The Fisherman's Village night market offers lots of variety in terms of food, drinks and hand made souvenirs. Choices are great but they are a big pricey.
You'll be hard pressed to find fresher food than that available in restaurants in Bophut. A quaint village with tons of art shops, t-shirt stores and suit makers, its most valuable attribute has to be the food. We ate at Happy Elephant on the Beach twice because we liked it so much. The barracuda fish fingers were delish!
Need to walk >200m after passing the big sign. Not very big but just a quite narrow street with goods that you could find at a lot of other places. Not even close to Bangkok weekend market. A lot of western restaurats. A bit expensive in the neighbourhood.
We were staying at Bophut and our hotel was at a walking distance by the beach from the village. We went on a friday night since they have this special night market. It was really crowded but nice to walk around and have some local food on the streets. You will find some souvenir too, but I wont recommend to buy it there except if you are a good bargainer.
There are few good restaurant and bars around, our favorite is Karmasutra! great food and the staff is attentive and funny.
We visited Fishermans Village 3 times in a 7 night stay at Koh Samui in July 2012 and have only good things to say about this charming place. Yes, it can be more expensive than other markets and shopping areas (especially in the permanent shopfronts), but we found several items in Fishermans Village that we didnt see in Bangkok or Phuket and the shops really are charming, so you have to take that into account. The restaurants on the water had a great view & there were several funky bar/restaurants with good music pumping down the alley. Loved the casual market shopping at night. Would recommend an afternoon shop & dinner on the waterfront side... & if you see something that you havent seen before that you really like, buy it ... you probably wont see it anywhere else in Thailand.
