Wait. Just to avoid confusion: when I say “shopping,” I don’t mean going out for a shopping spree. I’m referring to household shopping, groceries for cooking, fruits, vegetables, cleaning supplies, etc.
When we lived in Israel, we had our go-to places for doing our regular shopping: a big supermarket for bulk purchases, a neighborhood store for top-ups, a shop where we’d buy nuts, you get the idea.
During our journey, we move from one destination to another, renting an apartment or a house and basically living just like we did back home: cooking meals, doing laundry, cleaning.
So, in every place we stay for a while, we look for “our supermarket”, a place where we can buy everything we need for daily life.
So where do you actually shop in Koh Lanta?
Well, it depends on what you’re looking for.
Just like anywhere else in Thailand, Koh Lanta has a large number of 7-ELEVEN stores. You can find bread, cheese, milk, soap, and laundry detergent thereתmostly in small packages that are best suited for short stays.
You’ll also find branches of Big C and Lotus chains on the island.
We looked for a larger supermarket with more variety and found two good ones:
- Mother Marche Supermarket – A relatively large store with a decent selection of products. This is where we usually shop because it’s closer to where we live.
- Lanta Mart – The biggest supermarket on the island, with a wide variety of products, including Western goods. It’s located in the Sala Dan area, which is farther from us, so we only go there occasionally to buy things we couldn’t find elsewhere.
As for fruits and vegetables, we buy them at the Thursday morning market, which is not far from our house. Prices at the market are usually lower than in the supermarkets.
To find out where markets are held on other days, simply type the day of the week plus the word “Market” into Google Maps.
For example, if you want to know where there’s a market on Monday, type: “Monday Market” into Google Maps.
Markets usually operate in the morning hours. But don’t worry, if you suddenly crave fruit in the evening, you’ll find plenty of fruit stands along the main road of the island.
Water, Water, Water
In Thailand, unlike in Israel, tap water isn’t drinkable, so yes, you need to buy your water too.
If you’re here on vacation, you can simply pop into one of the chain stores I mentioned earlier, or a local supermarket/convenience store, and buy bottled drinking water.
A 1.5 liter bottle costs around 13-14 baht.
As you can imagine, Thailand is hot year-round, so drinking water is always in demand.
If you plan to stay longer, buying bottled water regularly means driving to the store, carrying heavy bottles, spending quite a bit of money, and generating lots of plastic waste.
So, we do what the locals do: we drink filtered water from reusable 19 liter jugs, placed on a water dispenser. Each jug costs 20 baht.
When it’s empty, we leave it outside the house with 20 baht, and the service truck that drives by replaces it with a full one.
If you need a refill and don’t want to wait for the truck, you can swap the empty jug for a full one at small convenience stores around the island.
