Lamai Night Market

Food is the whole point here. This is Lamai's everyday night market, on the beach road just before the bridge over the river, open every evening from about 17:00 to midnight. The stalls cook grilled seafood, Thai dishes, pizza, steaks and hot dogs in front of you, there's a section of clothing and souvenir stalls in the middle, and a bar with a stage puts on live music most nights. Eat, wander, eat again.

It isn't the Sunday market, which is where people get confused. Lamai also has a Sunday walking street, from about 17:00 to 22:00, with more crafts and clothes, and the old Lamai Night Plaza near McDonald's now trades as a seafood market. On a Sunday you can do two in one evening. What I like about this one is the mix of people, island residents as well as vacationers, which keeps it feeling like a working market rather than a show.

Aim for 18:00 to 20:00, when every stall is cooking and the aisles still move. Bring small notes, ฿20s, ฿50s and ฿100s, because vendors struggle to change big bills early in the evening and few take cards. Red songthaews wait on the main road to take you back to Chaweng.