Visiting an Isaan Village, Thailand.

Noot and I just spent a few days at her grandfather’s village just over 120klms away from our home. It is on the banks of the Mekong River; it is pretty isolated and is a good place to recharge your batteries.

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Khun Da’s to the far right, the markers are things to see there.

I have blogged a few times about the whole of Ubon Ratchathani province being declared drought disaster area. This above picture is from October 2008 when we visited. To view any pictures in larger sizes just click on them and go to my Flickr page.

This is from yesterday; the river is a lot lower now. I have seen it lower a few years ago but again the Thais just think that it will pour rain every year, fill the river and dams and all is good again until the next wet season. The year when the rains don’t come will be a real eye opener for many.

Looking downstream in October, there were no rocks to be seen. The river was an orange colour from all the runoff from the rain.

Now the river is much clearer, I some places there would be 20 metres of water separating Thailand to Laos. You can walk out on the rocks and throw rocks onto the bank in Laos, I did this.

This is Noot’s grandfather’s house, Khun Da. The house at the back is Da’s. Like many village houses it has an open living plan, open to the elements. The house at the front is Noot’s aunts. This was built for them a while back and is a little more western style, as in it has walls.

We had not long arrived and we were off, off in search of food that is. The girls were hungry as it had been at least 2 hours since they last ate. This is the typical village food shop.

We had taken our niece Ja with us. She was of course the centre of attention.

This shop does a variety of the Thai staples. Here in the village it is much cheaper than in Ubon. Each plate of food is at least 5 Baht to 10 Baht cheaper.

I think every shop or house in rural villages have a dog. This was the shop’s dog. Very placid and was eager for any leftovers that might have been left. I bought it some processed meat balls for being such a lovely dog.

Ja, Ben and Noot sat and waited for their orders. Ja tucked into her formula. She had rice soup, ‘Joke’.

After eating we went visiting, this is a village Elder. She is a really lovely lady who suffered horrible burns from a lightning strike. During a terrible storm the lady was sleeping in bed with an electric fan near her. The lighning hit the house and apparently blew the hell out of the fan. Her husband died and she received these burns and also lost her leg. This is one of the reasons Noot is petrified during storms and unplugs many things.

We then set off to visit some other friends in the village.

This is the village temple. It is basic but serves its purpose. The monks live back in the foot of the mountain in little huts.

This is the village school. It is for primary school children only. Secondary students have to travel about 30klms to the nearest school.

The afternoon was shaping up to be very beautiful.

Here a lone fisherman heads off upstream.

Cotton grows along the banks of the Mekong everywhere. Here a lady is rolling or I suppose ginning it.

In the afternoon I headed off for my jog. It was a lovely afternoon and the scenery was a really good change. Mountains were to my left and the Mekong River was to right. Also the hilly road was a good change. There were plenty of small inclines and downhill sections which I enjoyed.

The main reason for visiting the village was this man, Khun Da. He is a great guy and cannot do enough for Noot. He has looked after his entire family by providing them with everything they needed. His farm is now worked by his family but he still does what he can around the house. He is very active and healthy for an 85 plus year old. He doesn’t drink, apparently never has I was told but does enjoy the odd cigarette.

At night, moths are attracted to the florescent light. Thankfully we sleep behind a huge mosquito net well away from all the bugs of the night.

The first night after I turned off the laptop after watching a DVD at around 11pm, it was pitch black and also so silent. The only sounds were crickets, cicadas and the odd bird or something running across the tin roof.

I actually had trouble getting to sleep because of the quietness. The sounds of Noot and Ja breathing heavily, seemed to be amplified in the silence. I laid there waiting for a motorbike, dog or a person to break the peace and quiet. It didn’t come.

It did come at about 4am, I checked my telephone when some stupid roosters got dawn mixed up with complete darkness and started having a crow off. This thankfully didn’t last too long but not long after this people started getting up and the sound of motorbikes and chatter started to echo out through the house.

So for all the tranquility I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have at home in Ubon. We were up at 6am and off to the local market in the street. This will be another blog, which is coming soon.

Brunty