Category Archives: Nakhon Phanom

Guide Book to Darkest ……. erm!….. Isan?… Issan? ….. Isarn, Isaan, Esan, Esarn, Eesarn? ….. whatever!

Posted on May 3, 2011 by | 3 comments

When I set out to explore Isan I looked for a guide book, but found none. The few mainstream ones had a remarkably short section on the place, missing out half the provinces and barely covering the others. It was as if they were acknowledging that it wasn’t a place for tourists. After a month here I’m convinced of that too, it’s a place for people that want to visit Thailand.

Part 1 – Templed out in Khorat (Nakhon Ratchasima)
Part 2 – Khorat to Phimai
Part 3 – Buriram to Nang Rong and Phanom Rung
Part 4 – Around Phanom Rung
Part 5 – Kalasin to Roi Et
Part 6 – Mukdahan
Part 7 – The Ban Song Khan Catholic Massacre Monument
Part 8 – Nakhon Phanom (City of Mountains)
Part 9 – Ho Chi Mihn’s House in Thailand
Part 10 – Buddha Park and Nong Khai
Part 11 – Nong Khai to Udon Thani & Ban Chiang
Part 12 – Chaiyaphum in my Tardis

I called my travels Darkest Isan, where decent Thai’s fear to tread, rather jokingly for the Thai stereotype of this Lao speaking region is as a rundown backwater populated by peasants completely unThai. In reality the traditional Thailand these stereotypers are talking about no-longer exists and hasn’t for a decade. After a month in Lao the previous year, my favourite place on earth, where I travelled to the unspoilt east, I embarked on my trip the Isan half hoping the stereotype was true and I would recapture the Lao experience. What I discovered should have disappointed but didn’t, Isan is like in the stereotype not unThai backwater but rather the lost old Thailand instead. Isan has become not so much what Thailand used to be, but what it could have become if it had gone another direction. What would Chiang Mai or Phuket could be like had not one tourist set foot there, and not an undeveloped backwater, but a place that has retained its identity and is designed for locals.

Never having really taken to the north and south of Thailand, I’ve always been an east, centre and west sort of person. What my Isan trip did was make me an Isan or Nakhon Nowhere as many ex-pats like to call it, sort of person. In fact in April 2011 I moved here. I’m not sure whether anyone has used the term before but from now on when I talk of the people and place it’s, we Isanites.

3 Comments

Posted in Buriram, Chaiyaphum, Isaan, Kalasin, Khon Kaen, Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom, Nakhon Ratchasima, North East, Roi Et, Travel Blogs, Udon Thani

Ho Chi Mihn’s House in Thailand

Posted on January 29, 2011 by | 4 comments

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

For the Americans reading is this blog, Ho Chi Minh is that damn pinko “grrr!” who as TV and Hollywood have proven on celluloid really didn’t kick the arse of the US army after all. For people in the rest of the world he was leader who fought to free his country from French, Japanese and US oppression. For we Londoners he’s a local boy done good. It’s not often a snow sweeper from Ealing goes on to found a country. This man lead a remarkable life , between 1923 and 1933 living in Hong Kong, Milan, Switzerland, Boston, New York, London, France, Russia and China, working as a cook’s assistant, waiter, pastry chef, co-founding the French Communist Party and writing for French magazines.

Ban Na Jok or the Thai Vietnam Friendship Village lies west of Meung Nakhon Phanong along the Sakhon Nakhon highway and was the residence of Ho Chi Mihn, or as the locals call him, Uncle Ho. Located a 30 minute bicycle ride from town centre, it’s an unmissable attraction, Uncle Ho himself walked from there to Sakhon Nakhon and then onto Udon Thani, so the so no excuses for not doing the short bike ride.

The Vietnamese and now Thai speaking as well village is a beautiful throwback into times of old, a devolved mixture of farmhouses, small freeholds and old wooden villas in their own grounds sprawling across erratic paddy fields, so different in style to Thai farmland you get a real sense of being in another country. Founded over 110 years ago with  most of the resident’s still today being Vietnamese,  it was an obvious place for Vietnamese migrants to settle in and Uncle Ho did for a time as he was building his movement to free Vietnam from colonialism back in ………. Well, there’s the first stumbling block. Exactly when Ho Chi Mihn lived in there is problematic, the high quality glossy brochure I got from the Ho Chi Mihn Museum tells us that Uncle Ho arrived at the house in 1923 and stayed for 7 years. However all biographies of Ho Chi Mihn I found say he only lived in the village between 1928 and 1929.

Whatever the real timing the house where Ho Chi Minh lived during the twenties gathering support for his campaign to free Vietnam is owned today by Mr Tiew and his energetic daughter Miss Kornkanok who speaks four languages and does her upmost to make you feel welcome, she lives in the house next to Uncle Ho’s and if your lucky may invite you in to chat to for ages.

