Should you visit Phuket or Bali?

Everyone preparing a excursion to Southeast Asia confronts an shame of riches.

This magical element of the world has adequate shorelines, sunset spots, temples and fiery food stuff to fill quite a few lifetimes of vacation. However due to the fact we only have one particular, tricky selections lie in retail outlet. Enter a pair of seasoned writers to make the circumstance for their pick of two of the region’s most beloved hubs, Phuket and Bali.

Favor magnificent Phuket

Isabella Noble is a Barcelona-centered journey journalist and the creator of Lonely Planet’s Pocket Phuket information. She has been expending time on this gorgeous, typically-misunderstood Thai island for pretty much a ten years. 

For any one who loves Phuket – as I do – it’s a magical island that immediately defies its stereotypes with no creating any fuss.

Thailand bursts with dreamy, laid-back, palm-crammed islands washed by gentle turquoise waves, indeed – but Phuket brings together all that tropical-paradise allure with the lively excitement, inventive vibe and thrilling food scene of a dynamic urban hub. 

Let’s start with those fabulous flour-comfortable, salt-white shorelines. My favorites are in the north of the island, which includes sparkling Hat Surin, 5 mile (8km)-prolonged Ao Bang Thao and wilder Hat Layan. Phuket’s 3 northwesternmost strands are a address too: Hat Nai Yang, Hat Mai Khao and Hat Nai Thon all sit inside of the safeguarded Sirinat Nationwide Park and have a blissfully relaxed, nature-first truly feel. On the island’s southern idea, mellow Rawai is one more beachy natural beauty I search for out on just about every go to it’s recognised for its rustic seafood eating places, buzzing kitesurfing scene and powdery strands like Hat Nai Han. Blazing sunsets attract crowds to extraordinary Laem Phromthep right here, and there’s just about a mystical truly feel as everyone concurrently gazes out as the sun drops into the jade-colored Andaman Sea.

Phuket’s vivid food scene

Phuket also has just one of Thailand’s most irresistible foodstuff scenes, born from the mingling of Southeast Asian and Chinese cultures about the generations (known listed here as Baba culture). The arty island funds Phuket Town is the culinary epicenter. A tin-mining hub in the 19th and 20th centuries, currently now crammed with candy-coloured Sino-Portuguese buildings, restored hôrng tăa·ou (shophouses) and hidden shrines that burst into lifetime for the September/Oct Vegetarian Competition. I like popping into the Lock Tien meals court docket, wherever Phuketian classics like mèe hokkien (Hokkien noodles) and just-made spring rolls are served at plastic tables, or grabbing flaky roti topped with a fried egg at the always-well known Thai-Muslim breakfast spots on Thalang Rd. Extended-working Mee Ton Poe is domestically liked for its noodle dishes Kopitiam does Phuket-fashion Thai classics and Raya prepares its well-liked coconut-crab curry in a tile-included Sino-Portuguese property.

On the wonderful-eating facet, check out the present-day-Sardinian delights dreamt up by superstar chef Alessandro Frau at Acqua the elevated Phuketian flavors of Patong’s lovely, back garden-laced Ta Khai Cherngtalay’s tasteful Suay for chef Noi Tammasak’s arty twist on Thai cuisine or Michelin-starred PRU in northern Phuket. There’s a good deal to appreciate on the local espresso scene, as well, with hipster-model hangouts this sort of as Phuket Town’s The Shelter Coffee and Bookhemian effortlessly rivaling Chiang Mai’s famously cool cafe society. 

I’ve fortunately spent time in Phuket with my brother, my companion and lots of pals about the decades, but also as a solo female traveler. No matter whether you fancy a beachfront yoga course, heading out on a diving trip, traveling to Buddhist temples (these types of as 150-yr-aged Wat Chalong) or most likely tackling muay thai, Phuket’s exercise calendar has it, and all sorts of tourists can hope a heat welcome listed here. 

A signature Phuket spotlight is escaping into beautiful Ao Pha-Nga Maritime Nationwide Park, in which kayaking or paddle-boarding is the most worthwhile, lower-influence way to take a look at this bewitching bay dotted with limestone karsts. Working day excursions to Ko Phi-Phi – in which Maya Bay recently reopened with demanding new conservation guidelines – are perfectly doable, as well. And did you know there’s also excellent mountaineering in Phuket? Gratifying routes include things like the sweaty jungle-traversing climb up to the 150ft(45m)-tall Massive Buddha in the Nakkerd Hills around Kata, as well as paths as a result of the wild rainforests of northern Phuket’s Khao Phra Thaew Royal Wildlife & Forest Reserve (home to the revolutionary Gibbon Rehabilitation Project).

