A trip to an Isaan Village. Thailand.

We made a trip to Noot’s childhood village to see her grandfather and wish him a happy New Year. It is Songkran time, the water festival and we had left a day earlier to beat the traffic and the idiots it brings out as well.

















The road into the village had been repaired, well to an extent. The road has been a disgrace for the last year, massive potholes everywhere made driving slow and frustrating; the villagers said that there was no money to fix the road. Anyway, they came up with an easy solution in using clay like fill that is all over the place. They filled up the patches of road that needed repairing and simply spread it out flat. It isn’t perfect, but admittedly it does the job and made driving a lot easier.
Soon the Mekong River came into view; it is always a good sight to see.













On the 12th we didn’t do a lot but just relaxed and went around the village saying hello to people. In the evening we went to see a “Mor Lum” concert in a village 12 kilometres away. Mor lum is Isaan style dancing that Isaan Thais love. It involves having very young girls dressed in revealing outfits on a stage dancing, shaking, grinding and thrusting away to the music. Also there are singers and plenty of beer on sale for the younger teens and older men to enjoy. (I am going to cover this completely in another post).

Early the next morning, I was up early, very early as the local P.A system came to life with Mor Lum music and some guy speaking. The time was 4.30am; I would have loved to have gone and whacked the guy on the head with a stick. I stayed in bed for about an hour until I couldn’t take anymore and then got up and escaped. I grabbed the camera and went for a walk along the Mekong River.
A few fishing boats floating on the river.
These are motors that attach to the boats, the props aren’t very big.


A fisherman was bailing out some water that must be from a slow leak before he goes and checks his nets.

It was cloudy this morning.
A fishing net’s floats, float on the water surface.















A fisherman was heading downstream and home.
A fisherman was heading upstream, to check his nets and see what fortune had brought him.
The bank of the Mekong River is full of weeds, grass, cotton, corn and so on when the water level is low.
Returning to the village I came across some buffaloes on the track heading off to graze for the day.
This buffalo was up for some early morning action.
What are you looking at, farang? I gave this buffalo a scratch on its head and it seemed pretty pleased.
There were also some cows up high on the river bank; they were waiting for their owner to take them off to graze for the day. The animals are so placid and you can approach them easily and give them a scratch.

The sun was trying very hard to break through the cloud cover of the morning.
I arrived back at the house to find Miss Noot in the kitchen.
Noot was cooking pork and vegetable stir fry and also a soup for breakfast. I am not sure why as we never eat breakfast; she must have been bored!
Some village kids had started to play with water as it was the first day of Songkran.


Some of the Isaan villagers had made their way to the house. They were giving out little flowers made from material, they cost 20 Thai Baht and the money goes to the temple.
After we had all purchased a flower each they were on their way to a new house and with big Isaan smiles of course.

This is the real reason Thailand is called the Land of Smiles, it is from the villagers in Isaan and other parts of Thailand that this saying comes from, sadly many tourist don’t see this part of Thailand, spending their time in Bangkok and Pattaya where there are plenty of fake smiles that are flashed about the place.

So when in Thailand, take three days out of you holiday and get out and see the real L.O.S, what the real Thailand is all about and where living is good.

Brunty