Phratamnak Night Market

Go for dinner, not for shopping. The real pull here is food: trays of ready-made meals, vegetables, meat and fruit at prices that undercut cooking for yourself, plus carts and stalls doing everything from fried rice to a Philly cheese steak. One juice stand gets singled out again and again for pitchers of fresh-pressed celery, beetroot, carrot, apple and ginger. Clothing and everyday goods fill out the rest, but I'd treat those as a bonus rather than the reason to come.

It's fully open air, which is the thing to plan around. There's no air conditioning, so midday in the hot season is a slog and the evening is when the place makes sense, with more vendors out and a better crowd. Stick to the Thai stalls if you want speed and volume for your money. At least one sit-down restaurant here has drawn complaints about tiny portions and long waits despite an almost empty room, which is the usual trade-off when you sit down instead of pointing at what's already cooked.