Surat Thani Province is home to several great tourist destinations, including Ko Samui, Ko Pha-ngan, Ko Tao and the stunningly beautiful Ang Thong Marine National Park.

Although to many people the town of Surat Thani is simply a stop off point on the way to one of the area’s beautiful tourist destinations, the town and surrounding area actually has a lot to offer and is worth looking at more closely.

Worth exploring is the tiny village known as Chaiya. In the village you will find Wat Suan Mokkhaphalaram, which is a tranquil forest temple founded by Ajahn Buddhadasa Bhikku, who is perhaps Thailand’s most famous monk. The temple holds monthly meditation retreats, and this is a perfect place to get in touch with your spiritual side and discover a sense of inner peace and harmony.

Also situated in the village is the Chaiya National Museum, which is a good place to discover the area’s interesting history. Another interesting place is the Folklore Museum, which is located around 300 meters from Chaiya, whilst Ban Phumriang is a small handicraft village, which can be found 6 kilometres east of Chaiya.

The stunning Khao Sok National Park features 646 square kilometres of thick rainforest and mountains. With its sparkling waterfalls, mysterious caves and cool lakes, this area has an ancient feel about it. Elephant trekking is a great way to explore, and you can spend the night on a floating lodge if you find yourself reluctant to leave and return to the ‘real’ world straight away.

When it comes to eating, just about anything is possible in this province of plenty. If you love oysters, pay a visit to the Oyster Farms, where you can buy large fresh oysters for a bargain price.

However, while this I one of Thailand’s biggest and brightest transvestite shows, there is no seedy side to the show and this is something that all the family can enjoy. In fact, the nightly audiences generally comprise a broad spectrum of people, including young couples, families and work colleagues of every nationality.

The stage shows are simply spectacular as they feature lavishly decorated stage sets. The performers step onto the stage dressed in amazing outfits and are the envy of every woman in the audience. While the musical numbers are mimed, the elaborate dance moves that accompany them are step perfect and not a toe is out of place.

Shows are held twice each night at 19:30 and again at 21:30. Advanced booking is essential and the Simon Cabaret shows are extremely popular. Bookings can be made through the website: www.phuket-simoncabaret.com or by calling +66 76 340437 and the address is 8 Sirirach Road, Patong Beach, Phuket 83150

While vibrant festivals are held all over Thailand, they often seem to be at their biggest and brightest and people travel to Phuket from all over Thailand as well as much further afield to witness the fun of these special events. As well as national festivals, Phuket has a number of its own unique festivals. Here are just a few of the highlights:

Phuket Gay Mardi Gras Festival

Usually held in April, this festival mainly takes place around Patong and features a vibrant parade of ladyboys wearing wild costumes.

Phuket Bike Week

Bikers from all over Thailand parading through parts of Phuket and the festival features a week of events related to motorbikes.

Phuket Race Week

One of two sailing regattas that are held in Phuket, this event attracts international racing class yachts as well plus lots of local amateurs at the Evanson Resort Marina.

Phuket Fireworks display

This spectacular affair is best enjoyed from the top of Rung Hill near Phuket town.

Phuket Annual Vegetarian festival

One of Phuket’s weirdest and wildest festivals features parades through the streets and stalls selling delicious vegetarian food for a total of ten days in October.

Patong Carnival

Put on your glad rags and join in the fun of this lively festival, which features parades, beauty competitions, water sports and plenty of eating and drinking in central Patong over a weekend in early November.

This is the time of year when Thai and Chinese people adopt a vegetarian diet, perform good deeds and abstain from other vices in order to obtain good health and peace of mind.

The first Vegetarian Festival was celebrated around 150 years ago in the Kathu district of Phuket. There was a large Chinese community of tin miners living in this area, as well as a group of Chinese operatic performers.

A fatal disease swept through Phuket during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar claiming many lives, including those of some of the Chinese performers.

The devout Chinese performers realised that they had forgotten to pay homage to the Nine Emperor Gods (Kiu Ong Iah), a practice they always followed in the ninth lunar month. The community’s illness was attributed to this and one of the performers was sent to china to invite the Kiu Ong Iah to Phuket.

The gods were worshipped the following year and the Chinese followed the tradition of abstaining from eating meat, drinking alcohol, fighting and telling lies. The disease epidemic ceased and the festival has been celebrated every year since in Phuket and around Thailand to ensure that it never returns.

