Trang Breakfast Culture

Trang's breakfast tradition comes from its Hokkien Chinese community, who settled here through the rubber and tin period, and it runs on a schedule that surprises visitors: the coffee shops open at four or five in the morning and the serious eating is done before seven. What is served is dim sum in bamboo steamers - pork and prawn dumplings, buns, spare ribs, chicken feet, fish maw - alongside the town's other speciality, mu yang Trang, roast pork with crackling that Trang claims as its own and which is genuinely different from elsewhere, roasted in a way that leaves the skin blistered and the meat sweet. It is eaten with kopi, strong local coffee brewed through a cloth filter and taken with condensed milk, or as kopi oh without. The shops are old, plain and full of men reading newspapers, and the whole thing winds down by mid-morning.

What you actually see

• The early hours - shops open from four or five, the serious eating done by seven.
• The dim sum - bamboo steamers of dumplings, buns and ribs.
• Mu yang Trang - the town's roast pork with blistered crackling.
• The kopi - strong cloth-filtered coffee with condensed milk.

When to go

Any day, before seven in the morning - the tradition is genuinely early and shops empty and close by mid-morning. An hour or two.

Honest expectations

The tradition is early and does not wait - arriving at nine means missing most of it. Shops are plain and functional with little English. Trang is well off the main tourist routes.

Nearby

Trang town is the centre; the Trang islands are reached from Pak Meng and Kuantungku piers.