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There is one almost every night. They just are not all on the same night.
Check the day
People turn up at Lard Yai on a Tuesday, or at Chillva on a Sunday, and find a closed street. Every market here runs on its own days, and nothing on the island rewards a bit of planning more. Get it right and this is the best value eating you will do all trip — most plates cost a fraction of what the same food would at home.
Thalang Road closes to traffic and turns into 360 metres of food stalls through the middle of the Old Town. The best one, and the busiest.
Do not park on Thalang Road or Soi Romanee on a Sunday. The street closes and your car is stuck until after nine. By seven it is shoulder to shoulder.
Shipping-container bars and food stalls on Yaowarat Road with a mostly Thai crowd rather than a tourist one. Wednesday and Thursday are the best nights.
Enormous, and mostly replica clothing — but the food section is genuinely worth the trip on its own.
Every Friday the strip at Cherng Talay fills with Thai street food you do not get in restaurants, local produce and usually live music. The best value evening on the Bang Tao side.
Behind Jungceylon in Patong. Pick your seafood downstairs and have it cooked upstairs — far better value than anywhere on the seafront.
A covered street-food market about a mile and a half south of Bangla, with halal stalls among it. Six or seven in the evening is the moment.
The fresh-produce market, and the best cheap breakfast on the island — congee, Thai sweets, roti mataba. Two hours and it is done.
Hours drift, and one market’s own listings often contradict each other. Your itinerary lines the markets up against your actual dates so the right one falls on the right evening.
Mostly: which night, and where.
Sunday, and only Sunday. Lard Yai runs along Thalang Road in the Old Town, which closes to traffic and turns into 360 metres of food stalls. Go between five and six before it fills.
Chillva is open every night except Sunday. Naka is weekends. Boat Avenue is Fridays. Banzaan in Patong and Malin Plaza are both daily, and Talad Kaset is mornings only.
Lard Yai on a Sunday, and it is cheap even by Thai standards. If it is not a Sunday, the food section at Naka is the reason to go, and Malin Plaza in Patong is covered and has halal stalls.
For the food, yes. It is enormous and mostly replica clothing, so go for the eating rather than the shopping, and go at a weekend because that is when it runs.
Talad Kaset, in the mornings. It is the most authentic market on the island and costs a few pounds to eat at, but it is over by the time most visitors are up.