Thailand is well known for its abundance of good food, which can be found fresh and hot at markets, restaurants or street stalls at almost any time of the day or night. During the Vegetarian Festival most food vendors substitute meat dishes for soya and tofu, and there are a whole range of new dishes to try, from noodles with braised tofu to rice with small pieces of spicy tofu coated with sesame seeds. Stalls selling vegetarian food can be easily recognised as they are adorned with yellow flags bearing Chinese or Thai characters.

Many different ceremonies and practices are followed during the nine day festival. Ceremonies take place at the six Chinese temples around Phuket Province, the main one being the Jui Tui Shrine in the heart of Phuket Town. The festival is announced to the gods with the raising of the sacred Lantern Pole.

Throughout the festival worshippers revitalise their household gods at the temple as well as bringing along offerings of food and drink.

Another prominent feature is the devotees who attain a trancelike state and parade through the town. Known as “Ma Song” or ‘entranced horses”, these are holy men who the gods enter during the festival. The Ma Song are bestowed with supernatural powers and perform self-mortification rituals to bring good luck to the community.

For those wishing to cleanse their body and soul during the Vegetarian Festival, there are 10 strict rules that must be followed throughout the festival:

1. Cleanliness of the body
2. Use separate, clean utensils to non-worshippers
3. Wear white clothing
4. Behave piously both physically and mentally
5. Do not eat meat
6. Avoid sexual behaviour
7. No alcohol
8. People in mourning should not participate
9. Pregnant women should not participate
10. Menstruating women should not participate

Below is a guide to Phuket’s red light district.

Patong:

Once known as the sleazy red light district of Phuket, has undergone a period of transformation in recent years. The area’s once notorious nightlife has been tamed some what to make friendlier to women, couples and families. Now it has something for everyone.

Anyone interested in the red light district of Phuket, it begins in Patong discos and dance clubs, so let your hair down and get your boogie on.

The discos and dance clubs are Tiger Disco which is located on Soi Tiger, off Bangla Road, Tai Pan located at the intersection of Bangla and Rat-U-Thit road, Baya Beach, a more mellow place with a tropical theme, Banana disco, just to name a few.

Go-go bars in Patong Beach are the reason why many people come to Patong in the first place, sexy young girls barely wearing bikinis swaying seductively to the music; go-go bars aren’t raunchy circuses they used to be, nut they still provide plenty to look at.

You can check out the beer bars or bar beers, sports bars music pubs, upscale bars, cocktail lounges, cabarets and transvestite shows and muay Thai in Phuket. In all the above mentioned places, you will find what you are looking for, gay or straight that is why Phuket is a top destination in Thailand to those who love red light district and those who just enjoy fun and having a good time.

-       You can live a highlife in Phuket for a week with the same amount of money you could spend in a day in Hawaii or the Caribbean would cost you for a day and has a lot of activities including world class water sports (a top world Snorkeling and Scuba diving destination)

-       A lot of cafes and restaurants which offer both fantastic western dishes and Thai cuisines, countless boutique hotels and guesthouses – both stylish and inexpensive as well as the usual world class 5-star hotel chains.

-       Phuket having an international airport, has made it easy to become accessible by the Gay community and you don’t need to carry a lot of clothes since life on the Island is casual because of the tropical weather with plenty of sunshine which means people, mostly Gay, spend their day at the beaches where you don’t much clothes and everything is available to you like food, cool drinks, beach wear, sunglasses and only put on proper clothe for the evening, having dinner or go clubbing.

-       Phuket attracts a lot of Gay people because the whether you are an adventurer, sports enthusiast, sightseer or world class shopper or even night time person, you will never be bored in Phuket, there is simply a lot to do but you can decide to be lazy and spend a day laying at the beach

-       Like Amsterdam, Sitges, Fire Island and San Francisco, Phuket is one of the world’s most exciting Gay play grounds and if you are in Thailand and you haven’t experienced Gay lifestyle, this is the place to be, because of the fabulous Gay Night Life which offers all different Gay scenes,  to choose from, cute boys to take home with you, canoe in the hidden caves, sight seeing, have a tailor make a costume or custom suite for you, dance away at night, or just spend a lazy day laying at the beach.

-       The Gay lifestyle in Phuket is centered in the tourist hub of Patong bay where there are dozens and dozens of gay venues, hotels, restaurants, night clubs and shops. There is always something going in the Gay hub, gay festivals in April to the Vegetarian festival in October, Unique holiday and celebrations all year long.

