Phuket · Nightlife

Nightlife in Phuket

Bangla Road is the one everyone means. Here is the honest version.

After dark

Four hundred metres, and about two good hours

Bangla closes to traffic around six and turns into the loudest street in Thailand. It is beer bars, superclubs, live-music rooms and covered side lanes, all in a few hundred metres. It is genuinely good fun for a couple of hours and genuinely exhausting after that. It is not the real Thailand and it does not pretend to be.

Photo to come Bangla Road lit up, from the Beach Road end

From about six

A night on Bangla

Quiet and cheapest before nine. Clubs open around nine and it peaks between ten and one. Illuzion is the big room and usually free to walk into on a normal night. Tai Pan does hundred-baht beer before midnight. New York Live is a band for the price of a drink.

Pedestrian from ~6pm
Peak 10pm–1am
Licensed clubs to 4am

Never follow a tout holding a laminated card. The free show is not free — there is a compulsory drink at an invented price and leaving is made difficult.

Photo to come The ring at Patong stadium, mid-bout

Doors 8pm

A night at the Muay Thai

Eight or so bouts a night at the stadium in Patong. The undercard of young Thai fighters is the most genuine Muay Thai you will see, and it is the bit most tourists miss because they turn up for the main event.

~8 bouts
Doors 8pm, first fight 9pm
Stadium or ringside

Buy from the stadium itself. The search results are full of reseller sites with lookalike names, different prices and different fight nights.

Photo to come A shophouse bar on Yaowarat after dark

From about seven

The Old Town instead

The answer for anyone who does not want Bangla. Shophouse bars along Yaowarat and Thalang with a mostly Thai crowd. Timber Hut has had a live band on two floors since 1990. Rockin’ Angels is a small blues room run by its owner.

Mostly Thai crowd
Live music
Walkable and calm

Pay for each round as you go rather than running a tab, and agree a price before anyone in a costume poses for a photograph. Trouble almost always starts as an argument over a bill — pay it, leave, and call the tourist police on 1155 afterwards. Tell us the night and how many of you there are and we will sort the door.

Nightlife questions, answered

Asked honestly, answered honestly.

What is Bangla Road actually like?

Pedestrianised from about six in the evening. It is quiet and cheapest before nine, clubs open around nine, and it peaks between ten and one. Licensed clubs run to about four.

What are the scams on Bangla Road?

Never follow a tout holding a laminated card. The free show is not free — there is a compulsory drink at an invented price and leaving is made difficult. That is the one that catches people.

Is there a night out that is not Bangla?

The Old Town. Shophouse bars along Yaowarat and Thalang with a mostly Thai crowd — Timber Hut has had a live band on two floors since 1990, and Rockin' Angels is a small blues room. Walkable, calm, and a completely different evening.

Is the Muay Thai worth going to?

Yes, and go early. Eight or so bouts a night at the stadium in Patong, doors at eight and the first fight around nine. The undercard of young Thai fighters is the most genuine Muay Thai you will see, and it is the bit most tourists miss because they turn up for the main event.

Where do I buy Muay Thai tickets?

From the stadium itself. The search results are full of reseller sites with lookalike names, different prices and different fight nights.