Phraya Ratsadanupradit (Khaw Sim Bee na Ranong) Monument

A bronze statue of Phraya Ratsadanupradit — Khaw Sim Bee na Ranong to most Phuket residents — stands at the summit of Khao Rang, the hill overlooking Phuket Town. Entry is free. Khaw Sim Bee governed Trang from 1890 before taking over as High Commissioner of Monthon Phuket around 1901, a post he held until his death in 1913, and locals credit him with laying out much of Phuket Town’s road network and civic buildings during that period.

The statue itself is modest in scale compared to the hilltop it commands, mounted on a plain pedestal with a bilingual plaque summarising his career. What makes the site worth the climb isn’t the monument’s craftsmanship so much as its position — Khao Rang was chosen deliberately so the man locals call the father of Phuket Town keeps a permanent view over the streets he built.

Insider Tip: Locals still bring flowers to the statue, particularly around anniversaries connected to his death. If you see fresh offerings at the base, it’s a sign of ongoing local respect rather than a tourist ritual — treat the immediate area with the same quiet you’d give any memorial.

Don’t confuse this with the separate monument to the same man on the Trang-Phatthalung Road in Trang, which marks his earlier posting as governor there before he moved on to Phuket. Both are legitimate, distinct memorials in the two provinces he administered.

Getting up Khao Rang means a drive or a taxi ride rather than a walk — the hill climbs steeply out of Phuket Town’s flat centre, and there’s no direct footpath most visitors would want to tackle in the heat. Once at the top, the statue shares the hilltop with a small park and a run of restaurants that look out over Phuket Town’s rooftops, which is why locals and visitors alike tend to linger past the monument itself rather than treating it as a quick photo stop.

The hilltop setting makes this an easy pairing with a Phuket Town history walk — Phuket Old Town’s Sino-Portuguese shophouses and the Phuket Cultural Centre both sit a short drive down the hill, and together they trace the same era of the town’s development that Khaw Sim Bee oversaw.