Driving in Chalong, Phuket: the Junction the Whole South Uses

A junction, not a destination

If you have driven anywhere in the south of Phuket, you have been through Chalong, probably without meaning to. It sits where the road from the airport and the town meets the roads to Rawai, Nai Harn and Kata, and there is no way around it.

That makes it an unusual place to stay and a very practical one. The beach here is shallow, muddy at low tide and lined with boats rather than sunbeds, so nobody comes for swimming. What you get instead is a base from which every part of the south is a short drive and nothing involves a mountain pass.

For anyone renting a car, Chalong is also the easiest southern base to learn on. The roads are wide, the gradients are gentle, and if you take a wrong turn the worst outcome is another lap of the roundabout.

The practical result is that you will pass through here far more often than you plan to, so it pays to learn the roundabout early. Once it stops requiring thought, the whole south of the island becomes easy to move around.

The roundabout and how it behaves

The Chalong roundabout is large, busy and entirely manageable once you know its rhythm. Traffic on the roundabout has priority, and the flow is steady rather than aggressive: people expect you to join and they leave gaps.

Two things catch visitors out. The first is choosing your lane too late. Decide on your exit before you reach the approach, because changing lanes inside a busy roundabout with scooters filtering around you is not where you want to be improvising.

The second is the scooters themselves. They come round on the inside and the outside, often two abreast, and they will pass on whichever side has space. Mirror check before every lane change, signal early, and let people in. That is how it works here and it works well.

At peak times the approaches back up. It clears steadily rather than dramatically, and the answer is patience, not a shortcut through the side streets, which are narrower and slower than they look.

The pier and the climb to the Big Buddha

Chalong pier is where the boats to the nearby islands leave, which means early mornings and full car parks. If you are catching a boat, arrive earlier than the ticket says and park in one of the marked areas rather than along the access road, where you will be blocked in by tour minibuses.

Leaving the car for a full day there is normal practice. Take valuables with you, leave nothing visible on the seats, and note where you parked, because the car parks look identical when you come back tired at five in the afternoon.

The road up to the Big Buddha starts from the same area and climbs steadily to the top. Any ordinary car manages it. The technique is what matters: keep a low gear on the way up so the engine does the work, and use gear limiting on the way down instead of holding the brakes. There are pull-ins on the climb if you want to stop and let the brakes cool or let a faster vehicle past.

Parking and through-traffic

Parking in Chalong is easy by Phuket standards. The district was built around vehicles, so restaurants, shops and the temple all have their own space.

The exception is the immediate area around the roundabout and the pier at peak hours. Do not park on the roundabout approaches, and do not stop on the shoulder of the main road to check your phone. This is a through route with heavy vehicles on it, and a stationary car in the wrong place here causes real problems.

For anything longer than a quick errand, use a proper car park and walk a hundred metres. It is the cheapest advice on this page and the most consistently ignored.

• Choose your roundabout exit before you reach the approach
• Arrive early for boat departures and use the marked car parks
• Use gear limiting on the descent from the Big Buddha, not the brakes
• Never stop on the shoulder of the through road, even briefly