Blue Remembered Hills

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The region known as Isan is the vast, arid plateau in Thailand's northwest that serves as the country's rice basket and reservoir of cheap labor keeping Bangkok's factories humming and Thailand exporting. Apart from isolated hillocks, the area is relentlessly flat, and it remains largely monocultural. During the long dry season, the rice fields are as parched as any desert. Lumbering buffaloes and scrawny cows munch at thin, desiccated grass, occasionally wandering across the road in search of – if not greener – at least less unappetizing pastures.

In Isan's far northeastern corner is Nakhon Phanom, the City of Hills. As the Siamese quail flies, it's only just over 100 miles across Laos to the Vietnamese coast but more than three times that distance to Bangkok, the far-away capital of a country Isan is still not entire sure it wants to belong to.

Nakhon Phanom sees few foreign visitors, and those who make it this far shouldn't be under any misapprehension: Nakhon Phanom is not Thailand's answer to Rome. No city could be flatter: its hilly wonders are to be found across the river in Laos.

This small provincial capital sprawls along several miles of the Mekong. At the start of the rainy season, the river is close to bursting its muddy banks. The current is swift, fed by melting snows on the far side of the Himalayas. So strong is the association in many minds between the Mekong and southeast Asia, it's easy to forget that about half the river's entire course lies inside China.

The huge amounts of silt it carries give the water a brownish hue. To observers, this looks unwholesome, but to resident fish, the tons of nutrient churning in the river is the aquatic equivalent of manna from heaven. Without the happy combination of Himalayan snows and Southeast Asian monsoons, there would be none of the traditional protein source that has kept local populations alive for centuries, and especially no giant Mekong catfish, the largest species of river fish in the world.

To the uninitiated, the hills are a topographical aberration. What feat of geological whimsy could have raised so many of these limestone protuberances in such close proximity? Or was the entire land mass driven upward by some tectonic shift and the softer rock gnawed at over time by the elements while the harder core remained? No doubt some online encyclopedia has the answer, but I'd rather stand, speculate, and marvel at the sight.

Be sure to be up early and at your window as wispy mist rising from the river drifts cross the hilly backdrop and gives it an ever-changing bluish tint. No wonder spirits have long been associated with the river.

Opposite the city lies wedge-shaped Don Don island, splitting the Mekong into two channels and now entirely within Laos. Long believed to be home to an evil spirit that had taken the form of a caiman, the island attracted no settlers in need of fertile land until a fearless French missionary exorcised the curse by accidentally killing just such an animal. Now delivered from evil, locals rushed in and turned the island into prosperous farmland. Even if true, the event left no trace as the island looks as serene and lifeless as the enterprising missionary must have found it.

The river flows undisturbed. This 2,700-mile watercourse linking central Asia and the South China sea carries no through traffic. Close to the Thai shore, a lone fisherman stands at one end of his narrow boat, lifts his net out of the water, gives its content a close look, and drops it back into the river. Man and boat look tiny, vulnerable even as they defy nature's immensity.

As the morning sun rises over the hills, the eye rests on the green ribbon of luxuriant vegetation lining the river. In clearings here and there, a road of sorts appears, but there is no visible traffic. The Laotian shore seems as tranquil as the river itself.

As Nakhon Phanom awakes and commercial activity picks up, locals carrying goods in large multicolored sacks converge on the customs house, from which river shuttles will take them across to Thakhek, Nakhon Phanom's diminutive counterpart on the Laos side.

Inside the modest building, a uniformed immigration official sit in his cubicle, waiting to stamp the first travel document of the day. But this river crossing is for locals only. Since the completion of the latest cross-Mekong Friendship Bridge just north of the city, only Thai and Laotian nationals are allowed to make the direct crossing. Foreigners must hop on a bus and go over the bridge. In the past, travelers reached Laos by clambering up a muddy riverbank in search of the customs post and a stamp in their passport. No longer: another element of travel romance gone. Are there any left?

A blue and white boat is tied up just below the customs building. Their travel document duly stamped, traders carry their voluminous bundles down a wooden staircase that ends at water's edge, where they are helped on board the craft, whose aft seems to have been badly rammed and barely makes it above water.

