One day in Phuket with kids: local market, giant reclining Buddha and a scooter

Landing at 10pm after twenty hours of travel

Our base: Supalai Scenic Bay Resort & Spa, north-east Phuket

We dropped our bags at Supalai Scenic Bay Resort & Spa, on the north-east side of Phuket, gone 10pm, after nearly twenty hours door to door. The kind of arrival where all you dream of is a bed… and where everything went right anyway: the hotel restaurant was still serving, and on the bed the housekeepers had left an arrangement of flowers and leaves. The next day they did it again — this time with our daughter's dolls installed at the centre of the display. You should have seen her face walking back into the room. Those small touches are what makes a hotel stay in your memory.

A green-season bonus: in July, both of the resort's pools were ours alone, morning and evening. And the restaurant is worth the trip on its own — the chicken and coconut soup (tom kha gai), scented with ginger, lemongrass and coriander, comes in a non-spicy version, so our six-year-old ate exactly the same dish we did.

The morning that fixes everything: sunrise and breakfast

Jet lag has its upsides: awake at dawn, we opened the curtains onto the sun rising over the bay, with the islands towards Krabi cut out on the horizon. The room, very clean and genuinely spacious, faces the sea through a big picture window — and even from the bathroom, thanks to an internal window opening onto the bedroom. The night before, by moonlight, we had already guessed the view would be good. We were not wrong.

All of it for €60 a night for three (two adults and a child), breakfast included — and not just any breakfast: cooked to order and unlimited, fresh juices, soft-boiled eggs, enough to put any traveller back on their feet. That is the green season in Thailand: resort-with-a-view standards at chain-hotel prices.

Bang Rong Pier: a 200 ฿ scooter and the boat-ticket tip

After breakfast, straight to reception to rent a scooter: 200 baht from 1pm to 8pm. First mission of the day: get to Bang Rong Pier, the jetty on the north-east of the island where the boats leave for Koh Yao Noi, our next stop. We wanted to buy the tickets in advance, in person — and we learned two genuinely useful things:

• The counter price is no higher than online. There is no need to book days ahead on the platforms.
• There is no need to plan ahead at all. The man at the counter explained that you simply turn up ten minutes before departure and pay on the spot, on the day. In low season the boats leave roughly every hour, from 11am to 5pm (and probably earlier in the morning — we didn't ask).

The place is worth the ride in itself: wooden walkways crossing the mangrove, with aerial roots plunging into still water. You inevitably stop for a few photos.

The market by the mosque: a feast for 259 baht for three

On the corner of the road down to the pier, at the foot of a handsome mosque — the north-east of Phuket is overwhelmingly Muslim — a local market had caught our eye on the way out. We stopped on the way back. Exactly the kind of place we love: food for Thai people, not a tourist in sight, and us choosing on instinct without entirely knowing what we were buying. In the basket:

• Red-glazed chicken skewers, grilled in front of us
• Skewers of glazed pork (we think… we embrace the mystery)
• Skewers of a sort of dumpling-shaped patty with a quail egg hidden inside — the surprise of the day
• Mango sticky rice, the Thai dessert: glutinous rice in coconut milk with fresh mango
• Coconut water and mango and passion-pineapple shakes

All takeaway — there wasn't a patch of shade to eat in. Total bill: 259 baht for the three of us. About seven euros, for a feast we still talk about.

Wat Sri Sunthon, the largest reclining Buddha on Phuket

So our app had sent us to Wat Sri Sunthon (locals call it Wat Lipon), ten minutes away by scooter in Thalang district. We had been looking for shade to picnic in along the way, without luck… and at the temple entrance, salvation: tables under magnificent, venerated trees. The three of us ate there very happily — four of us, in fact, once a temple kitten invited itself to the skewers.

The temple has surprises in store before you even reach the Buddha. At the entrance a giant guardian in golden armour stands watch, surrounded by a menagerie of unexpected statues: multicoloured roosters, elephants, wading birds, and further on dinosaurs, rabbits and flag-bearing soldiers. Our daughter loved this cabinet-of-curiosities quality. To the left of some small steps, a monk gave us red string bracelets: five white beads for mine, worn on the right wrist, and a golden bead in the centre for my wife's and my daughter's. A simple, lovely moment.

Then you climb up the right-hand side of the building, and there it is: the largest reclining Buddha on Phuket, 29 metres long, covered in gold, lying on the temple roof in the posture of entry into nirvana. You can see it from the airport road, and yet very few visitors stop — we had it almost to ourselves.

When we visited, the Buddha was being restored, its head wrapped in bamboo scaffolding lashed with rope — an image we won't forget, traditional techniques in the service of a giant. We finished with a tour of the pavilions and an offering — an incense stick burned, a bouquet left — before getting back on the road.

A viewpoint, a 7-Eleven and SangSom facing the sea

On the way back we wanted a beach, and found nothing exceptional in this corner of the island — the north-east is more mangrove than white sand, and it is worth knowing that. Never mind: we stopped at a viewpoint above the bay, then at the local 7-Eleven to improvise drinks. On the menu: SangSom, the excellent Thai rum, which goes with anything — a fresh fruit shake, a juice, any soft drink — plus something to nibble: cashews, pistachios, and those spicy seaweed sheets we became addicted to.

Verdict: drinks by the pool, facing a sea turning orange, while our daughter splashed about. Then dinner at the hotel restaurant — as good as the night before — a bedtime story for her, these few lines for me, and everyone to bed. A perfect day, with nothing planned the evening before.

The real budget for the day (2 adults + one child)

Prices paid in July 2026. As a rough guide, 259 ฿ is about US$7 — check the rate before you travel.

Quick answers

What came next: on to Koh Yao Noi

The following morning the bags went back on the scooter, heading for Bang Rong Pier and the 30-minute boat to Koh Yao Noi — the island people call "Phuket thirty years ago": jungle, very few hotels, and almost only Thai residents. From our balcony at night we could already make out its shape in the moonlight. The whole stay is told in Koh Yao Noi with kids: the island where you do nothing.

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