Khao Rang Viewpoint

This guide to the Khao Rang Viewpoint above Phuket Town tells how a hilltop pavilion came to hold a statue not of a king, but of a provincial governor. It follows Phraya Ratsadanupradit's modernization of Phuket under King Rama V — the tin mining, the canal, the rubber trees brought north from British Malaya — and the Sino-Portuguese shophouses that wealth built below. These days the hill belongs to morning joggers, temple monks, and a troop of macaques that has claimed the parking area.