Night markets, by the night they are on

The week, in order

Sunday — Lard Yai, the Walking Street on Thalang Road in the Old Town. Thalang Road closes to traffic and the Sino-Portuguese shophouses do the rest. Listed as 5pm to 9pm. This is the one with the Phuket specialities you will not find elsewhere: a-pong coconut pancakes, o-eaw shaved ice, loba.

Saturday and Sunday — Naka, on the edge of Phuket Town past Central Festival. The biggest and the most chaotic. The market's own site says 4pm to 11pm; other listings say it winds down from 9pm. Its separate food centre runs every day, 7am to 9pm, which makes it useful on a weekday too.

Monday to Saturday — Chillva, on Yaowarat Road, 5pm to 11pm and closed Sunday. Built out of stacked shipping containers, aimed at young Thais rather than tourists, and the reason almost any weeknight works.

Tuesday and Friday — Karon Temple Market, in the grounds of Wat Karon, 4pm to 10pm. Monks around, incense in the air, and a completely different atmosphere from the town markets.

Friday — Fun Friday at Boat Avenue, Bang Tao, 5pm to 10pm. The only proper market within walking distance of the Laguna resorts, which is why it caught on.

Wednesday to Friday — Indy Market on Limelight Avenue, from 4pm. Small, creative, and the market that started the whole scene in Phuket Town. The Limelight Muslim food court is on the same lane.

Every day — Kata Night Market runs from about 2pm to 11pm and Malin Plaza in Patong from 2pm to midnight, which makes both of them the answer when it is Monday, raining, and you want to eat at four in the afternoon.

Mornings — Banzaan behind Jungceylon in Patong is a fresh market from 6am, and the surrounding streets turn into a food zone in the evening. Pick your fish off the ice and carry it to one of the kitchens beside the market to be cooked.

If you eat halal, read this before you go

Thai market food is built on pork. Grilled pork skewers, moo ping, crackling, pork in the noodle broth — it is the default protein at almost every stall, and stalls do not separate their grills or their utensils.

That does not put the markets off limits, but it does change where you go. The village markets are the ones that cook for Muslim communities: Bang Tao Morning Market, the stalls around Rawai, and the Limelight Muslim food court in Phuket Town, which is a food court rather than a night market and is explicitly Muslim.

At a mixed market, seafood and fruit stalls are the safest ground, and asking is normal rather than awkward — a large share of this island is Muslim and vendors are used to the question. CICOT's green certification logo is the strongest signal when you see it, and in the villages it is often simply not displayed because the whole community eats there.

Four things that make a market night work

Arrive at sunset, not after dinner. The light is better, the crowd is thinner, and the popular food stalls have not been running for three hours. Eat at the market rather than before it.

Bring small notes. Plenty of stalls still do not take cards or QR, and 20s and 50s move a queue along in a way that a 1,000-baht note does not.

Haggle on clothes, never on food. Food prices are fixed and already low. Clothing usually opens at around double what the seller will take.

Skip Naka if crowds are not your thing. It is the biggest and the most photographed, and it is also the hottest, loudest and hardest to park at. Sunday's Walking Street is the calmer choice.