Soi Romanee, as seen on MapJack

Most people will have heard of Google Street View by now, with its camera cars clicking their way down streets in the States and the UK, and its special face-blurring software, turning whole populations into Play-Doh people.

Google Street View doesn’t cover Phuket, and its probably going to be a while until it does. But someone else is already here. It’s called MapJack.

MapJack was started in 2007 and by last year had already made Time magazine’s Top 50 Websites list for its imagery of San Francisco and other Californian cities. From San Francisco, MapJack leaped clear across the Pacific to start doing cities in Thailand.  One suspects that one of the website principals takes his holidays here.

The images have blue circles set in them. Click on any of these to advance into the view, or drag with your mouse to turn and look around. The photography is beautiful – crisp, bright and colourful.

Apart from Phuket, areas covered are Chiang Mai, Krabi, Hua Hin, Ayutthaya, Mae Hong Son and Pai. They also took pix in Pattaya, and got into hot water for uploading uncensored images from Sin City. They took them down again. Pattaya panoramic images are currently available on Pattaya Photo Guide.

If you see someone like this, put your clothes back on.

In Phuket, you can go for virtual walks along streets in the old centre of Phuket Town, you can take a look around the Laguna Golf Club, Patong, stroll along Yanui, Kata and Karon beaches, go to Layan, to Boat Lagoon and Royal Puket marinas, and a bunch of other places.

The image at the top of this article is of Soi Romanee in Phuket Town, from the website. Click on it for a screenshot of the MapJack page layout. To go to MapJack, click here.

Oh yes, one last thing.  MapJack doesn’t blur faces like Google Street View, so behave yourself out there. Unlike Google, which does its photography with a rig strapped to the top of a car, MapJack has a wearable rig (see right), allowing the photographer to go down narrow alleys or even inside buildings. Even, theoretically (if clumsily), into your bathroom. Thanks to Warzauwynn on Flickr for the pic.

Virtually walking around Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.