After Bangkok the real travel began again. On a rickety old train, with the wind in our hair, we headed northeast into a part of Thailand that not many travellers go, unable to pull themselves away from the islands and beaches of the south. There's always time for lazing around on beaches though, we wanted to see a side of Thailand that not many tourists do, only 1% of travellers to Thailand in fact.
Northeastern Thailand or Isaan, as it's called, is an interesting melting pot of Thai, Lao and Khmer people where the culture, food and language take influence from all three. It sounded interesting enough to us so from this point on it was all squat toilets, fan rooms and ring burning helpings of chilli. Oh, and amazing hospitality, like a lady and her son sharing their lunch with us on the train. Do we really look that destitute?
First stop was Korat and first stop in Korat was the nightly food market. We sampled some regional speciality Isaan sausages (an amazing sausage made from fermented pork, sticky rice, chilli and a heap of garlic) that came with a handful of birdseye-like chillies, som tam (papaya salad), pork scratchings and some little tapioca ball things that we've grown to love. It was a good intro to fiery Isaan cuisine.
Then the next morning the strangest thing happened. We went out of our way to go and do something that wasn't food or drink related. Crazy hey.
Prasat Hin Phimai is one of the biggest and most important religious sanctuaries found in Thailand and, rather uniquely, reflects Hindu and Buddhist influences. The main tower inspired some of the work at Angkor Wat and the overall complex is believed to be the end point of an ancient Khmer route from Angkor. All of that aside, it's a pretty spectacular site and one of those places that you can hardly imagine being constructed these days, let alone during the 11th century.
Our next destination was Khon Kaen. Only a four hour bus ride sat next to the biggest Thai man in existence stood in the way of us getting there. This guy would cradle you like a newborn, MM.
First stop in Khon Kaen was again, another market. This time the Saturday Walking Market which is a cracker. We wandered through the non-food bit and were tempted to drop a few thousand baht on the pug and beagles pups we saw and I asked Nix if I could buy all of the sugar gliders and set them free but unfortunately we walked away animal-less so decided to eat some instead.
We followed the lead of the rest of the locals and grabbed a heap of food and ate ourselves stupid at a little squat table. Highlights being a rotisserie quail (check out that rotisserie!), more Isaan sausages and a pandan flavoured sugar syrup drink.
The following morning we were back on the temple trail this time the nine storied, and very spectacular, Phra Mahathat Kaen Nakhon. Each floor becomes more spiritual the higher you ascend up the stupa starting off at depictions of rural Khon Kaen life (including those of a very obvious ladyboy with breasts and a young girl blowing a fart at an opposing tribe) up to the ninth level which houses relics of the Lord Buddha. We could actually get into this temple thing if they can keep this up.
Look out for the next post on the final stop of our Isaan adventure.
Pug Sightings - 6. It appears that Isaan love its pugs.
