In the first place, we weren't that excited about Phuket. We were at a party in Australia, last week, just before we left, and one of the girls was saying "Oh that's my least favourite place out of Thailand. Not exciting, very touristy."
To our surprise, Phuket turned out to be great! We loved the Old Town. Of course it has some touristy restaurants and shops with expensive post cards and other useless odds, but it's totally up to you where you choose to eat or shop, if you have to shop at all. There are plenty of food stalls and lots of little businesses to pick from. And the atmosphere of a little town, lazy in the mornings and busier in the afternoons, really suited us. The Sino-Portuguese facades reminded us of Lisbon, our favourite Portuguese town. And...we couldn't be happier when we saw a big sign about the coming festival!
The Old Town Phuket Festival started on the 2nd of February and was going for 3 days, until the 4th
During the day, on the 2nd of February, we decided to stroll around the Old Town. Our excitement was growing more and more with each chair being taken down from a truck, each stall getting set up and each stage being put up on the street.
It looked like silence before the storm.
Everyone was preparing.
It was great to watch how fast the preparations were moving and although at the beginning it looked chaotic, there seemed to be some kind of order to it. We visited the same street twice within twenty minutes and several new stalls and two new stages had appeared!
We decided to capture ‘the before and after’ scenes as we’re not sure what was more captivating – the preparations or the festival itself!
For now, we’ll leave you with the photos of everyone & everything getting ready, and in the next post we’ll show you how the festival went!
After that, you can judge yourself; preparations or celebrations?
