Chiang Khan, the capital of the district with the same name in Loei Province (northeastern Thailand), is a small city with only 10,000 inhabitants, located at 580km north of Bangkok. It’s hard to get many hard facts about Chiang Khan, other than it has a handful of fine, old Buddhist temples. Chiang Khan has boomed in the past four years, and even more so in the last two. It has well and truly been ‘discovered’ by urban Thais, many of them drawn to a nostalgic past that they never had: Buddhist monks at dawn receiving alms and sticky rice, rambling family homes made of ancient teak on streets of almost no vehicles, and local specialities like hand-sewn quilts and maphrao kaew (sugar-coated dried coconut) snacks. Wat Si Khun Mueang is the most sacred Buddhist temple among the people of Chiang Kahn district. Built in 1834, on Rama III era, is mostly Lao-style (in particular the sweeping roof), but it also freely mixes central (the lotus pillars) and northern (the guardian lions) Thai stylings. It is fronted by a superb mural of the Jataka tales, and contains the beautiful and distinct Lan Chang-style image of Phra Nagprok.
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