Phuket province is made up of one large island(Phuket Island) and several smaller ones off the West coast of Thailand in the Andaman sea. When I was here (Mid-Sept., 2008), I stayed in the main tourist town of Patong Beach. The only way to escape the lady-boys and tailors here is to go underwater. Fortunately, Patong also seems to be the home of dozens of dive shops. Most of them don't run their own boats, but act as brokers, booking spots on dive boats based out of another part of the island. I booked a 3-dive trip (about $120, which seemed to be the standard rate) out of the "Dive Asia" shop. The boat ride to the nearest site was about 2 hours (the max speed of most dive boats here seems to be about 5 knots). I picked this dive trip because it visited a good variety of different "structures": A wreck, a reef and a wall.
