Review / How to immerse yourself in local Thai culture in Phuket: the island is about more than pad thai, night markets and luxury pool villas – as Banyan Tree’s Stay for Good initiative and tour shows

Feb 22 , 2024

Banyan Tree Phuket’s Stay for Good programme offers a more immersive cultural experience to travellers. Photos: Christina Ko

The Singapore-based luxury group launched its Stay for Good global initiative last year to connect its properties around the world with their local communities

From watching purveyors cook up coconut crepes, making Thai rice with locally sourced herbs, to climbing a hill for panoramic views of Phuket, here are our highlights from the tour

It’s easy to fall into a routine as a tourist in Phuket: hole up in your pool villa ordering club sandwiches and pad thais, leaving only for a visit to the night market in Phuket Town.

And so, for a change of pace, the Banyan Tree Phuket – one of the town’s stalwart luxury resorts, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year – has put together a quaint initiative that allows its guests to see a different side of Phuket: the island that has been around long before the hospitality brands mushroomed and tourism took off.

The luxury group Banyan Tree launched its Stay for Good initiative last year to encourage immersion with local culture

Launched in 2023, Stay for Good is part of the Singapore-based Banyan Tree’s global initiative to connect its properties with local communities, tying a thread not only between the brand and its lands, but with the guests that stay as well. The experiences are short but immersive and interactive – great for both short-stay travellers as well as longer-term guests who want a taste of local culture as inspiration for what to delve deeper into during their travels.

These sustainable experiences are also available at the luxury group’s branches in Anji, Bangkok, Bintan, Krabi and Puebla.

What better place to start than with filling the tummy? Stop one on our tour was a culinary demonstration, where we watched local purveyors make hot-off-the-stove coconut crepes for us to taste. Then we got our hands dirty (well, with gloves on) as we participated in making Thai herb rice, a fragrant concoction of grains and aromatics that got more perfumed as the ingredients were mixed together and various oils released.

All of the herbs were – you guessed it – locally sourced, and included the usual lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and roasted coconut, but also the likes of torch ginger and bitter leaf. It was a heavenly concoction; with rice like this, who needs main dishes? It tasted as good as it looks.

Phuket produces a large amount of rambutan, a red, spiky fruit

Our next stop was to a verdant farm, where our guide scuffled up a tree to harvest a local fruit called dokong, his knees wrapped around the trunk as he plucked the ripened fruit that dangled from branches. He placed them into our waiting hands, which were soon sticky with juice – and then, saliva, as our palms filled with leftover skins.