My personal recommendation is that rent a bike or scooter for around 5 dollars a day, explore the island, go native and be gay all you like because Phuket has one of the friendliest people in Thailand and don’t forget to take a camera.

-       WHITE BOX: Perhaps is the most notable from the design point of view and it is located in Kalim. It is a restaurant by day and a bubbling night spot after dark. On weekends, mainly Fridays and Saturdays, guest DJs spin everything from hip-hop to house and the special events there, always attract a crowd of the island’s dedicated socialites. For more information, visit www.whiteboxphuket.com

-       CLUB LIME: is the new venue on the block (the Patong beach road to be accurate). It has been open for more than a year and it is essentially the first club in Phuket to offer a music policy based on serious club tunes. It serves house, breaks, techno, electro and the entire genre in between. These days the cream of Bangkok’s DJs makes regular trips to play here. For more information, visit www.clublime.info

-       ROCK CITY: is practically next door to Club Lime, though it recently added a second venue to it’s line up; this is located on Rat-u-Thit 200 Pi Road opposite the end of soi Bangla, on the same road as Jung Ceylon. At the original Rock city, expect to hear pretty good covers of the likes of evanescence, green day, bon jovi and more. Rock city is most popular with tourists and Thai girls who love to dance between tables. For more information, visit www.rockcity.cc

-       9 RICHTER – is the newest venues in Phuket town with a little bit of local character. It is located on Rassada road and the club has a house-band playing a standard ensemble of local favorites with occasional western covers thrown in for a good measure.

-       KARMA LOUNGE: It is one of the top spots in Phuket for serious live music and is located on Patak road. On any given night, you might find Aussie guitarist Colin Hill, soul diva Bonnie Anderson or revered vocalist Harry K. all belting it out just for the hell of it with a very talented supporting cast. Karma lounge is a personal favorites and I recommend it to all lovers of live music.

-       BYD LOFTS: If none of the above appeals to you, check out this luxurious venue located in the club Andaman Resort in Patong. The place is really a restaurant, but it doubles as a laid back hangout where you can relax, have a few drinks and enjoy the company of friends. On Fridays and Saturdays, there is usually some form of entertainment, either from DJ or a musician. For more information, visit www.bydlofts.com

So town is set to be a bit livelier from the 3^rd to the 7^th of March, as homesick sailors from USS Patriot, USS Rushmore and USS Cleveland enjoy ‘morale, welfare and recreation’ (MWR). What exactly this means is not clear, but apparently many sailors take the opportunity to go on diving trips and catch up on sleep.

Now maybe times have changed, but I’m sure that’s not the traditional image of sailors on shore leave I’ve been brought up with, and I have no doubt you will find at least of few of them enjoying the less-wholesome delights of Phuket.

 The funds from the parties, which have been designed to match the success of the Full Moon Parties on Koh Phangnan, will go towards some sort of charity which aims to help tourists ‘in trouble’.

What is meant by ‘trouble’ is pretty unclear, as is what sort of help you would received if you happened to get yourself in a pickle, but as the Full Moon Parties have been condemned in certain circles for encouraging binge drinking, it seems rather comical that the funds for this charity will increase with the amount of beer that is drunk.

I have some friends in Karon Beach who have been complaining recently about the increasing noise at the weekends from the beach parties that have been held there.

It has also been a rather long and controversial decision process which will finally result in the first official party tomorrow night.

I like a party as much as the next person, but I can’t help wondering whether this ‘Tourist Assistance Fund’ will cause more trouble than it solves.

Apparently, and unbeknown to me, Phuket and Thailand as a whole have been experience a bit of a slump in visitor numbers recently.

The latest air passenger numbers tell a different story, however. Even the recent difficulties with Cambodia and the notorious ‘sit-in’ don’t seem to have put them off.

Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, which is the main gateway to Phuket, has seen a rise of almost 30 per cent on last year’s peak season passenger figures.

In total, the amount of happy sun seekers on their way to Phuket’s sunny shores between Christmas Day and January 5^th were no less than 1,668,863 this year. Pretty amazing for just 10 days.

Apparently the biggest resorts in Phuket are already reporting a better month this February than last month, and while I’m pleased that our local business are thriving, I can’t help feeling a bit like a kid with a new toy when I hear about figures like these.

Can’t these people find their own piece of paradise and leave mine alone?