ISAAN SHAPES UP TO TOURISM

by Reinhard Hohler

There is always a reason to travel somewhere, be it a personal or official one. For me last month it was the 8th International Thai Studies Conference in Nakhon Phanom that got me hitting the road again.

And the road it was after I discovered that both PB Air and THAI charge 2,300b for the short flight from Bangkok. Couple that with my fare south to Bangkok and I opted quickly for the 12 hour VIP day bus journey from Chiangmai to Udon Thani at 550b, followed by 4 hours on a local bus for another 120b. See more, experience more!

The conference venue was the newly built Nakhon Phanom River View, a luxurious hotel right in front of the mighty Mekong River. Overlooking the watery international borderline between Thailand and Laos, every room offers you the opportunity to admire a beautiful sunrise and sunset along the rugged limestone mountains behind the Laotion town of Tha Kaek.

Considered the hub of the upper northeast, Nakhon Phanom boasts many city attractions along a huge developed riverside promenade with delicate temple compounds and floating restaurants. This riverside area is particularly popular in the hot and dry season, when river water drops to reveal unspoiled sand, stretching almost to the Laotion side of the Mekong. Laotion influences are seen in the Province's dialect, customs, house architecture and cuisine.

Colourful jumbo taxi drivers, typical of northeast, took me first to the Mae Nam Kong Grand View Hotel, where the office of North by North-East Tours is situated. Nick Ascot, the Canadian general manager, is offering pioneering adventure tours to all important out-of-city attractions and launching boat trips into Southern Laos as far as the Khone waterfalls. A highlight is a caving trip in the mountains of Tha Kaek and excursions further afield to Central Vietnam.

Other sightseeing spots are the old Ho Chi Minh House in a Vietnamese village near Nakhon Phanom, where Uncle Ho lived for seven years in the 1920's, the Phu Thai ethnic minority of Renu Nakhon and the lotus-shaped pagoda of Wat Phra That Phanom, located 52 km south of the provincial capital. The 57 m high pagoda is the most revered Buddhist shrine in the whole of Isaan, the place where the Lord Buddha's breast bone was placed sometime in the 6th century BC. In 1975, the tower which holds the relic collapsed into rubble after several days of heavy rain, but was reconstructed under supervision of the His Majesty the King.

Both tourist hotels at the riverside were full due to the conference, so I settled down in the Windsor Hotel for 400b a night in the city centre, near an old clock tower, handicraft shops, the harbour and immigration to Laos. Thais can cross there easily into Tha Kaek, but foreigners need a visa from the Lao Consulate in far away Khon Kaen or the Lao Embassy in Bangkok. There is still no visa on arrival, as at the famous Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai. If Laos really wants to attract more tourists, this must change.

The conference went into full swing after a welcome dinner party, organised by the Faculty of Humanities of Ramkhamhaeng Univerity, Bangkok. Of the 21 papers, highly recommended to read are Isaan Studies, partly chaired by well-known American Professor Charles F. Keyes, and one by Australian anthropologist Chris Lyttleton, who drew attention to drugs and the Golden Triangle, highlighting the cultural and social crisis in contemporary Thailand.

I returned by local bus to Udon Thani and then for only 228baht by night back to Chiangmai, arriving here at 5.00am, still wondering how quickly Isaan is really shaping up.

Reinhard Hohler is a long-term resident of Chiangmai and a travel consultant on the Greater Mekong Subregion. He can be reached at e-mail: sara@cmnet.co.th

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