Exploring Thai Towns on Mekong
By John HoskinChiang Rai hides its age well. It is, in fact, thirty-five years older than Chiang Mai, northern Thailand's largest and best known city. Founded in 1262, it was briefly the capital of King Mengrai's budding Lanna kingdom, but history passed it by when, in 1297, Chiang Mai was created as the North's permanent capital.
The world's 12th longest, 10th largest river, the Mekong rises in the Tanghla mountains of northwest China and flows through the heart of peninsula Southeast Asia before reaching the sea at the southernmost tip of Vietnam
Nowhere along its 4,200-kilometre course does it enter Thailand, although much of its middle passages skirts the Kingdom, forming the national boundary with Laos. The river touches Thailand briefly in the far north, but it is much more extensively viewed in the northeast where its passage provides the focal point for a fascinating tour of the region's riverine towns.
For the people of I-san, as northeast Thailand is known, as well as for their ethnic cousins, the Laotians, the Mekong plays a traditional and integral role in their lives, dependent as they are on wet rice cultivation and fishing for their food staples. The river also figures large in legends, popular beliefs and folk culture, all of which adds colour and interest as the traveller passes through stunning scenery in a landscape mostly untouched by modern development.
The most convenient gateways to the Mekong in I-san are the provincial centres of Loei, Nongkhai or Ubon Ratchathani. Road from Bangkok provides the easiest access, although Ubon is served by domestic THAI flights, while both Ubon and Nongkhai can be reached by rail from Bangkok. Once in the region, travel by car is easiest; alternatively public buses link the main towns.
For touring purposes, a journey starting in Loei and finishing in Ubon, or vice versa, covers the Mekong's entire passage in the northeast, with a road bordering the river for most of the distance. A shortened excursion takes Nongkhai as the starting point.
The Mekong first joins the Thai border in I-san a short distance to the east of the small town of Chiang Khan, lying about 50 km due north of Loei. Set in a large valley surrounded by wooded hills, Chiang Khan is a typical riverine settlement in these parts; lost in its own tranquility and remarkable purely for its pretty setting and fine views of the river.
From Chiang Khan a road parallels the river on its eastward passage towards Nongkhai. A short distance downstream of the town are the Kaeng Khut Khu rapids, where the Mekong makes a sharp curve to pass a rocky outcrop. Apart from scenic spots such as this, the route along the riverbanks remains consistently picturesque, the forested hills of Loei reflected across the valley in the even more verdant mountains of Laos.
Dotting the surface of the water are small islands and sandbanks many of which, like other natural features along the Mekong, are associated with local legends. Two islands near Pak Chom, for example, represent, so one tale has it, a Thai man and a Laotian woman who were deeply in love, but their union was thwarted by insurmountable obstacles that eventually led to their deaths.
True tales, too, exemplify the mythical status attributed to the river by popular belief. On both sides of the Mekong people talk of how the river can become "hungry" for a human soul, and how, if not appeased, the rains will not come and so the rice crop will fail. Such beliefs are not idly held.More
