We always enjoy visiting the Southern Thailand city of Nakhon Si Thammarat and, when we visit, we always visit the Municipal Market, the talaat sod (fresh market). It’s a morning market and we make a point of getting there early for a bit of breakfast before we browse the market.

Nakhon Si Thammarat Market Sign

(Note: scroll down for a beautiful slide show of images from the market.)

This market has been in this location at least since 1992, when we began coming to Nakhon Si Thammarat. In December of last year (2010), right around the time of the King’s Birthday, the market completed a renovation and re-opened in this location after being relocated for 8 months. In addition to getting spruced up, the market became appreciably larger. Like many Thai markets, it’s an enclosed market with built-in stands for the vendors. It’s now probably as large or larger than the morning market in Krabi. (See our blog Krabi Morning Market.)

Vegetable aisle

This market is primarily a morning market and to see everything, you’ll want to get there early: certainly by 8:00 a.m. in the morning, and earlier if you can. It’s different from a separate Sunday market, which we’ll feature in a future blog. This is definitely a local market. You won’t see a lot of fahrang (the Thai word for Caucasian) here, especially inside the market where most of the wares are targeted for cooks.

Nakhon Si Thammarat has one very long street running from east to west – Ratchadamnoen Road. The municipal market is found on Thanon Pak Nakhon (I’ve also seen it spelled as “Pagnagon Road” – thanon means road) – which intersects Ratchadamnoen Road – leading away from the Train Station. If you have turned off the main road the market is on your left, about a half block past the Nakhon Garden Inn.

Thai snacks

Unlike the market at Krabi, all of the sit-down stalls with hot food are on the outside of the market and it does not have as many eating stands as at Krabi.

Once you enter the market, it’s organized by section. On the side closest to Thanon Pak Nakhan there are sweet snacks (khanom wan) and flowers. Other aisles (or parts of aisles) feature fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, prepared pastes, and so on.

The vendors here are very friendly and mostly enjoy having their pictures taken. It’s always more fun to walk through a market when you’re greeted by lots of smiles.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on “Play” below to begin a slideshow. You can also click on any picture individually and either scroll through the images using “Next” and “Prev” or start the slideshow at any image. Captions accompany the images. Clicking on a slide will also take you to the next image.

Nahkon Si Thammarat Municipal Market – Slide Show

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Sign for the Nakhon Si Thammarat Municipal Market, seen from Pak Nakhon Road

Approaching the market from Ratchadamnoen Road, it’s on the left.

Prepared food is found on the outermost aisle of the market.

Just inside the door, the flower & snack Aisle

Some of the beautiful flowers for sale.

A snack vendor, also found on the aisle closest to the street.

Some traditional Thai kanom (snacks).

Fruit vendor with a combination tropical fruit plus (imported, usually from Washington state, U.S.A.) apples.

At one end of the market there are a number of vendors selling kanom jeen - fermented rice noodles.

One of the highlights of the market for me are all the vendors selling pre-made chilli and curry pastes.

Here's a close-up of some delicious looking curry paste.

There's also many vendors selling luscious mounds of kapi - shrimp paste.

Another view of this vendor, who sells curry pastes, chilli pastes and kapi (shrimp paste)

Here's a view of the vegetable aisles.

Almost a one-stop vegetable vendor.

This vendor has several kinds of eggplants, winged beans (in the middle), cucumbers and more.

Here's some very fresh and young galanga (kah) with bright orange turmeric in the back.

These winged beans (tua poo, in Thai) are a bit more frilly than I've seen before.

This woman is a pork vendor - meat vendors tend to specialize in one kind of meat (pork, beef, chicken, duck)

Here's another view of our pork vendor: not quite the way pork is sold in the United States!

Every part of the pig is sold: here we see small and large intestines.

Did I mention that they sell every part of the pig?

Traditionally, the Thai people are not afraid of a little fat, such as we see in this delicious-looking pork belly.

These two Muslim women are selling ducks and chickens. In Thailand it's quite common to see them with both feet and head still attached.

You get quite used to walking through the aisles at the market.

We usually come across some cute Thai children on our market walks. Hard to resist.

These three seafood vendors were quite keen to have their pictures taken.

Need a large amount of an item delivered in the market? Use a motorcycle!

This fish vendor is scaling, cleaning and fileting a large fish.

Very fresh seafood of all kinds, such as the crab, are found here.

So many varieties of fresh fish, such as these snappers. Whole fish are preferred.

This man was very proud of the large fish he had for sale.