7-Eleven

On an island this small, a 24-hour convenience store matters more than it would anywhere else. This is where you end up at midnight when the beach bars have run dry, or at six in the morning before a boat, buying cold water, instant noodles and whatever passes for breakfast. Aircon, fridges, toiletries, phone bits. Nothing you haven't seen a thousand times on the mainland, which is rather the point.

Where it differs is stock and price. Everything here arrives by boat, so the shelves aren't as deep as a Bangkok branch and gaps appear when the island is full. Don't count on it for anything you actually need. Prescription medication, contact lens solution, a specific brand of sunblock, particular baby items, buy those in Satun or Hat Yai before you cross. Treat this place as a backstop for basics, not a supermarket run.

My advice is to use it for what it's genuinely good at, which is being open when nothing else is. Late-night snacks, cold beer, a toothbrush you forgot, cash-cold aircon on a brutal afternoon.