Trip to Upper Isan : Dec 26, 2009 - Jan 01, 2010 PART FIVE
I rearranged the codes in Aug 2019.
This was a trip of more than 2000 km by car to Upper Isan (the NE part of Thailand). I divided it to six parts as follows:
Part 1 From Bangkok to Loei
Part 2 From Loei to Nakon Panom
Part 3 Nakon Panom, Thai-Vietnamese Friendship Village
Part 4 Ho Chi Minh's house in Baan Na-Chok
Part 5 The Temples, the Churches, the Food, the People (This Page)
Part 6 On the way Back
The Temples, the Churches, the Food, and the People
Please be patient. This site takes some time to load as there are many pictures. Thank you!
Let's tour the temple before I mention any food...
Pratat Panom is the most well known temple in the region. We took many photos here.
Please also see good info at Wikipedia.
** REMARKS (added in August 2019) :
The Thai and German versions of Wikipedia have more details than the English version.
Use google translate (or whatever that comes handy) in case you cannot read these languages.
There were many stalls selling various things from souvenirs to all kinds of food both in and outside the temple premises.
The temple kept broadcasting:
"Do not pay any parking fee or buy any flowers or incenses thrusted on you by the sellers from the stalls outside the temple. These are ridiculously expensive and the money doesn't benefit the temple at all. We do not force anyone to buy flowers or incense for worshipping.
We have prepared the flowers and the incense for you FREE OF CHARGE."
Bottom left of the smaller pictures in the above: Ken and I in front of beautiful doors that lead to a museum in the temple. See zoomed view of the doors below that.
The museum had two floors full of antiques.
I was surprised to know Ken, my 11-year-old son, was highly interested in those antiques. He lingered on in the museum much longer than what we had expected.
Pictures below are some of the museum collections.
For bigger photos: see Photobucket
* Remarks (added in Aug 2019):
I will upload these to FB & / or Google Photos soon.
Outside, there were many stalls in the temple's premises that also attracted my boys' attention:
In our earlier trips to the north and the northeast we came to know "Khai-bhing", which literally means baked eggs.
Ken was so happy when he saw them among the stalls in the temple.
These were not boiled eggs, but were soy-sauce flavored egg custard in the shells.
To prepare, one needs a syringe to suck out all that is in the eggs. After mixing it with soy sauce, pepper, etc., the mixture is carefully injected back into the shells before they are steamed.
Not easy!
Maybe that is why we do not usually see them in our local supermarkets or any convenience stores.
Khai-bhing is good when you are hungry and cannot find a good eating place nearby!
After this, Ken always looked for Khai-bhing when we toured the temples.
← Kalame.
Photo source: http://www.thaitambon.com/Tambon/.
It has nation-wide OTOP* products, including what you see here.
OTOP* – "One Tambon One Product".
A Tambon is like a subdistrict, and is bigger than a village.
(*REMARKS added in Aug 2019: The page where I found the photo was removed.)
Our friends in Loei, who had lived in Nakon Panom for many years, told us that "kalamae" in this area was very well-known. We easily found these among the stalls. They were the pieces of cooked mixture of sticky-rice flour dough with sweetened coconut milk and palm sugar. Here, each piece of kalamae was wrapped not with plastic sheets but with banana leaves, which is the traditional way. The flavor may not be acceptable for those that are not familiar with sweetened and somewhat burned coconut milk. But for me they were good!
← We visited Pratat Renu, another famous temple in Nakon Panom, but the children were too tired to get out of the car. In addition, there were no Khai-bhing.
This temple, built in the Buddhist Year of 2461, or A.D. 1918, was modelled on Pratat Panom Temple.
It is in the district of Renu Nakon,
where there are many Phu Thai people, whose ancestors were from Vietnam.
On our way back we ate at this noodle place. ↓
Like other ordinary noodle places in Thailand, first we chose the kind of noodles:
1. White or yellow noodles?
2. For the white one, which type? Wide or thin noodles, or vermicelli?
3. Served in soup or without?
4. Which kind of meat to add? Beef, pork, seafood, or everything?
5. For beef, stewed or marinaded?
6. Whether you want meatballs, and what kind? Beef or pork or fish?
7. Any other things that you want or don't want for your noodles?
What delighted us besides the shocking pink flower ceiling was their complimentary fresh leafy green veggies that came in small baskets. In Bangkok we get such veggies on the house only in the Vietnamese restaurants.
Their noodles served with fresh veggies were DELICIOUS.
More about food below.
Baan Fah-Dao's owner had recommended nam neung at "Sweet Home" in Nakon Panom. "That Vietnamese restaurant has a western name," said she.
But when in Nakon Panom, we were told Sweet Home was a hot pot place and not a Vietnamese restaurant. The hotel receptionist told us if we wanted to have Vietnamese food then "Meringue" was the place. "You go along the road and make a turn when you see the clock tower. You won't miss it."
Source: (http://www.tour-bangkok-legacies.com/images/bangkok-travelbug-clock-tower.jpg)
According to Travelbug, this clock tower was built in 1960 and was "dedicated to the Vietnamese return to their motherland".
