Nong Khai & Udon Thani

During my one month stay in Khon Kaen, I did quick trips, around 24 hours each, to two places north of the city: Udon Thani, a mid-sized city under 2.5 hours away by local train, and Nong Khai, a small town on the Mekong an additional 40 minutes or so north on the same train line. The train ride was gorgeous, and I saw many water buffaloes, whom I love very much. 

(You can’t pre-book these local trains, which run between Nakhon Ratchasima and Nong Khai. You just show up and buy a ticket, and I think they only start selling them an hour before. There are faster, longer distance trains with fewer stops that ply from Bangkok to Nong Khai, but they don’t let you prebook tickets to/from nearby destinations as they reserve seats for longer journeys. If you wanted to book the full route and board/depart elsewhere, I guess you could. The local train is much cheaper, though. There are also regular bus options but I found those less comfortable, less fun, and slower. For info on the local train timings, see Thai Train Guide, relevant trains are 415 and 418. Both places have a lot of fun looking stuff to visit in surrounding regions, so a car would have been nice too!)

Udon Thani also has an airport, with flights from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket.

I had a great time in both places, though Nong Khai is the more noteworthy destination, with its scenic river views, small town charm, and epic sculpture garden, which is one of my favorite attractions in all of Thailand (though if you take away the sculpture garden, other riverside towns such as Chiang Khan are said to be more charming). 

As for Udon Thani, I’m not sure how much it had to offer that Khon Kaen (or, likely, the other two sizeable cities in Isaan) didn’t, and there are certainly more interesting places in Isaan to check out, but it was still a nice place, and the restaurant Samuay and Sons, which is kinda the main reason I visited, was excellent. I could see myself living in Udon Thani, even if it’s not a place that strongly warrants a trip.

As I don’t have that much to say about either place and they’re fairly close to each other, I’m clubbing them together in one post. 

These trips were in August 2023. I’m writing this over two years later. I hate when that happens. Between the limited amount of time I spent in each place and the very delayed writeup, these posts are going to end up pretty shallow. I apologize. 

Some other noteworthy places to visit in the area, which would require a car, include the Ban Chiang Archaeological Site (beautiful ancient pottery, around an hour’s drive from Udon Thani), Phu Phra Bat Historical Park (weird rock formations and prehistoric paintings, around an hour each from Udon Thani and Nong Khai, and the nearby Wat Pho Chai Sri looks really cool too), the Red Lotus Lake Kumphawapi (winter only, around 45 minutes from Udon Thani), not to mention the forest snake temple, mountainside cave temple, and of course a million other temples. There’s even a house where Ho Chi Minh lived, and a U.S. military camp! And a chocolate cafe! That said, I think the real draw around here would be Isan village life, though I can’t help you to find that.

Nong Khai

I’ll start with Nong Khai. This is a small border town, right across the river from Laos (which I’ve yet to visit), and a short drive or train ride from Laos’ capital Vientiane. There’s a modest amount of tourists here, notably more than in Khon Kaen and Udon Thani, but it hardly feels overrun with them. 24 hours here is enough time, unless you have a vehicle to explore the province, but it’s a nice place to chill out. The main attraction here is the sculpture garden, which I really loved.

I didn’t really find anything interesting to read about Nong Khai. I tried reading a one page summary of Nong Khai’s history but it was boring. It’s the second page in this PDF. Good luck. I can read full history books just fine but these one pagers break my brain.

We stayed at Mut Mee Garden Guesthouse (you can book via email), which I recommend! It’s right on the river and next to the starting point of the promenade, which is nice to walk along and is where the Saturday night market happens. The guesthouse has a range of room options, some quite nice looking, and some much more basic and cheap. I went with the latter. I wouldn’t say my room was particularly nice, but at 450 baht per night it was a solid value. The highlight is really the space, with the garden and dining area overlooking the river. I’d gladly chill here all day with a book or my laptop (and industrial quantities of mosquito repellent). Solid food too, not something that will blow away a connoisseur or Thai cuisine, but it was pretty decent tourist fare, and vegetarian friendly, which most restaurants in the area were not. The staff was nice and helpful, including the British owner who has written good guides to the region on the website. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to visit the Hornbill Bookstore around the corner, closed when I was there because the owner was on vacation.

