The lasting victims of Covid.

At least once on every visit to Phuket I ride up to the Sarasin Bridge as I enjoy the journey and find it an attractive landmark. However, it is looking decidedly neglected and is rather a sad sight. I arrived mid-afternoon on a fine day and I was the only visitor there.

Things do deteriorate very quickly in this climate and it reminded me of the countless hotels in the backstreets of Patong that have simply been abandoned, stripped of anything worth salvaging, and left for nature to eventually reclaim. Even if the developer has gone belly-up then surely some-one still owns the land and shoud be forced to tidy it up or else face losing it.

Sarasin Bridge used to be a tour-bus destination and I suppose that, if that business is revitalised by the return of the Chinese, then they will invest in a fresh lick of paint. For the hundreds of abandoned properties in Patong that will not happen as it appears to me that most are beyond saving as they have been damaged during the salvaging.

When I first visited Phuket, the huge abandoned resort at the southern end of Nai Yang beach was a unique curiosity - now the island is covered in them.

However, on a positive note, although many part-finished new developments outside of Patong seem to have been permanently abandoned, I have noticed numerous new start-ups around the Layan area, literally in the last month or so.