Mukdahan

Darkest Isan (where decent thais fear to tread), Part Six

I first hit Mukdahan 12 years ago, arrived at the bus station, took a tuk tuk through the town along Mekong road past the Indo-Chinese market, thought this looks interesting I must really visit this place someday, arrived at the ferry port and got on a boat to Savannaket in Lao. I’m sure on some planets in the cosmos 12 years counts as soon, so I’m back as promised.

Barely large enough to warrant the title town, this ragged little hamlet is best described as feeling like a seaside resort in the winter, the riverside markets and shops outnumbering the customers. Mukdahan is culturally and ethnically unique from the rest of Thailand and feels like a bordertown, which in my experience is very rare amongst bordertowns.  Unlike many small Thai towns Mukdahan still has a lot of character and has not yet succumbed to the grid of concrete building formula, especially near the banks of the Mekong where a lot the original wooden buildings survive.

The town is on a hub of trade a trade route between Lao, Thailand and Vietnam. Traditionally ferry boats from the town centre sedately shipped people back and forth across the Mekong, now they speed across the newly built Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge 2, 6 km upstream. which seems as if anything to make trade pass the town by, rather than help it, many traders complaining the place is nowadays is quieter if anything. since the bridge.

The town’s main draw is the Indochina market on the banks of the Mekong attracting legions of Thai bargain hunters to buy an amazing variety of goods at prices that would make a Chatuchak shopper cry. In fact you could buy here and resell on your stall at JJ and make a damn good profit, as I guess many are. Also if you listen carefully you can hear Thai, Lao, Vietnamese and several ancient dialects of Thai spoken as you wander through the Indochina Market.

For the non-shopper the town offers a host of act ivies, after pigging out in one of the town’s numerous Vietnamese restaurants, the only restaurants in town which don’t seem to a have a six page long insect section in their menu, the Mekongside road offers a rare experience. The road leaves the town to the north and just goes on for hundreds of kilometres, hugging the banks all the way. The road is old narrow and in poor repair and a brand new highways runs the same route nearby, so the old road is devoid of cars, offering an opportunity for tranquil cycling. Hiring a bicycle or motorcycle and taking a day trip up the road will offer the tourist about as good a trip into real Thailand as it is possible to get, as the road passes through farms, villages and spectacular scenery.

Ho Kaeo Mukdahan

Whoever thought of combining a viewing tower and ethnological museum obviously wasn’t thought a little weird by the people who let him build it and we should be grateful he wasn’t. Laying just a kilometre outside Muang Mukdahan, Ho Kaeo Mukdahan turned out to be something of a revelation and worth every moment of the lengthy time I spent there.

The tower is split into four levels. The ball at the top a shrine housing many Buddha images. Below a viewing tower offers a panarithic view of the lanscape around. To the to the east quite the best view of the Mekong there is anywhere in Thailand, to the north the town of Mukdahan, looking south the forestsand mountains of the national park and looking west the working paddyfields. Around the tower are comprehensive photomaps in English explaining every site you see as you look in that direction in detail

The first two floors are an ethnological museum of the unique people who make up the population of Mukdahan, who are Thai tribal rather than hill tribal. The museum houses tradional objects and displays of the tribes national costumes. A large wall display tells the history of the region, the unique local customs of the 8 Thai tribal groups and gives fascinating insights into the unique versions of Thai they each speak. A huge collection of original photos dating back from over century show just how unique Mukdahan is culturally from other Thais as they were still living a tribal lifestyle akin to what other Thai would have lived in the distant past. However most amazing of all the Museum houses all the original official documents from Mukdahan’s history which the visitor is free to handle and examine.

It took me 12 years to get back to Mukdahan, but it was really worth the wait.