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I love the blog aspect. The photos are great anyway but that added extra makes it fascinating.
Good blog posst
chiang Khan, Loei Province
Chiang Khan, December 2020
To get to the town of Loei from Khao Kho involves crossing a hilly range. You know this in advance by the degree of squiggle on the Google Maps route. When the blue line looks like a tapeworm inside a pig’s intestines, for example, you know that there are going to be many twists and turns. Three hours of unrelenting winding roads up and down, round and round, some with steep gradients (where you select the gear on an automatic for towing a caravan), means maximum concentration. I always find this kind of driving quite draining as I set myself for the task – absolutely no conversation, and definitely no, ‘Look, is that a Common Egret over there or the oft mistaken Thompson’s Barred Egret?’ Anyway, the reward? The Loei Grand Hotel, of which one of the words in its name is a total misnomer. Sometimes in the Sunday magazine a photographer does a photo essay on abandoned buildings. Like, this is the former grand ballroom of the Chicago Ritz unused since 1912, or this is the interior of the Art Deco cinema in Fresno which went out of service in 1961, or this is Chernobyl’s former orphanage – spot the dusty teddy bear in the corner. Well, the Loei Grand is a bit like that, it was probably ace in about 1972. If the hotel was grim, then Loei was just as uninspiring, luckily, only for one night. Loei may well be on somebody’s bucket list – if so, it will likely be the slops bucket.
Chiang Khan is one of those places in Thailand that has managed to capitalise on its good fortune without creating a free-for-all whereby commercial development gallops off into the distance, leaving infrastructure lagging well behind. Think of any beach anywhere in Thailand with check-by-jowl huts, shops and bars all vying for their bit of beach, whilst the back road is a series of unfinished pipes, wires, trenches and potholes. Fittingly, the collective noun for such things is ‘eyesore’. Anyway, the burghers of Chiang Khan have managed to keep the river front fairly authentic, albeit a little ramshackle in places. The river’s edge has a long boardwalk for your promenading whilst the main thoroughfare turns into a night market cum walking street early evening. There is not even one 7-Eleven allowed to intrude into any of this – someone put their foot down big-time. Well done them. Why go to Chiang Khan in the first place, given that it is remote and miles from anything? I don’t know the answer to that, it’s probably the same for Pai – a reputation for being worth the long journey to get there – perhaps because you can enjoy the ambience without the clutter. CK is not hippy-dippy though, it’s a very Thai destination, with room bookings made a year in advance.
To get to the town of Loei from Khao Kho involves crossing a hilly range. You know this in advance by the degree of squiggle on the Google Maps route. When the blue line looks like a tapeworm inside a pig’s intestines, for example, you know that there are going to be many twists and turns. Three hours of unrelenting winding roads up and down, round and round, some with steep gradients (where you select the gear on an automatic for towing a caravan), means maximum concentration. I always find this kind of driving quite draining as I set myself for the task – absolutely no conversation, and definitely no, ‘Look, is that a Common Egret over there or the oft mistaken Thompson’s Barred Egret?’ Anyway, the reward? The Loei Grand Hotel, of which one of the words in its name is a total misnomer. Sometimes in the Sunday magazine a photographer does a photo essay on abandoned buildings. Like, this is the former grand ballroom of the Chicago Ritz unused since 1912, or this is the interior of the Art Deco cinema in Fresno which went out of service in 1961, or this is Chernobyl’s former orphanage – spot the dusty teddy bear in the corner. Well, the Loei Grand is a bit like that, it was probably ace in about 1972. If the hotel was grim, then Loei was just as uninspiring, luckily, only for one night. Loei may well be on somebody’s bucket list – if so, it will likely be the slops bucket.
Chiang Khan is one of those places in Thailand that has managed to capitalise on its good fortune without creating a free-for-all whereby commercial development gallops off into the distance, leaving infrastructure lagging well behind. Think of any beach anywhere in Thailand with check-by-jowl huts, shops and bars all vying for their bit of beach, whilst the back road is a series of unfinished pipes, wires, trenches and potholes. Fittingly, the collective noun for such things is ‘eyesore’. Anyway, the burghers of Chiang Khan have managed to keep the river front fairly authentic, albeit a little ramshackle in places. The river’s edge has a long boardwalk for your promenading whilst the main thoroughfare turns into a night market cum walking street early evening. There is not even one 7-Eleven allowed to intrude into any of this – someone put their foot down big-time. Well done them. Why go to Chiang Khan in the first place, given that it is remote and miles from anything? I don’t know the answer to that, it’s probably the same for Pai – a reputation for being worth the long journey to get there – perhaps because you can enjoy the ambience without the clutter. CK is not hippy-dippy though, it’s a very Thai destination, with room bookings made a year in advance.
A twenty-minute drive south of CK is a conical hill called Phu Thok. It is another of those places where you go to watch the sun rise above a sea of clouds. You park the car at the bottom, which is just as well, as the baht bus journey up there is steep, rapid and perilous. Asking the car-park attendant if it will be cold at the top produced a ‘nah’, so coats left in the car, we were able to enjoy a perishing open topped ride accompanied by the sound of teeth chattering. A fair crowd was up there to greet Christmas Eve – not that anyone was aware of the date, as I was the only foreigner up there. As usual, my phone coped far better with the low light than my expensive camera. The sun was in the east, as is its wont, but the sea of clouds was mainly on the west side. Still, a worthy trip, especially as setting out at 5.30 am is a cinch for me at present, with my usual 4 am wake up time.
Back at base we were able to watch the fog on the river gradually lift as the sun did its work, allowing us to gaze at Laos on the opposite bank. Laos fell to the Pathet Lao communists in 1975 and for the next 15 years you would be shot dead if you tried to enter the country by crossing the Mekong. If you look at the Thai-Lao border you see that it follows the Mekong River for miles. A sensible decision, probably made by some Thai (British)-French commission, but if you zoom in closely, you see that the blue dotted line down the middle of the river goes all over the place. Sometimes it is right down the middle and sometimes it veers close the Thai shore and sometimes the Lao shore. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this. Well, Christmas Eve and no sign of a turkey dinner; not even any red Santa hats. Like I said, a very Thai destination.
CHIANG KHAN
https://www.photoriente.com/chiang-khan-loei.html
PHU THOK
https://www.photoriente.com/phu-thok-loei-province.html