Karon Beach Shopping

Karon Beach is a five-kilometre stretch of squeaky white sand three kilometres south of Patong. The Karon area is home to several large hotels and is much less crowded than neighbouring Patong as it is more spread out. Shopping in this area is also more relaxed than in Patong yet you can buy most of the same items, it all depends if you know where to go.

Shopping in Karon starts at the beach traffic circle. Here, you will find a supermarket for all your drinks/snacks and hygiene needs. If you walk up the main road towards Karon's Buddhist Temple you'd be forgiven for thinking that the area is made up entirely of photo labs, pharmacies, banks and tailors and more tailors and more bars than Las Vegas, although with more modest prices.

Take an evening stroll up to Karon Circle, with its sculptures of workers commemorating Phuket's tin-mining and agricultural past, and do some shopping. You will find a wide selection of shoes, fake name-brand watches, sunglasses, bags and suitcases and all sorts of souvenirs, from silk cushion covers to wooden handicraft items, to toy elephants. There is also an optician shop, KT Optic that offers pretty good discounts on name-brand sunglasses. In Thailand, spectacles cost a fraction of the prices they command in the west and of course computerized eye examination is free here.

Further up from the Karon Circle on the same road, the shops (mostly tailors) are soon outnumbered by bars and restaurants. In the side streets by the Centara Karon Beach Resort (formerly Soi Islandia Park Resort) stand more tailors and a dental clinic (dental treatment is a bargain for foreigners visiting Thailand and many people come here expressly for this reason) but this two parallel backstreet area is largely guesthouse and bar/restaurant territory.

Some tailor shops can be downright treasure troves of bespoke tailoring. This is because the tailors' overheads are low here, although their starting prices can be a little optimistic - for them, that is. Still, it's not unusual to get a well-cut suit with two shirts thrown in for as little as US$75.

A good tip is to leave plenty of time for your measuring process. Any reputable tailor will point out that a 24-hour service is bound to get something wrong along the way, and that tailors who boast of this service are to be avoided like the plague. Four days should be a reasonable time enough for a fitting; a week better.