Nong Khai was put on my radar when I heard about the Sala Kaew Ku, the crazy sculpture garden which is definitely the major draw of the area. This is one of Thailand’s handful of “visionary environments,” an artistic medium I’m hugely fond of. This lived up to the hype for me. Really awesome, wild sculptures derived from Thai mythology, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I don’t know what to say other than I really loved it, and I’d love to go back.

One of the highlights there is the Wheel of Life, a series of sculptures that takes you through the cycle of birth and death. I didn’t really know what was happening for a lot of it, but it was awesome. The owner of Mut Mee made a nice guide to it, I wish I used this when I was there!

The backstory adds to the appeal, too. From the Mut Mee website: 

“It was built by the mystic shaman Luang Poo Boun Leua Sourirat, who passed away in 1996, after constructing it, with the help of devotees, for more than twenty years.

Luang Poo Boun Leua Sourirat loved snakes, so much so that he believed in the "coming of the age of the snake". Seeing them as the purest of all animals, having no arms or legs with which to destroy the world, he described himself as being half man, half snake. Was this love of these phallic like animals in some way connected with his reputed homosexuality?

He claimed that in his youth he had fallen into a hole in the forest where upon he met the acetic "Kaewkoo" who lived at the bottom of it. "Kaewkoo" taught him all secrets of the underworld, not least about snakes which were the principal inhabitants of that realm. Later, he trained as a Hindu Rishi in Vietnam and mixed Hinduism into his system of beliefs.

As a Lao national, he first started to produce sculpture on the riverbank on the Lao side of the Maekong river. But as the communists became more powerful, he became concerned that they may not accept his unorthodox views and so fled to Nong Khai in 1974, where he embarked on the creation of Salakaewkoo; his grandest artistic vision. The name means the "Pavilion of Kaewkoo"”

There’s some more interesting info in there, and on the Wikipedia page of Bunleua Sulilat (there are confusingly endless variations of ways to spell the name of both the park and its founder). Sulilat died in 1996, and you can see his mummified body in a building at the garden (I didn’t go, but I don’t remember why, maybe it was closed). Sulilat’s first Buddha Park, across the river in Laos, is still open, though the consensus is that the Nong Khai one is superior.

After you see the amazing sculpture park, well, uh, there’s nothing so special to really do around here. But Nong Khai is still a cute, laid back riverside town that I enjoyed strolling through and eating in. If I had an extra day, I would have enjoyed going to work from one of the nice cafes, trying out some of the vegetarian restaurants, and getting in another sunset along the river.

If your trip aligns with it, definitely go for the Saturday night market. Great fun and worth coordinating your trip around (though as a vegetarian there wasn’t much I wanted to eat there other than juice and desserts, as is typical with these markets). Mostly locals there. There was live music and lots of old ladies dancing.

If you can’t make it for that, the boardwalk is still nice for a stroll either early morning or after the sun starts to dip, and there are still some daily stalls there. Sit somewhere, watch the boats go by (though you can also just do that if you’re staying somewhere with a river view, like Mut Mee). Check out the Tha Sadet Market, and At Tha Ruea Market Coffee & Gallery where my wife bought sato (rice wine) sold in a clay jug.

We planned dinner at one of the famous Vietnamese places, owing to the sizable Vietnamese community in the area. They surprisingly had nothing vegetarian, and the vegetarian places (Jay restaurants) close early, so we ended up at the Chinese-Isaan restaurant Dee Dee Pochana. It all worked out because the food was amazing. They seemed to understand the concept of vegetarianism well enough (though one of the dishes we got did smell a bit fishy, so we didn’t eat it) and we got an insanely good tofu salad and cashew salad. Also, stir fried greens and some noodles. For people who eat everything, check out the write-up from J. Kenji Lopez, who has more recommendations for you. Highly recommended.

