Ancient buildings in Sino-European style

This isn't a monument you tick off in five minutes. It's a street. The shophouses along Thanon Dibuk run in a continuous sequence of color, shuttered windows and fussy plasterwork, the product of 19th-century tin money and a marriage of Portuguese and Chinese building styles that didn't happen anywhere else in Thailand quite like this. Walk it end to end and the point becomes obvious.

The corner where most people stop is busy with souvenir stalls, snack sellers and juice shops, which is either part of the appeal or a reason to keep moving, depending on your mood. My advice is to do what several people who've been here suggest and hit the Phuket museum first. You get the tin-mining history and, more usefully, a map that tells you which buildings actually matter. Without that, one pretty facade blurs into the next.

Go early. The light is softer, the street is quieter and you're not walking in midday heat. Rain doesn't ruin it either, the colors hold up fine under gray skies.