Lard Yai Sunday Night Market

This guide traces Thalang Road in Phuket Old Town back to its origins as Lard Yai, the big market built up by Chinese tin merchant families a century ago, and follows its slow fade as the tin trade declined and overhead cables tangled the sky. You'll hear about the 2010 decision to bury those cables underground and how cafes crept back into the old shopfronts before the community revived the road as a Sunday walking street in 2013. Listen for the smell of coconut ice cream and Hokkien noodles drifting past the pastel Sino-Portuguese facades as you walk.