Nong Khai is also known for “Naga Fireballs” that mysteriously appear every year. I didn’t look much into this, but I do want to watch the film about it: Mekhong Full Moon Party.

That brings me to my signature, writing about old movie theaters, though I’m mostly going to outsource it to the international treasure that is The Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project. They delivered the goods on two theaters, I believe both still standing: the Thep Banthoeng Theater (location) and the Peth Siam Theater (location). I visited the Thep Banthoeng.

The post about the Thep Banthoeng theater is worth reading, even for non-weirdos. It used to be common for foreign films to be dubbed live at each screening, with Thai performers speaking directly over the original audio tracks. When American troops were stationed in the area, they would sit in a booth upstairs where they could hear the original audio:

“In the early 1970's American CIA agents were trying their darnedest to undermine the communist insurgency across the river in Laos. Grandma Yamjit recalled renting out the entire top floor of her family's Thepbanterng Hotel, which was in front of the theater, to CIA agents. American military personnel spent a portion of their R&R in the soundtrack room of the Thepbanterng [...] The third level of the theater featured a soundtrack room, built to accommodate the many American service personnel that were living in and around Nong Khai in the early 1970's. This room would play the original English language soundtrack, as Hollywood films were otherwise dubbed in Thai.” 

Also fascinating: ‘"Once," said a sagacious old woman, "we looked towards Laos for the joys of film. That's the way they came to this part of Thailand. From China southwards the films came, down old trade routes through Laos, into Isan." The period that Grandma Yamjid was referring to was the 1920's and 30's, when China was one of the few East Asian countries to have a well established film industry. Thailand -- then Siam -- apparently wasn't distributing its films too far outside of Bangkok in those days, let alone the 600-odd kilometers to the tiny border post of Nong Khai, which was then mostly sugarcane fields. Enterprising Chinese traders filled that market niche by sending the coveted motion picture reel south into Laos, northeastern Thailand (Isan) and points beyond, spreading popular Chinese culture along the way.’

Though it’s a pretty small town, I was surprised to see two modern multiplexes.

There are some other heritage buildings in the area, whether nameless old wooden buildings or the prominent Governor’s Mansion. Nothing so exciting, though.

Of course there are many temples. I’m not sure any really stand out in the grand scheme of Thai temples, but I enjoyed checking out Wat Po Chai, the most significant temple in town, which has a highly revered Buddha image. I enjoyed seeing the murals, which tell the story of how the image got here (courtesy of Lonely Planet): 

“Luang Po Phra Sai was one of three similar statues made for each of the daughters of Lao king Setthathirat, and they were taken as bounty after King Rama I sacked Vientiane in 1778. The awesome murals in the hall housing the Buddha image depict their travels from the interior of Laos to the banks of the Mekong, where they were put on rafts. A storm sent one of the statues to the bottom of the river, where it remains today. It was never recovered because, according to one monk at the temple, the naga (which live in the river) wanted to keep it. The third statue, Phra Soem, is at Wat Pathum Wanaram, next to Siam Paragon in Bangkok. Phra Sai was supposed to accompany it, but, as the murals show, the cart carrying it broke down here and so this was taken as a sign that it wished to remain in Nong Khai.”

The Mut Mee website has a few more temple recommendations, and some cycling routes.

There’s also a museum, in a cute old government building, but it seemed semi-abandoned when I was there. I let myself in (I genuinely was unsure if it was open or if I was trespassing) and there were a lot of cool photos and what seemed like interesting information, but little of it was in English.

And people seem to like visiting the Issan Rum Distillery in the area.

Udon Thani

I hadn’t heard of Udon Thani and knew nothing about it except that there was an apparently great restaurant there called Samuay & Sons. As I was spending a month in Khon Kaen, just a few hours from Udon Thani, I thought we might as well do a day trip, go to the restaurant and check out the town. This ended up being an excellent way to spend 20ish hours, and I would gladly come back here to spend more time.