While living in the house, Lung Ho(Thai) or Jin (Vietnamese) learnt Thai and supported himself by teaching  fishing to the locals, he also had a hand at forming the land around the village being a prolific gardener planting several coconut and areca tress that are still there today

The house has been changed little from when Uncle Ho lived there. I’ve seen a lot of old houses in Thailand preserved but they have been mansions and a lot of old peasant wooden houses not preserved, this is the first peasant house I’ve seen kept as it was in the early 20thcentury and apart from a collection of photos and memorabilia decorating the walls it gives a better experience at what a peasant’s life may have been like back then than anywhere else I have been in Thailand and is worth a visit for this alone. Also at the heart of the village is a new modern museum built with Vietnamese money celebrating the life of their former president. In the Communist spirit both Uncle Ho’s house and the museum are free to enter, donations appreciated.

4 Comments

Posted in Nakhon Phanom, Travel Blogs, Traveling Thai, Travelling in Thailand

Nakhon Phanom (City of Mountains)

Posted on January 16, 2011 by | 2 comments

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

This sleepy little provincial town was once part of the Lan Xang Kingdom of Lao and later a picturesque retreat for French colonists. A mix of the old and new, or perhaps I should say old and new money as the affluent architecture of the past is joined by affluent architecture of the present.

The immaculate modern foreshore gives uninterrupted kilometre after kilometre of the most stunning views of the Mekong I’ve seen on either side of the river. The city of mountains is actually quite mountainless, sue the TAT not me, but has stunning views of the great limestone mountain range in Lao.

Nakhon Phanom retains much it’s French/Lao/Old Thai/Vietnamese culture today and barely feels like you are in Thailand, let alone Isan. A foreign tourist in this town is about as rare as cheap accommodation, the locals are both friendly and often tongued tied when they meet you. They may also be made of sterner stuff than other Thai as every second restaurant in town seems to be a steak house, no wussy vegetables or rice for them, just red meat.

There is surprisingly much to do in this town which doesn’t seem to have yet grasped the notion of entrance fees. When you have finally prised yourself away from the Mekong view and the stunning panorama of Lao mountains, there’s the former governor’s teak mansion, completely deserted and open to anyone who wanders in. The prison museum and park on the former site now has been turned into a waxworks warning all naughty Thais to reform. The TAT office is worth a visit, just to get to go inside the huge French colonial mansion that houses it, they were completely stunned to have a tourist and they don’t have a word of English but can still give you a great map of the town and province.

The centre of major fighting during the Vietnam War fortunately the stunning French colonial and traditional Thai architecture has survived and the highlight of any trip must be cycling north and losing yourself in the maze of side streets off the Mekong bank road where you are in a different world and era of French mansions, traditional Thai wooden buildings, modern villas all blending seamlessly. The town has quite miraculously avoided the Thai generic ugly concrete bloc syndrome, only around the major roads in the south does it succumb to this. My favourite place on my whole trip to Isan.

2 Comments

Posted in Nakhon Phanom, North East, Thai Travel News, Travel Blogs, Traveling Thai

That Phanom

Posted on February 17, 2006 by | 3 comments

According to the That Phanom Chronicles, eight years after the Buddha’s death 500 Arahants and five lords of the five states headed by Maha Kassapa constructed the reliquary in the shape of a four sided kiln, eight to ten meters tall, and in it placed the breast bone relic of the Buddha. Over the past 2500 years the shrine has been restored several times and now stands 57 meters tall overlooking the town of That Phanom.

The That

People visit the shrine throughout the year, but the most moving and auspicious time to visit That Phanom is during the festival that marks Magha Puja. This small town on the Mekong River, half way between Mukdahan and Nakhon Panom grows from a few thousand, to the size of major city, as tens of thousands arrive each day to make merit and worship at the shrine. This was my 5th visit to the festival.

Circumambulating the That

The first place to stop is the museum. It houses some quite interesting artifacts and information about the history of the shrine. There is also a set of murals that explain Buddhism in Isaan. From there, west of the shrine about 50 meters is a Bo-tree that is a branch of the tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment and was brought here in 1952. Now it’s on toward the shrine. As you pass through the first door-way you’ll enter the cloister that makes up the outer wall where many of the monks at the festival will spend the night and in front of you will be the inner wall that surrounds the shrine. This wall has first built in the second century B.C. and has been rebuilt numerous times. Remember to take off your shoes when entering the inner wall. The That itself is surrounded by statues of past abbots and sometimes Buddha images from the cloister are placed around the That.
More about That Phanom and other Isaan places in following entries.

tom

3 Comments

Posted in Isaan, Nakhon Phanom