Heritage of Phuket Town Text
& photographs by Khoo Salma Nasution
Asian Public Intellectual (API) Fellow, Nippon Foundation
Famed as beach
resort, Phuket in Thailand also has an old town on the other side
of the island. The old quarter of Phuket city, formerly called
‘Tongkah’, is the home of the Baba community, a cultural
community of mixed Thai-Chinese heritage.
The townscape
of old Phuket is unique in Thailand, and rather resembles that
found in the former British Straits Settlements, particularly
Penang. Since the 1990s, the people of Phuket have spearheaded
several initiatives to showcase their cultural built heritage.
The historic centre
of Phuket town is sited between the low hills and the bay of Tongkah.
As Tongkah
started out as a mining town, all land in the vicinity was formerly
mined and worked over until exhausted of its tin deposits.
The historic
centre of Phuket was designated as a conservation area under the
Environment Act 1992. Drawing reproduced by courtesy of City Hall.
Click
here for map.
Thalang Road
in the old town was formerly the most important trading street
in Phuket. Encouraged by university groups and the authorities,
the local community has started a ‘main street’ movement.
Yellow flags on Thalang Road herald Phuket’s famous Nine
Emperor Gods festival.
From 1998,
the Old Phuket Town Festival has been held annually. From September
to November 2005, the ‘Walking Street’ or ‘Street
of Culture’ weekend bazaar will attract activities and crowds
to the old town.
In 2003,
the Old Phuket Town Foundation was formed with the objective of
revitalizing the historic areas of Phuket town. The Old Phuket
Foundation logo is that of a five-footway.
An important
objective of the Old Phuket Town Foundation is to restore the
public character of the five-footway.
The
federal, provincial and city governments have undertaken conservation
projects on public buildings. For example, the old Phuket Post
& Telegraphic Office has been converted into the Phuket Philatelic
Museum (bottom right).
Phuket
Provincial Hall (top right), a pubic building erected in the 1910s,
is located in the administrative quarter. It was gazetted by the
Fine Arts Department in 1977 and was the first building in Phuket
to receive a national conservation award.
The
police station with clock tower (bottom left) stands across the
road from the Chartered Bank, at the corner of Phuket Road and
Phangnga Road. They were built in the early 1900s, when Phuket
developed from a small frontier mining town into a more secure
and respectable town. The police station is now earmarked by City
Hall for an urban heritage museum.
The
City Hall plans to restore No. 63 Thalang Road (top right - second
house from right) into a small museum for educational purposes.