Udon Thani is one of Isan's four major cities. It isn’t so different from Khon Kaen, which is the only other one I’ve been to. Both have about half a million. Both are laid back and very pleasant, with nice lakes to walk around. Both are modern, with Central malls and a million fancy cafes. Both have old school commercial areas that feel like old Chinese neighborhoods in Bangkok. Neither has any must see tourist attractions, but I’d say just being a mid-sized Thai city warrants itself as a tourist attraction. Both have Isaan food as an attraction, though as a vegetarian I can’t really help you there. 

(Both have the Michelin guide to help you out, though! Download the app and sort by the Bib Gourmand restaurants. Here’s a 2-day itinerary from Michelin. There’s also an Eater guide to Udon Thani. Also, a blog I like called Bangkok Glutton has many posts mentioning Udon Thani.) 

As for how they’re different, I’d say Udon Thani was a bit busier and more developed, and had a few more white people wandering around (though still not that many, and they were mostly clustered in one area). In terms of culture, Udon Thani has a sizable Vietnamese community, Thailand’s largest at around 60,000 (that’s the number for the province, I believe, not the city), and there was a heavy American presence here during the Vietnam war, complete with a large air base. 

I’m inclined to say Khon Kaen was a bit more charming and had some more interesting things to do and see, but that might just be because that’s where I spent more time. I really fell in love with Khon Kaen when I was there, but I feel like I could have similarly fallen in love with Udon Thani. I think I’m just in love with mid-sized Thai cities, in general (after having already fallen in love with the big cities). If you were to only visit one of them, I’d say pick Khon Kaen, just because my guide to Khon Kaen is more comprehensive than my guide to Udon Thani.

I didn’t do much research for Udon Thani beyond what I thought I could get away with doing in my brief time there, which meant not straying far from the city center. I’m sure there’s a lot of cool stuff that I didn’t know about. I’m only going to write about what I did, but I feel bad that this is so incomplete. 

We had gotten there from Khon Kaen in the late afternoon (by bus, which I regretted, the train was faster and more comfortable), spent the night, and then came back the next day by the local train at around 1:30pm. 

We spent the night at The Good Days, which was a perfectly solid budget stay (around $15 a night) (gmaps, with a link to Booking, though the actual location is across the street, with rooms above the bakery, and I think we may have booked directly through Instagram). We got a good sandwich for breakfast at their cafe across the road, being unable to find anything vegetarian at the Vietnamese place Madam Pahtehh which is nearby.

Since we didn’t do that much in town, I’ll just go in order of what we did, as it was all good and recommended.

After checking in, we went to the mall to get a small snack from the downstairs food court. It’s a Central mall, so it was unsurprisingly very nice.

We then headed to the Thai-Chinese Cultural Center. It’s a beautiful place with a Chinese temple, Chinese garden, cafe, gift shop, and a great museum about the history and culture of the Thai Chinese. I didn’t have time to do the museum justice, but it may be the best of its type in Thailand and I would go back. Next to the cultural center is a large lake that is lovely to walk around in the late afternoon when it cools off. 

After that we went to dinner at Samuay & Sons, which has a modern, high end tasting menu inspired by Isaan cuisine. We had a 14 course meal that came to around $100 a head. You’ll need a reservation for the tasting menu, though I believe they have an a la carte menu as well which has more standard pricing and more conventional dishes (go for the tasting menu, though!). 

More meal pics here.

I love going for these kinds of meals once or twice a year, and I have more fun with them in offbeat destinations like Udon Thani rather than in big cities. It feels more personal, and I like being in the premier haute cuisine destination in all of northeast Thailand, rather than in one of dozens in Bangkok. With that said, if I weren’t vegetarian I’d be more excited about going to the best local place for a super traditional Isaan meal, or snagging a village feast. But as a vegetarian the fancy places in Thailand are often my best bet. And thankfully the food was exceptional, my favorite of the handful of high end meals I’ve done in Thailand to date. Totally worthy of a Michelin star, which I’m surprised it doesn’t have yet.

