The
shopping experience on Koh Samui should not be missed. Everything
is amazingly cheap, and it’s especially nice if you’re
a family with children to feel like you can afford to go shopping
for once.
Here we are looking around in Natron, the capital
of Koh Samui
There is of course a huge range of brand copies, but it’s
fun to look around and you can easily haggle with the shopkeepers/market
sellers..
Amongst others we shopped in the the town of Bophut on the
North Coast of Samui as well as Lamai and Chaweng on the East
Coast. Chaweng is the largest shopping centre and there are
many clothes shops and shops selling electronic goods. The
towns often consist of a long main high street with quite
a lot of traffic, so you need to take care when crossing the
road. There are also markets in nearly all the towns, selling
all kinds of things, from plastic items to exotic fruit or
clothes.
In Natron in a covered market area
The main town Natron is definitely worth a visit. The shops
there are a bit different and there is a large covered market
area where the Thai people buy fresh fish, meat, vegetables
and fruit etc. This is a particularly ’authentic’
market (our children were nearly passing out from the smell)!
The hygiene was in truth very different from home. In Natron
there is a lovely little shop which specialises in batik prints.
We bought a beautiful, hand-dyed hammock for £7.50,
in which our baby Arthur now sleeps in our kitchen.
There is also a shopping centre on the island at Lotus, which
more or less consists of a huge supermarket and a few restaurants.
You can buy pretty much anything here – a bit like a
Thai version of Kmart.
Brand copies can be bought everywhere – especially
in the big tourist areas
In Thailand you can buy very cheap cds, videos, gameboys
– pretty much any kind of electronic equipment. CDs
and videos cost around £1.50 each (you can even buy
the very latest releases). Very occasionally the quality is
not the best but only in very few cases.
There is also a huge market for designer copy clothing, such
as Gucci, Rayban, Von Dutsch, Etnics, Diesel, Puma and many
others, the quality of which is excellent. (These are particularly
popular with teenagers). For the adults there are a lot of
beautiful fabrics in Thai silk – for example bedspreads
and cushion covers.
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facts about samui