Kathu Waterfall

This guide to Kathu Waterfall in Phuket looks past the modest four-tier cascade to the valley's Chinese mining history, following Hokkien settlers who raised a shrine here in the early eighteen hundreds and an opera troupe that fell ill mid-performance in 1825. It traces the Taoist rituals they turned to and the sacred images they left behind before departing. Climb the staircase to the first two tiers, and visit in the wet season, June through October, when the water runs strongest.