Thalang Road

This guide to Thalang Road in Phuket follows the Hokkien Chinese migrants who arrived with nothing during the island's nineteenth-century tin boom, and traces how miners became merchants who built the shophouses lining this street. You'll hear about the Baba children born of marriages between these traders and local Siamese women, and the fusion of Chinese proportions and Portuguese arches still visible in the facades. A tip: step into any doorway to feel the century-old tiles underfoot.