Cool Khon Kaen, at the centre of Thailand’s northeast Isaan region, is a hip little city. Short on sights in comparison to the cities of the north, such as Chiang Mai, the appeal for us is the upbeat atmosphere of the place.
A university city, Khon Kaen has a youthful vibe, a lovely lake skirted by leafy paths, lively weekend evening markets, and street vendors serving up delicious Isaan food, whose stalls seem to dot every footpath and roadside around the entire city.
Khon Kaen is the kind of place where we wished we could have stayed longer and is a place we’re already planning to head back to. But, sadly, we were on a tight magazine deadline – the Isaan road trip story we’d been working on was due the day we returned to Bangkok! – and we had less than 24 hours in town.
After checking in to our charming Isaan style villa at Supanniga (read our review of the property here), we did check out a couple of the sights.
We visited the town’s gigantic, gleaming, nine-tiered gold pagoda, known as Phra Mahathat Kaen Nakhon, at the temple complex of Wat Nongwang Muang, also known as Wat Nong Waeng.
There, we watched ladyboys flirting with each-other as they made offerings and young novice monks taking photos of pretty girls with their mobile phones. And we wandered around the grounds of the wat with a friendly monk who told us how much he loves to travel and meet people.
We also strolled around Beung Kaen Nakhon, the lake that is Khon Kaen’s centre-piece, where locals love to power-walk, jog, ride their bicycles, walk their dogs, feed the pigeons, rent pedalos, breakdance, fool around with hula hoops, and do laps of the evening markets, grazing on the fantastic fiery food.
At the market, young hipsters hung out and flirted, sold handmade jewellery and second-hand clothes for less than one dollar a piece, and traded in all kinds of kooky services.
There was an elaborate nail stand set up where several young women were painting wild designs onto customers’ artificial nails. There was a pottery-making stand, where you could paint a ceramic at low tables by the lake then pop it in the kiln and pick it up your creation later on.
At another stand, a student sold all kinds of helpful IT services from two laptops he’d set up on a blanket on the ground – he could do anything from clean your hard-drive of viruses and download software to help you set up your Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.
And then there were the food stalls… ah, the food stalls. I’m salivating just thinking about them, but I’m going to tell you about those in another post…
university cities are cool.. i love the vibe there too.. and the street food is cheaper as it caters to students. So nice!
As someone from Khon Kaen, you’d appreciate there are many different locals from all sorts of backgrounds, classes, etc. Locals are not only poor if that’s what you’re suggesting. The charming owners of Supanniga are indeed local, from Khon Kaen, and they’ve lovingly decorated the property to their own taste.
We will do homestays at some stage, but they weren’t appropriate to the story we were hired to do on this occasion. We had a specific brief to cover the things we experienced during our road trip through the region – hence the short duration of this particular trip. We were working, we were not on holidays, so our time was dictated by magazine schedules.
As for the content covered above, these are blog posts, not comprehensive stories covering our every movement. We *did* visit the Isaan’s Khmer ruins in fact (click through and you’ll find posts on those). We did not visit and have no interest in visiting the Dinosaur Museum or King Cobra Village – we don’t write about typical tourist sights. We *will* be returning to Khon Kaen again, but next time to write about its food.
Let me clarify also the name you’re referring to is for the 9-storey pagoda or stupa, but the entire wat complex is called Wat Nongwang Muang or Wat Nongwaeng; Muang being the district of course. I’ve now clarified that in the post.
When referring to the region, it’s common to use ‘the’ as in ‘the Isaan’, in the same way we might say ‘the Northeast’. Both are correct, just as Isaan is spelt Isaan, Isan, Isarn,and even Esarn.
Agree! We just love the atmosphere of cities like these. Whenever we travel we’d much rather just hang out, walk, eat, and do some people-watching, than visit tourist sights, and we can do it in places like this guilt-free. And, yes, you’re right about the prices – very cheap! An added bonus. Thanks for dropping by!
Of course it would be silly of us not to give a plug to ‘khon kaen’s’ kindle book on Amazon: Thailand Land Of Scams – it’s worth a look just for the cover alone…
Excellent. This has become one of my favourite posts!
Hi Jenny – thanks! Much appreciated. Loved Khon Kaen and keen to return. Thanks for dropping by!
Thanks Brian.