From all around the west coast of Phuket you may get the feeling of being watched over by a figure sat high on a hillside above you – that of the Phuket ‘Big Buddha’ statue.
After a day exploring viewpoints around Phuket town, we decided to take the trip up the hillside to view the Big Buddha up close.
To get to the Phuket Big Buddha statue, we simply used the ‘Grab’ taxi app (Thailand’s version of Uber, which we used extensively to get around the various cities we visited on our Thailand trip) and a local taxi driver picked us up from our location and drove us up there.
At the top of the winding hillside road is a car park where our taxi dropped us off. Our driver said he would wait for us while we visited the Buddha, to take us back again – but I think something got lost in the translation (or he just got a bigger fare!) as he had gone by the time we returned to the car park.
It wasn’t a problem though, we just used the Grab app to request a new cab and had one within a couple of minutes for the return journey.
We had wanted to visit the Phuket Big Buddha at sunset, which was a great time for photos and for avoiding the intense heat of the midday sun.
However, beware that access to the statue closes at 7.30pm each day, so you can’t leave it too late.
We arrived around 6pm, which gave us plenty of time to look around the giant statue and enjoy the superb, far-reaching views over Phuket.
One thing you have to bear in mind is, as with many of Thailand’s temples and buddhist monuments, women have to wear clothing that covers the shoulders and the knees.
The dress code isn’t as strict as some of the temples around Bangkok for instance, where men aren’t allowed shorts – the dress code for the Phuket Big Buddha appeared to solely be that women must cover their shoulders and wear clothing that covered below the knee.
They were fine with men wearing shorts and t-shirts.
Because we’d spent the day doing other activities, the females amongst us weren’t dressed in the right way and we were stopped by the guard at the entrance and asked to purchase some cheap scarves (just £1 or so GBP) for them to put over their shoulders, which solved that problem.
The Phuket Big Buddha was definitely worth visiting to see up close in person.
It’s obviously big, given how visible it is up on the hillside from miles around, but it was a surprise as to just how big it was – and how intricately constructed it was.
And it was a great spot for photos as the sun set behind the giant statue, lighting it up with a golden glow.
As we walked around the statue, looking at it from all angles, checking out the other smaller statues and monuments around it – and enjoying the views over Phuket, we were distracted by a group of wild monkeys playing on the hillside beside us.
It didn’t take long before the monkeys were climbing up on the railings and sniffing around the tourists for food.
The monkeys were getting as much attention from us and the other tourists as the Big Buddha itself, as they seemed to sit around posing for photos and occasionally chasing each other around trying to snatch crisps off each other that they were swiping from tourists who got a bit too close with them!
The Big Buddha is an attraction well worth taking the time to view – it’s probably one of the best photo opportunities in Phuket, both for the statue itself and the superb views from the top of the hill.
Getting there was simple and cheap in an ordinary taxi and it was a great way to end our stay in Phuket before we moved onto our next destination of Elephant Hills.