Fisherman's Village, Bophut
Samui's old trading street survived the island's rebuild: a row of timber shophouses, a Friday night market, and the Gulf at the end of it.
Where
Koh Samui
Best time
February to September — the Gulf runs opposite to the Andaman, and October to December is its wettest stretch. Friday is the walking-street night.
Before tourism, Samui was coconuts. They went to Bangkok by boat in their millions through the middle of the twentieth century, and the merchants who handled the trade were Chinese and Hainanese and built their premises where the boats came in. Bophut was one of those places: a single street running parallel to the water, timber-fronted shophouses on both sides, the sea at one end of it.
When the island rebuilt itself in the eighties and nineties — concrete, Chaweng, the airport — Bophut was left alone long enough to become worth keeping. The street was restored rather than replaced, and it now holds most of the good eating on the north coast, a handful of small hotels behind the fronts, and a beach that is shallow, calm for most of the year and entirely unremarkable, which nobody seems to mind.
It is the one part of Samui that has an evening rather than a nightlife.
What survived, and what it was built for
The shophouses are one and two storeys, timber above and often masonry below, with wide shuttered fronts that opened directly onto the street so a merchant could work from the threshold. Behind them the plots run back towards the water, which is where the goods went out.
The frontages have been repainted and are now restaurants, but the proportions and much of the joinery are original, and the Chinese and Hainanese families who built them are still named above several of the doorways. It is a small piece of urban fabric, a few hundred metres of it, and the reason it reads as coherent is that nobody was permitted to put a five-storey block in the middle.
The Friday market, and the other six nights
On Friday evenings the street closes to traffic and becomes a walking market: food stalls end to end, the usual crafts, and a crowd that comes across the island for it. It is genuinely good and it is genuinely busy, and that is the trade.
The rest of the week the same street is a row of restaurants with tables out, several of them properly good, and it empties by eleven. Whether Friday is the night to come depends entirely on what you want from an evening. We will say which we would choose and why, and either is a reasonable answer.
Where Bophut sits on the island
Bophut is on the north coast, midway between the airport and the west, which puts most of Samui inside twenty minutes. Wat Phra Yai — the Big Buddha, a twelve-metre gold-painted seated figure on a causeway islet — is five minutes east, and best at the end of the day when the light is on it and the coaches have gone. Bang Rak pier, beside it, is where boats leave for Koh Phangan and Koh Tao.
The beach at Bophut faces north, which means flat and swimmable for most of the year, and choppy when the north-east monsoon runs through November and December.
How We Visit
Our way in
We use Bophut as the base for the north of the island rather than as a stop on a tour. It is twenty minutes from the airport, and it is the only part of Samui where dinner is a walk rather than a drive. We book the table, which on a Friday is not optional, and leave the rest of the evening open. Where the journey continues to Koh Phangan or Koh Tao, the pier is five minutes away at Bang Rak and we run the crossing privately rather than on the scheduled boat.
Questions
What travellers ask
What is Fisherman's Village in Koh Samui?
A restored street of old Chinese and Hainanese timber shophouses at Bophut, on Samui's north coast, dating from when the island's economy was coconuts and the trade went to Bangkok by boat. It survived the island's rebuilding, and now holds the north coast's best concentration of restaurants, a weekly Friday night market, and a shallow, calm beach at the end of the street.
When is the Fisherman's Village walking street market?
Friday evenings, weekly, when the street closes to traffic and fills with food and craft stalls from around five o'clock until late. It is the busiest night of the week in Bophut and draws people from across Samui. On any other evening the same street is a quiet row of restaurants with tables outside, which some travellers prefer — both are worth doing, and they are not the same experience.
Is Bophut a good place to stay on Koh Samui?
Yes, if you want an evening you can walk to. Bophut is on the north coast, twenty minutes from the airport, with most of the island inside half an hour and the pier for Koh Phangan and Koh Tao five minutes away. The beach is shallow and calm for most of the year, though it takes the north-east monsoon in November and December. It is quieter than Chaweng and much better for eating.
Journeys That Include This
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