Meringue was just across it. At the first glance the place looked more like a bakery or a coffee shop than a Vietnamese restaurant. There were shelves of pastries, bread, cakes, and we saw posters of icecream on the wall. All looked so tempting.
We had our first dinner in Nakon Panom here. Their Vietnamese food was good, so was the icecream! Sorry again that we did not take any pictures.
Some reviews of this restaurant: fodors.com and letsgo.com
( ** Upon checking, these sites do not exist in Aug, 2019. )
The second evening in Nakon Panom our friend in Loei called us to go meet "Pah Cee", or "Aunt Cee", a retired government worker, whose house was near our hotel.
We went, and found ourselves in a very nice neighborhood. All the houses were big with beautiful gardens... In the house that was supposed to be Pah Cee's we saw many people having dinner around large tables on the lawn.
Pah Cee was so happy when she saw our friend's daughter, Minn, who came with us on this trip to revisit the place she had spent her earliest childhood days that she hardly remember any. Pah Cee had not met the girl for many, many years, she said. She wanted us to join her dinner party but was worried we might not be used to spicy Isan food. She therefore decided to take us to a steakhouse. "It is just around the corner", she said. She insisted, so we went...
From the conversation we discovered that Pah Cee was our friend's boss long ago and not a relative! They still keep in touch to this day. The word "Pah" in Thai does not necessarily mean one's aunt!
Our host took us to "Best Steak", which was indeed just around the corner.
The restaurant looked like a noodle place in our neighborhood in Bangkok, but much, much cleaner and with style.
Most of the interior decoration was white.
The owners of the restaurant were Pah Cee's nieces and nephews.
"They all have full-time job but want to make better use of their time after work," said the lady. We learned that one worked at a bank, one was a lawyer, and one was a teacher...
The lady's only daughter was currently working for the government in another province far away.
Right: →
Best Steak's business card.
(with my notes in English.)
My boys were excited when they saw their familiar items on the menu. They were even happier when they ate! It was a good break from our food adventure. Thank you, Best Steak! And the prices were so "lovely": how we wish this restaurant were in our neighborhood in Bangkok!
Pah Cee insisted that it was her treat. Another surprise! What a shame we came without any gifts for her!...
Thank you, Pah Cee!
On Thursday 31st noon we headed for Sakon Nakon, the province to the west of Nakon Panom.
Before the trip we had heard that some people in Sakon Nakon ate dog meat. In this trip, however, we did not see any traces of that.
Instead, we only saw beautiful Buddhist temples, an impressive City Gate (see the picture on the right), and, to our surprise, we saw huge Catholic churches, Catholic retreats, and a big Catholic school.
Due to insufficient time we did not do much sight-seeing in this province.
We just took some pictures whenever passing by interesting places.
Pratat Choeng Chum is the major temple of the province.
And Nong Han is the largest natural lake in Isan.
Both are included in the pictures below.
I think we had driven past at least two big churches before stopping at the places in the above pictures.
First row left: Very clever design!
It looked so much like many Buddhist temple gates - except that there was a cross on top of the entrance.
The rest were taken in the premises of a big Catholic school.
First row right: "Shrine of the Alliance of the Two Hearts" with all the Saints surrounding. Beautiful!
Second row left: This looked like a school cafeteria.
Second row right: Archdiocese of Tharae-Nongsaeng (See more below.)
We often read that only 4% of the population in Thailand was Christian.
Obviously a large proportion is from this area.
Could it have been the early Vietnamese immigrants that brought with them the belief and set up their Congregations here in Sakon Nakon?
Have there been many new converts?
So many questions...!
Thanks to Google (no matter how harsh the communities in the cyberspace have been criticizing this search engine), I have found two good sites that had the info I wanted!
Below are the screenshots with the links to their URLs.
1. History of Ban Tharae Catholic community Changwat Sakon Nakhon, 1884 -1965
–
An Abstract issued in the Buddhist year of 2548 (the year of 2005) by Salinee Manakij
–
Source:
http://cuir.car.chula.ac.th/handle/123456789/8428
2. Archdiocese of Tharae-Nongsaeng
Source:
http://www.ucanews.com/dps/html/dps-th_tharae.php
(Remarks added in Aug 2019: The page was removed!)
Apart from the Buddhist temples and the Catholic churches, there was another impressive discovery: cantaloupes.
We saw so MANY stalls selling them on both sides of the highway!
It seemed Sakon Nakon was a cantaloupe country! How come we had not known about it?!
We stopped the car in front of a stall and bought two large bags of them but did not take any pictures.
A quick search led me to this site: Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Statistics 2007/2008 sakonnk.nso.go.th
It said in the year 2007 - 2008 Sakon Nakon reaped 292 tons of cantaloupes, which was 2777 kgs per Rai
( One Rai = 1600 square meter or about 0.395 acre).
Source: Sakon Nakhon Provincial Agricaltural Extension Office
That was a lot!
I think we should spend more time exploring the province of Sakon Nakon in our future vacation!
The rest of our many-day journey will be in Part Six
Slideshows:
1. Temples in Nakon Panom (Dec-30-2009)
2. Temples in Sakon Nakon (Dec-31-2009)
3. Churches in Sakon Nakon (Dec-31-2009)
End of Part Five.
Comments ( from my MTP journal/item/381 )
