Retired & Roaming

Phuket Garden Home is actually two locations: a set of two-bedroom villas and a set one-bedroom of bungalows. They are situated about 300 metres apart in a Thai residential area on the edge of Chalong, south of Phuket Town.

Villas
The villas were built sometime in 2006, they have two bedrooms, they’re quite spacious and there’s a small pool – rather too small. At 30k (2010 – now 20k) baht per month, high or low season, we felt they are a bit expensive for what they offer. Given they are only about three years old, they are already in need of a facelift. The furniture inside is a bit odd – the sofa in the living room is made of concrete on which foam cushions make up the seat. The bed plinthes are also concrete. There is a kitchen with a reasonable fridge and basic cooking facilities. For a family on a self-catering holiday, they offer good value; for an R&Rer on a long-term stay, you can do better.

Footnote: Feb 2010. The Villas have fairly recently been given a facelift – the floors are now tiled, the furniture is better. The price is still officially 20k but if you are intending to stay more than a month, negotiate a deal with the manager – he’s very flexible!

Bungalows
By contrast, the bungalows, at 18k (2010 now 12k excluding electricity & water, but even if you have the a/c on 24/7, you would still only pay ~16k) per month, are much better value. This is where we stayed in 2008 and to where we returned for three months at the from Jan – April 2009 and from Nov 2009 – Feb 2010. There are 22 bungalows arranged on three sides of a rectangle around the pool, the fourth side being the bar. The photos are all of the ‘bungalow zone’. Each bungalow has a living room entered through sliding glass doors from the path. The furniture in the living room is basic – coffee table, two wooden chairs and a wooden unit containing a small fridge and a tv. A sliding wooden door leads from there into a bedroom that is spacious. There is a double bed (or two singles if you prefer), a wardrobe, table, stool and two night stands. There is only a bottom sheet on the bed with a quilt as a top cover – a rather strange arrangement, although a second sheet will be provided on request.  Another sliding door leads into the kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom is spacious and the glass roof of the shower gives it an outdoor feel, as does the little enclosed garden area next to it. The kitchen is small and has just a microwave and a sink. Nothing else. PGH do not provide any pots and pans, cutlery, etc. in the bungalows.

The rather spartan fittings and lack of even a cup are a bit of a shock when you’re not expecting it. However, you have to remember that the rent is only 18k per month and this includes electricity and water (not all places do).

BYO
The overall ambience of PGH bungalows is great. There are a couple long-term residents – one year plus -  may returnees and an assortment of shorter-term ranging from the likes of us who stay for three months, to holiday-makers staying one week. It’s a friendly place and there’s normally a good rapport established quickly with newcomers. The staff have limited English but are friendly enough. The normal solution for long-stayers is to head off to one of the many malls and buy a set of extras to make the stay comfortable. For less than 8k baht, you can sort yourself with pots, pan, crockery, cutlery, two-ring cooker, kettle, coffee-maker, extra pillows etc. We bring our own sheets and pillow cases. If your stay is three months, that’s not a huge investment – we even included two comfy chairs in our list at 990 baht apiece. If your stay is longer, the purchases make even more sense and you can really put your own stamp on your 45 sq. metre ’shoebox’.

Both the villas and the bungalows have wifi internet that is including in the rental price. It’s not a bad connection but like all internet in Phuket, is rather variable in speed.

PGH has laundry facilities – three washing machines that cost 20 baht a time for a load. There is a washing line with lots of space, so drying isn’t a problem.

The bar offers good basic Thai fare from 8am to 8 pm, and the bar itself remains open until later. Having said that, we normally buy our beer at much cheaper rates in a supermarket  or round the corner to ‘Mrs Sakura’ – she’s a sweetie.

[*UPDATE 1 :JAN 2010*

As an alternative to PGH's food, try wandering down to the first corner - all of 50 metres - and you come to the 'Ritz' - our name for a typical local restaurant that is more like someone's living room. Run by a knarled ex-fisherman and his wife, they offer great and cheap Thai food often popping up the road for you to a market to get fresh fish etc. Normally it works out to around 200 baht for two. It's at the corner facing you on the right. ]

Prices
Although the price is set at 12k baht per month for all seasons, a rather unusual arrangement for Phuket where low season discounts can be very big – the price for a long stay is negotiable, especially for returnees! The negotiable part is more to do with much extra you pay for the utilities than the actual basic 12k – talking to the manager is the way to go.

Several of the residents in PGH during our stay, including us, have checked out other places, but very few move on, unless it’s to something cheaper that doesn’t have a pool – big mistake!

The PGH website is here. The photos in the gallery give a pretty accurate view, especially if you’ve already read the stuff above.

For four other good accommodation reviews in Phuket (together with this one), there is an excellent guide available here for a small fee.

*UPDATE 2 : Jan 2010*

Well into our third visit to the shoeboxes and it’s really very much like home! Not a lot has change at PGH except the rates, which have effectively gone down!! Rather than the all in 30k for the villas and 18k for the bungalows, the rates are now exclusive of electricity & water and are 20k for the villas and 12k for the bungalows. As a result we have been monitoring the electricity consumption (6 baht per unit) and we’re delighted to find that if you use the a/c just overnight and perhaps a bit in the day, you are going to be paying around 2k baht per month. With the water being around 150 baht per month, the deal is now really good. OK, you can get cheaper in these times of fewer tourists, but as mentioned above, whenever we or others look around, neither we nor they ever actually go!

I was delighted to meet some new ‘inmates’ (who really liked the place and will be back) who had found it via this blog!! Google works!

The only further advice I’d give is to choose or move to a bungalow as far away from the bar as possible – unless you like the noise of yo-ho-ing farangs with their Thai girl friends partying late. It doesn’t happen much and hey, they’re on holiday too, but occasionally it can rub. Not a reason for not staying here though. The noise can’t be heard farther away from the bar!

*UPDATE 3: Jan 2011*

See the post of January 8 2011 – ‘Phuket Update‘ !!!