Lard Yai Sunday Night Market

Sunday is the only day this works, so build your week around it. From 4pm until 11pm, Talang Road in the old town closes to cars and fills with stalls selling grilled meats, fresh seafood, Thai sweets, clothes, accessories and handmade bits and pieces. It's a street-food dinner more than a shopping trip, and the prices reflect that. If you've been eating near the beach resorts, the difference in what you pay will be obvious.

The setting does a lot of the work. You're walking between old shophouses, and the crowd skews local enough that it never tips into a tourist-only affair. My advice is to turn up around 6pm, when the stalls are all up and running but you can still move without shuffling. By 8pm it's properly busy. Come earlier in the afternoon and you can wander the heritage streets around Talang first, then eat your way back down the market as the light goes.