Old Phuket Town and Soi Romanee

Old Phuket Town, on the island's east side, is the part of Phuket that has nothing to do with beaches. Along Thalang Road and the streets around it, the Sino-Portuguese shophouses built in the tin-mining boom have been restored in pastel colours, with shuttered upper windows and shaded walkways along the front. Soi Romanee, a short lane off Thalang Road, is the frame most people come for: a run of brightly painted fronts that reads best looking straight down its length.

Early morning is the time, while the shutters are still down and before the delivery vans and the first visitors; the light in the lane stays soft until the sun climbs, and turns gentle again in the late afternoon. The colours suit a couples or engagement session, a solo portrait in a light dress, or a family that wants something other than sand, and the Old Town works in any season — the island's plan B for a wet monsoon morning.

This is a street people live on, not a set. Doorways stay clear, the steps in front of a house belong to whoever lives there, and a resident sweeping a shopfront is only in the picture if they say so. Once a week Thalang Road turns into an evening walking-street market (check when it runs): lively, but not the evening for clean frames.