Beachfront bliss

And nowhere does seductive beach front hotels (or heavenly spas) like Phuket. You could go all out with a deluxe keep at a person of Thailand’s leading hideaways, these types of as Amanpuri, Trisara, The Surin Phuket or Rosewood Phuket. There are also entertaining, sociable hostels and style and design-ahead boutique inns (significantly in Phuket Town Casa Blanca is a joy), along with mellow beachside guesthouses in spots like west-coastline Kamala. 

Still when I’m longing for this scrumptious island, I think of an early-early morning stroll by way of Phuket Town, a plastic plate of steaming noodles arriving at a toes-in-the-sand seashore shack, a soul-stirring swim in turquoise waves backed by rippling casuarinas. This is what Phuket is all about. No surprise it’s drawn people today from all in excess of the environment for hundreds of years. 

It’d greater be Bali

If Mark Eveleigh ended up at any time told he could only journey in a single region for the rest of his life, he’d pick out Indonesia. This commonly traveled journalist and writer has written for quite a few publications his most recent journey e book is Kopi Dulu: 15,000km through Indonesia.

Overcrowded and overdeveloped? Or the world’s most beautiful island?

The fabled Island of the Gods, Bali certainly sees far more than its fair share of holidaymakers. The city of Ubud, a well-known yoga haven and artwork money, has its dedicated devotees – as does Uluwatu, with its sublime temple and adrenaline-pumping surf. Kuta was once social gathering central, even if now the evening owls are now heading to the seaside golf equipment and awesome cafes of Seminyak and booming Canggu.

Alongside 5-star resorts these kinds of as Raffles and the 4 Seasons that sprawl as a result of tropical gardens and on to talcum-powder shorelines, readers can remain a host of thrilling new designer destinations, like Shed Lindenberg and Nirjhara. And even as demand soars, you can even now rent a uncomplicated, comfortable place with a personal balcony overlooking a tropical back garden for under $10 for every night time, breakfast included.

So, of course, tourism may be booming in this article. But on an island which is in excess of 10 periods the measurement of Phuket, it is still astoundingly straightforward to obtain an unspoiled corner. 

Bali’s beguiling beaches

I’m a huge admirer of Thailand and have worked on lots of assignments (even textbooks) in that wonderful state. But the colorful forged of gods and demons, ghosts and witches that engage in this sort of a huge section in traditional Balinese lifetime fascinated me so a lot that they turned central people in my hottest novel. Without a doubt, it’s the Balinese men and women that make the island uniquely desirable – not to point out a person of the most culturally intriguing places in the entire world.

Sure, Bali and Phuket both equally boast palm-shaded white-sand beaches that make people drool. But only Bali has a regulation that stipulates no structures shall be tall sufficient to rise over those trees. Which suggests that even the most congested vacationer centers listed here have been spared significant-increase, Thai-design and style cityscapes.

In addition to the dreamy white shorelines about Nusa Dua and the Bukit Peninsula, there are also intimate volcanic shorelines where you can stroll for miles across a area that shimmers like a black mirror without having observing one more foreigner. If you appreciate dramatic wave-smashed coastlines (and some of the world’s ideal surfing) then you should really adhere to the southern coastline if you want tranquil reefs wherever dolphins, turtles and maritime life gather then head to the sheltered northern coast.

An island of nature’s delights

When you’ve experienced sufficient of seashores, Bali’s volcanic highlands supply a smorgasbord of activities that minor Phuket could scarcely desire of. The dawn climb to Batur may be – justifiably – the most preferred tour on the island, along with Ubud’s Monkey Forest. Inland, you can also cycle (25 miles downhill!), go white-h2o rafting or explore jungles and peaks on foot, by horse or even helicopter. In the unspoiled “wild west,” you can wander with pink buffalo or go to what could possibly be the planet’s most photogenic regular fishing fleet.

The arid hillsides of Northern Bali are planted with cashew, dragon fruit and (astonishingly) even vineyards. To the south, the slopes are dominated by the giant stairways of terraced paddies, in areas operating ideal down the ocean.

I fell in enjoy with Bali some two a long time ago, and my perfect writing retreat is on the remote western facet of the island. Every time I get back again I notice anew that West Bali may possibly be the most achingly beautiful area on the planet. This 3rd of the island stays virtually solely ignored by people even the islanders themselves are generally astounded to listen to that West Bali Nationwide Park has deserted shorelines the place wild deer trot as a result of the shallows, and jungle-clad hills are household to hornbills, traveling foxes and gibbon-like langur monkeys.

There are a lot of spots in the planet with plenty to occupy you for a two-week vacation. 20 many years soon after my initially check out to Bali, I’m nevertheless persuaded that there is more than enough there to continue to keep me fast paced for a lifetime.