Roads in Phuket: Passes and Surfaces

What the roads in Phuket are really like

The whole logic of the island comes down to one longitudinal road. It runs from the bridge to the mainland through the airport and Phuket Town, and it is numbered 402: wide, with a divider and proper junctions. You drive it fast and it is dull, and it is precisely what creates the impression that everything here is simple.

The interesting part begins when you turn west off the 402. The road narrows to two lanes, gains height and starts to wind. Between Patong and the neighbouring bays there are two such stretches — one north to Kamala, the other south to Karon. Both are a long climb, blind bends and oncoming traffic taking more than its half of the road.

There are no bad roads here, but there are hard ones

Asphalt is laid regularly, the markings are there, the main routes are lit. Potholes in Phuket do not live on the highways but on the approaches to houses deep inside the areas, where the municipal road ends and the private one begins. The real difficulty is elsewhere: the gradient, the motorbikes overtaking on any side, and driving on the left, which takes its own two days to get used to.

What that means for the car

A climb of several kilometres is less about power than about the way back down. You do not coast down a pass: you put the gearbox into a lower range and let the engine brake. Otherwise you arrive at the bottom with the smell of burnt pads and a pedal that goes further than usual.

The air conditioning runs constantly on this island, and on a climb you can hear it. A small engine carries two people easily and four with suitcases with an effort, especially if somebody in the back is hot. When you cross a pass every day, people take an SUV not for the look of it but so as not to think about overtaking on a climb.

What to check when you collect the car

The tyres. On the flat 402 their condition is not noticeable at all, while on a wet descent it becomes the only thing that matters.

• Tread on all four wheels — on a descent it decides more than power does
• Brake pedal travel — a soft pedal shows up on the first pass, not in the driveway
• The air conditioning at idle — checking it in the traffic by the beach is already too late
• Wipers and washer fluid — a downpour starts without warning
• Photographs of the bodywork before you set off — so the conversation about scratches ends before it starts

Where to leave the car at the end of the route

The road ends where you have to leave the car, and the island can surprise you here. Parking at a popular beach is either a paid area a block away or the verge, where the colour of the kerb decides everything.

A red and white stripe means you may not stand there at all. Yellow and white means you may drop a passenger and drive on. Black and white allows parking. There may be no sign anywhere nearby: the marking on the stone is the sign.

There are few tow trucks in the usual sense, but wheels are clamped readily, and fines go to the rental company and from there to the renter. We see those letters and tell you straight away, with no surprise on the day you return the car.

Rain turns the same road into a different one

The most slippery moments are the first minutes of a downpour. The dust and oil that have built up on the asphalt float to the surface and turn it into an ice rink; a quarter of an hour later they are washed away and the grip improves.

On a descent the water runs in the wheel ruts looking for somewhere to go. A speed that feels slow in the dry turns out, on a wet bend, to be exactly the one at which the car starts to float. The feeling is simple: the steering suddenly goes light.

Visibility is a story of its own. A tropical downpour comes down like a wall, wipers at maximum cannot cope, and locals pull onto the verge and wait it out. That is not caution but normal practice: twenty minutes later the road is dry again.

Where the roads lead, off the island and across it

One road leads to the mainland — over the bridge in the north. Beyond it begins the mainland highway that takes you towards Krabi and Phang Nga. The road is flat and long, and the car behaves differently there than in the hills: what matters is not the brakes but fuel range and a sensible cruising speed.

Inside the island, routes are built from two things: the longitudinal run along the 402 and short cross links to the beaches. Plan the day around that rather than around a straight line on the map — a straight line on the map is often that very pass.

Viewpoints and climbs

Every famous view on the island is at the top of something, and almost every one is reached by a narrow road on a gradient with room for one car to pass. Better not to drive up in the dark or after a downpour: there is no verge and nowhere to turn around.