What I loved about the meal (in addition to everything being delicious) is that it satisfied on the level of a modern, creative tasting menu restaurant and as an exploration of Isaan cuisine. Everything was impeccably prepared and beautifully presented, with considerable care given to the perfect balance of flavors and the interplay of textures in these courses that last just a few bites. But it was also a wholly local meal. Fermentation and foraging are buzzwords at this sort of restaurant, but here the foraging and fermentation are more of a nod to Isaan cuisine than to the Neo-Scandinavian school of cooking. The lodestar is less Noma and more Grandma, but with plenty of experimentation and innovation. 

I’d say about half of the dishes tasted very traditional, while half used flavors and ingredients of the region to create something new and unusual (including one dish that was inspired by the local Vietnamese community). Ingredients in our meal includes bamboo shoot, banana blossom, snake gourd, lotus stem, daikon leaves, intensely flavorful wild mushrooms, all sorts of local herbs, a range of homemade fermentations (some of them acting as vegetarian versions of fish sauce and crab paste), and plenty of stuff I haven’t heard of. Unlike a lot of restaurants in Thailand, I never felt left out as a vegetarian, and evidently a lot of care went into adapting the dishes for us, though if you aren’t vegetarian you’ll undoubtedly get even more exotic and unusual stuff. The drinks menu also incorporates local ingredients. Chef Num came out to explain each dish to us and gave us a better context for Isaan cuisine. It was great to meet and talk to him. 

I loved nearly every single dish. My only minor criticism of the meal is that the desserts were fairly simple and not as unusual as the food served in the rest of the meal. Dessert was still great, though, just not weird (durian ice cream, rice crepe with egg floss, fruit served in a floral syrup). A writeup of the meal by Andy Ricker mentioned starfruit cake, which sounds interesting, and for the non-vegetarians there may be silkworm ice cream. I want dessert with their egg fruit and wood apple miso (omg!).

I definitely highly recommend the meal, and I hope to go back one day. 

I like to walk after meals, so we took a cab to the City Pillar shrine and walked around the area which has a weekend night market, though it was closing down when we got there, around 10pm. The City Pillar was quite pretty when lit up at night. I partly picked this area to walk because there is an old cinema, the Vista, which is closed but still standing at a corner. (Some more info on the theater, and others in Udon.)

The next morning we had a failed attempt at finding vegetarian food at the Vietnamese breakfast place Madam Pahtehh, but we got a good sandwich from the sourdough bakery The Good Days, which we were also staying at. 

We then went to a lovely cafe and art gallery called TEMP Creative Space. Recommended! Nice space, good coffee, and I really enjoyed the cutesy art exhibit they had. I would definitely go back here on a future visit! When we were there the artwork was by Airatda Mahachai, but they change exhibits every few months.

From there we went to the Udon Thani City Museum, which was fun and gave a portrait of Udon Thani’s heritage. I hardly remember any specifics of what I saw or learned there, though. I fear that suggests it wasn’t that good, but I definitely recall thinking it was quite good. It’s in a cute school building from a century ago. Out front is a beautiful Ganesha shrine.

From there we walked around the lake (pretty, with giant rubber duckies for some reason, would be nice at sunset) and went to Jude’s Journey Scoop where we got a “Kyoto affogato” which was a shot of matcha served with coconut ice cream. I’m not so keen on affogato but the coconut ice cream was great. I would go back and try more.

After that we went back to our place, checked out, and went for a quick lunch at Boombim Tree House, chosen because it was close to where we were staying, had some vegetarian options, and, most importantly, had a chow chow named King Kong. I was excited to meet King Kong, but you can only see him through the window. Knowing chow chows, this is probably for the best. Not an exciting culinary destination, but it’s a cute place with solid food and drinks. We got pad thai, a Thai style fruit salad (I recall it being overly sweet but otherwise good), some homemade bread, and herbal tea. I liked it all. 

Then we got our train ride back to Khon Kaen. If you want roast chicken delivered to your seat, you're in luck.

That’s it. I hardly think any of that (except Samuay and Sons) was all that exciting, but it was anyway time well spent. Much better than going to the beach, or whatever the hell else most people do when they visit Thailand. I hope to go back.

I unfortunately didn’t visit any markets. Some are listed on travelfish.

As expected, there are many great music artists from Udon Thani.