the figure of Paris and London. Many of us love Bangkok. We love its temples, Wat, palace, its culture, foods, shopping, weather, people and some love its red light districts. It is one of the best travel destination for any type of tourists. It is also used to be among the safest place to visit with least mugging and robbery happening to tourists. But what’s now?

Hundreds of ‘Red Shirt‘ protesters and demonstrators fought their way into Bangkok main roads near the Phan Fah bridge and Rajdumnoen Road yesterday and troops of army were deployed to stop the ‘red sea’ but created the worst political violence of Bangkok in 18 years. Hundreds people wounded and 15 were killed in the violence, included a Japanese jounalist who worked as Reuters TV cameraman in the clash, as reported in the news yesterday.

What travelers concern especially now is whether Bangkok is still the travel destination to visit? Though no life bullets were used against the ‘Red Shirt’ protesters, tear gas bombs were still thrown into them while ‘Red Shirt’ demonstrators were armed with petrol bombs and grenades. Windows shattered and car smashed were what happened to the public. Roads were closed and hotels were barricaded. Khao San Road, an area popular with back-packing tourists were threatened into riot. Can you insist that travelers are still safe to visit Bangkok especially now?

I used to say ‘Yes‘ to the same question during their 2008 crackdown before. Not anymore. When I read about the death of a foreign journalist due to yesterday’s violence, I’ve changed my answer to a big ‘NO NO‘. They seemed to have lost their mind and once ‘travelers-safe’ demonstrations is now dangerous to tourists and public. So I would suggest travelers to stay away from at least Bangkok for the time being, until Thai ruling government could resolve their internal affairs and the influences of their fugitive former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog.

This is a post what many travelers are missing out on! No introduction I think is needed for this place. Those who have been to Phuket and Patong Beach before must have also visited this travelers’ hot spot. For other travelers who are planning to visit Phuket, you must have also heard about these lively night scenes. Where am I referring to here? It has the most happening nightlife in Phuket. It sleeps at day and wake up at night. It’s also the heaven to those ‘desperate’ man. Bingo! It’s Bangla Street of Patong, Phuket. How much do I love Bangla Street?

We stayed in Safari Beach Hotel which is just around the corner from Bangla Street (highly recommended hotel if you’re staying in Patong). So on the night itself after we arrived at Patong Beach, tried some local foods, did some shopping in Jungceylon, dived into the sea of Andaman in the evening, shot some exciting sun-setting, and took a bath in the hotel, we headed back out again at night to take our first seafood dinner in Patong and off course, to do some pub crawling at Bangla Street!

Welcome to Patong!

The real crowds at Bangla Street drew in very late. When we passed by it at around 8pm, there were still not many people seen on the street.

But pubs and restaurants already started their business…

However, It was the best chance for me to take some photographs over those pubs freely without any obstructions from the crowd.

FBI in Phuket? It’s actually Finest Bar In Thailand night club.

We chose this 99 Restaurant along Rat-U-Thit Road at the end of Bangla Road because of this huge signboard of 99! We did not expect any surprises from here as what you can see from their signboard, they are mainly for tourists!

We picked and ordered some simple seafood without the lobster. The food tastes fine but not as good as our lunch at Jungceylon. The price is reasonable. It cost us RM200 for 6 of us.

Too full for beers? Nevermind, we took a walk along Rat-U-Thit Road. Rat-U-Thit is the main road in Patong and you can find various souvenir shops and stalls along both sides of the road.

Jean loves these very much…

These lanterns are beautiful… but not the Chinese wording. I know Chinese language but I don’t understand what they are writing. They are just single words being copied and pasted.

This is interesting…. tools and weapons for self protection. Do we need any in Phuket?

We were a bit thirsty and we caught this Gelato shop. We tried a scoop. Not bad. But I’m looking forward to try the original in Rome this May!

Along the Beach Road, there are many up market seafood restaurants and bars also.

What a contrast. A pinoy band singing in front of the ‘Four Faces Buddha‘ statue.

Alright! It’s time to go back to Bangla Street. First look at this Bangla Area Map. It’s the directories of all bars along the road. There are easily more than 100 drinking holes there. Read also the warning on top right corner: Have Fun, Be Safe, Look After Your Bag. Let’s go bar hopping!!

Crowds started to come in from all over Phuket…

Drinkers started to fill the space of all bars…

The highlight of the street! Lady boys in action!

Look at the crowds. People were drawn into the frontage of this lady boy bar.

Not only lady boys performance, they are also pole dancing show on 1st floor.

The best spot to see these show is not inside it (though we did drink inside to get them up close… and up skirt) but the bars opposite the road with road side seating.

Lay boys podium dancing! Oh my god! Do you have the same body figures as them, ladies? It’s actually against Buddhism restrictions to disclose their bodies in public. If you are coming to Phuket for Buddhism travel, stay away from Bangla Street at all times.

Instead of mugs on coasters in Europe, bars in Patong serve bottled beers in beer jacket with attractive graphics.

The red light district of Patong and Phuket. It was stimulating indeed. Most of them are on offer to be tourists’ ‘escorts’.

Apart from drinking, there are also dancing clubs and snooker centers around the area. We had a really good time on the first night in Patong. Beers are cheap at around THB50. Cigarettes are being sold at dedicated stalls only for THB90 per packet of 20′s. There were so many bar girls for patrons to grab away (that’s what Bangla Street is infamous for) but just try to behave yourself. Drugs are illegal in Thailand though many patrons having fun here are taking soft drugs such as Cannabis and Yah Bah. I’m not one of them. Alchohol had made me high enough to do anything crazy… – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog

You can view all photos in full resolution in my Flickr page or slideshow below. Happy viewing!

All photos was taken with Nikon D60 with Nikkor 35mm f1.8 lens.

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