Stage 1: Sarasin Bridge → Mai Khao
Updated: Aug 18
And so it begins. On Saturday morning, a small group of us gathered at the Sarasin Bridge at 7 am and took the first steps of A Walk Around Phuket. We completed 12.68 kilometres down the northwest coast to Mai Khao Beach, mostly flat and following the shoreline. Three hours of walking, 17,000 steps, and one stage done. Twenty to go.
Here's what the coastline showed us along the way.
A bridge and its tragedy
You can't begin at the Sarasin Bridge without meeting its story. Locals call it the Bridge of Love — but the name comes from a tragedy. The bridge opened in 1967 as the first link between Phuket and the mainland, named after former prime minister Pote Sarasin. What people remember, though, is what happened here in February 1973: two young lovers, Dam, a poor local bus driver and rubber tapper, and Gew, a student from a wealthy family, were forbidden from being together by her father. One night they bound themselves together and jumped from the bridge.
The story became part of Phuket's collective memory, and in 1987 it was made into a film — Saphan Rak Sarasin, "Sarasin, the Bridge of Love." A beautiful name for a heartbreaking story.
It's a heavy note to begin a hopeful walk on. But there's something fitting in it too: this bridge, once a place of heartbreak, is now a quiet pedestrian walkway where families come to fish and watch the sea. Places change. What they mean can change.
The tide decides where you walk
The coast doesn't give you a single, easy path. At the beginning of the walk, the beach was wide and firm, the outgoing tide had left us a generous stretch of hard sand. A bit later, the water pushed us up off the beach entirely, and we picked our way along the flat ground behind it, threading past one beachfront resort after another. You walk where the sea lets you, not where you'd planned to. It's a small lesson the coastline teaches quickly: adapt, or get your feet wet.
Two Phukets, side by side
The most striking thing about this first stage was the contrast. On one hand, long stretches of coast still almost untouched, the protected shoreline of Sirinat National Park, casuarina trees, empty sand, the sea doing what it has always done. On the other, luxury resort after luxury resort, private loungers, massage stalls lining the sand.
The two sit right next to each other, and walking between them all morning, one question kept surfacing: how sustainable is Phuket's tourism, really? The island's beauty is exactly what draws millions of visitors, and that same pressure is what threatens the beauty. There's no easy answer, and I don't pretend to have one. But walking the coast slowly, on foot, at the pace the tide allows, you see the tension up.
Walk it yourself
That's Stage 1: a bridge that carries a sad and heavy history, a coast that keeps changing character underfoot, and a lot to think about. If you'd like to walk this stretch yourself, you can download the route below and follow the exact path we took.
Next up: Stage 2, down to Nai Thon, and this one has some hills. If you'd like to come along, you'll find all the details on the site.
One island. 233 kilometres. One step at a time.
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