Maenam Walking Street in Samui

This is a lovely but rather noisy family experience and the only difficult thing about visiting Mae Nam walking street on Thursday evenings when the market takes place is finding a place to park nearby but this can be circumvented by getting there early before six o’clock.

Mae Nam’s walking street is only a couple of hundred metres long but it’s packed with interesting stalls, snack vendors and even mobile cocktail bars!

On your stroll down the street you’ll come across corn-on-the-cob sellers, sweet vendors, acres of denim, a huge choice of T-shirts, ‘almost genuine’ Ray-Ban sunglasses, secondhand clothes, charming handicrafts, toy guitars and real guitar accessories, and those wonderful stands selling 50 baht cocktails – a quarter of the price of those sold in nearby five-star hotels. Towards the end of the market you’ll come across a colourfully lit Chinese temple which is definitely worth a photo.

Take your time; there’s absolutely no rush here and on some nights you can listen to live music played by local expats or enterprising Thai teens. If you wish to take it all in over dinner then try La Bonne Franquette near Mae Nam’s only traffic lights or