When it does get under way, the craft chugs off straight across the river. Halfway between the two shores, it tacks left and stops, now pointing in the wrong direction upriver. The engines cut off, and the boat drifts backward in the current to a point mid-river exactly facing Thakhek, where the engine is coaxed back to life and the boat sails on toward the Laos shore under its own steam. That's quite a few gallons of fuel saved, though the journey back upstream will have to rely entirely on human ingenuity, not natural phenomena. Still, what simpler demonstration of harnessing the power of nature in the interest of economy could there be?

In the awakening riverside market, a woman in a tall, broad-rim hat built to protect farmers from the sun's excesses when working in rice fields carries a large circular tray with a bundle of bamboo tubes for sale. This will be breakfast. Each tube, about two feet long and an inch across, contains sticky rice mixed with coconut milk, a few red beans, and a little sugar. The mix is packed tight inside the tube, which is then heated over an open fire. To eat it, you break up the husk piece by piece, and you are left with the soft, cylindrical content, the rice wrapped in the inner membrane of the tube, which is said to be highly nutritious. The woman offers me a sample: a little sweet for my taste, but very palatable. I buy all four tubes: sticky rice cooked and preserved in bamboo keeps. It also has the advantage of being portable. According to sources, locals on the move survived on little else, with whatever fish they could lift out of rivers and an occasional fowl supplementing the diet.

Over the last few days, Nakhon Phanom has lit up all yellow, the color of royalty. Later this month, Thailand will mark the birthday of its new king, and this is a chance for the government to orchestrate mass veneration for a man who – to put it mildly – has done little so far to earn it. Social pressure ensures that regardless of any views they might hold, Thais have no choice but to conform. But the yellow outfits on display in the shops attract few takers. Most royal enthusiasts wear shirts that have seen the inside of a washing machine once too often and are being recycled from some previous royal adulation drive. Thais will do adulation when pushed, but only up to a point.

At the spot where the city's main drag ends at the river's edge stands Nakhon Phanom's other claim to fame: a giant evocation of the legendary Phaya Naga, the seven serpents whose combined heads sheltered the meditating Buddha from the rain. At the top of the statue, a narrow hose spews out a powerful jet of water that drops into the river below with a splash, sending out muddy ripples in ever-expanding circles. The site is a major destination for Thai Buddhists, who kneel on a blue carpet at the base of the statue, join hands, and offer prayers, often accompanied by a gift of yellow flowers purchased from a nearby stand. Brilliantly lit up at night, the statue is the obvious rallying point for residents and visitors alike.

Along the river are homely restaurants and quiet bars: this is a city made for contemplation, not late-night carousing. A sense of order prevails: the streets are expertly paved, cars and motorbikes neatly parked in freshly-painted spaces, an unexpected sight in free-for-all Thailand, where civic pride and concern for the shared environment are not always in evidence.

Before the Phaya Naga was erected, the physical center of Nakhon Phanom was the clock tower donated by former Vietnamese residents of the city: nationalists evading the French police in Vietnam and Laos, office workers employed by French traders and government representatives operating on the Thai side until the French went home in 1954, even soldiers keeping the peace among their compatriots. While most never emerged from honest obscurity, a notable exception was Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's future leader and father figure, wanted for questioning by the French police in the late 1920s over alleged revolutionary leanings.

Further north and a fitting counterpoint to the hills across the Mekong is the church of St Anna, a pale blue edifice with two identical pointed spires each topped by a cross. Oddly, the spires are linked high up by a slender gangway. Identical trees on either side of the building add to the sense of harmony. At Christmas, a large congregation gathers from both shores. Today, the front gate is open; the compound is deserted but impeccably kept. Dotted about are brightly-colored statues of the Virgin Mary and various saints, gazing benignly on supplicants below.

Next to the church is the former bishop's residence, a magnificent two-story building painted a gentle yellow, each window and doorway capped by a delicate arch of red brick. The bishop's palace was built in 1952, a plaque informs visitors, only two years before the French abandoned their Indochinese possessions and local Catholicism went into decline. Today, it stands empty, its wooden shutters gone or decaying. But the structure seems sound. What a tragedy it would be if such a gem were to crumble!

Turning away from the church and looking once again across the river, the hills shimmer in the rising heat. Laos beckons: it's time to head for the bridge.

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