With over 100 stalls along the sides of this canal, the 27-acre Pattaya Floating Market is one of the largest floating markets in Thailand. This is a great place to pick up a souvenir or memento of your trip, with everything from silverware and art to traditional sculptures and wooden handicrafts for sale. The canal-side food stalls offer regional delicacies from all over Thailand, including the classic pad thai and the delicious kanom krok coconut pancake.
Opened in 2008, Pattaya’s Four Regions Floating Market was developed to promote the different food, produce, arts and crafts of the four main regions of Thailand – Northern, Southern, Central and North-Eastern. If you look carefully, you will see the subtle differences not only in the produce and wares for sale at each stall, but also in the architecture of the stalls themselves.
The market features a network of wooden boardwalks and footbridges, allowing you to explore on foot and take your own time wandering from stall to stall. Small boats carry the goods into the market, and you can sometimes buy produce from the boats themselves, before they even get to the stalls. If you would like to experience the market from the water, it’s worth hiring a boat taxi that will take you through the canals and stop whenever you want to hop off and explore further.
The market has a host of other things to see and do besides shopping. There are various cultural and dance performances every afternoon, which are free of charge, while the woodcarving museum is home to a great selection of hand-carved sculptures from across Thailand. Before you head home, stop at the sunflower field for a photograph.
The Pattaya Floating Market is located on Sukhumvit Road, just south of Pattaya and can be reached by one of the local buses that leave from the main beaches. The market is open every day and charges a small entry fee. Note that the market can get very busy at weekends.
