The China Inn Café is one of Phuket City’s hidden jewels; even some people who have lived in Phuket all their lives have yet to realise it is there.

After many false starts, Phuket will finally get a state-of-the-art water park when West Sands Water World opens to the public at the end of January.

Bang Rong Community restaurant with its excellent, cheap, halal food.

A classic mansion in Phuket, left to rot for years, is to be reborn as a sophisticated Thai restaurant.

US-based resort management company Outrigger has been selected to manage a luxury collection of residences, villas, town homes and apartments being developed by Laguna Resorts & Hotels in Phuket.

The Phuket Community Foundation recently brought a gleam to the eyes of the hundreds of children living in the Mai Khao area when it opened its second toy library at Hongyok Bamrung School, in the north of the island.

Laguna Phuket, with its six – soon to be seven – resorts, has put together an array of family entertainment and activities called the Summer Family Festival, running from July 8 to August 30.

When the going gets tough the tough get inventive. Phuket’s Indigo Pearl Resort, on quiet Nai Yang Beach is offering a new twist on pricing for those who book one of its new Retail Therapy packages.

For those who like their exercise wet, mid-June sees the inaugural Thailand Surf Series, from June 12 to 14 in the sea off Kalim Beach.

Phuket’s film festival may be dead, but fashion is very much alive, with more than 150 models and celebrities heading for the island for Phuket International Fashion Week, from June 24 to 30. There will be 21 fashion shows during the week, with the promise of concerts by 20 or more top artists every night – no names announced so far, although there is a strong rumour going round the Korean all-girl band Wonder Girls will be performing at some stage.