Phuket sights
Phuket Old Town
A walkable grid of pastel Sino-Portuguese shophouses, Chinese shrines, street art, cafés, and museums in the heart of Phuket Town — a record of the tin-mining boom that built the island. Liveliest at the Sunday Walking Street market.
About
Phuket Old Town is the island's most atmospheric corner away from the beaches — a compact grid of streets around Thalang, Dibuk, and Krabi Roads lined with candy-coloured Sino-Portuguese shophouses built during the 19th-century tin-mining boom, when Hokkien Chinese merchants and European traders made Phuket rich. Today the restored buildings house coffee shops, galleries, boutique hotels, museums, and old family businesses, interspersed with ornate Chinese shrines and a growing collection of large-scale street-art murals that reward a slow wander. Photogenic Soi Rommanee, once a red-light lane, is now its prettiest street. The quarter is at its liveliest on Sunday evenings, when Thalang Road closes to traffic for the Lard Yai Walking Street market — a long parade of street-food stalls, crafts, and live music. It's also the best place to eat the island's Peranakan specialities, from o-tao to o-aew.
Good to know
Opening hours and entry fees vary by season — check before you visit.