Night market, Surat Thani Province, Thailand

5Suratrichard 5:00 PM Sep 17, 2020

Vibrant and exiting!
Bandon night market is situated not far from the river and about ten minutes walk from the night boats. It is not the collection of food and fruit stalls alongside the river or the other market by the river. It's a popular, crowded place with a whole variety of foods available with some food stalls offering sit down eating facilities. Some of the best street food around can be found here...superb Pad Thai from a stall opposite the Gold cafe. 40baht for a great plate of food! Near the pad Thai stall is Smile bakery which offers a great collection of bread products and sweet treats all at very reasonable prices. By the entrance to the temple, is a stall selling delicious patango. There are stalls selling all types of curry, fried insects and local foods. A word of warning is that one or two stalls won't sell one portion...you have to buy a minimum of two. There are fruit stalls but only buy from the ones showing prices particularly if you're not Thai and chose your own fruit otherwise you may end up buying fruit that's damaged. It's a great place to visit and buy a good meal cheaply. If you arrive by car,parking is available in the temple grounds for 10 baht. It's a busy market and like all busy places, there will probably be a few people not interested in buying food so don't splash the cash and best not to wear expensive jewelry. Keep passports( if you're a visitor to Thailand) out of sight.

5Suratrichard 5:00 PM Sep 5, 2021

Still popular despite Covid
Maybe this market isn't quite as busy as before the pandemic but it's still popular with locals and the variety of mainly food stalls remains the same. There's ample parking (10baht) in the temple grounds adjacent to the market and there are now a few food stalls actually in the carpark. One thing to be aware of if you are more than the average height for a Thai person, are the roofs of some of the stall are quite low so be careful of the steel roof supports! As mentioned earlier, there's a good range of food available with some of the stalls providing seats and tables if you don't want take away food. There is also a very good bakery stall (Smile Bakery) offering a wide variety of produce. For under a 100 baht, two people can eat quite well! Certainly worth a visit.