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One of the Best Weekends Yet: Weaving, Rice Fields, and Phi Mai

Posted by Stuart at 08:40 PM on July 18, 2004

Unfortunately we had to leave Isaan and all the parties behind us and head back to Bangkok today. Before we left, though, we added to the list of cultural experiences by visiting the home of Long's friend Chu. His great aunt is a weaver and was working the huge loom when we stopped by.

Her technique was very different from what we saw in Laos. Instead of weaving several threads of different colors, she wove two threads: one was the background/border color and one was colored in stripes. She would run the thread through the loom and then line up the colors to make the pattern. It still turned out a beautiful pattern, but definitely wasn't as intricate as the Lao patterns.

Then, we went to meet Long's grandmother who was working in the rice fields. She was a friendly woman with a beechnut-blackened smile and a big floppy straw hat. We watched her and her three friends plant the rice seedlings in the mud for a few minutes before hitting the highway home.

On the way home, we stopped at the Khmer temple of Phi Mai, just north of Nakorn Ratchasima city. I have been there two times already, but it's a great sight so I was happy to take Jeremy and Terry there. Again, I didn't take many pictures, but if you want to see what it looked like on my last trip, you can take a look at the Khorat (Nakorn Ratchasima) Photo Album.

Seven hours later we were home. As usual, I was not too happy to be returning to Bangkok. When ever I leave the crazy, chaotic city, life becomes more relaxed than I ever thought possible. This trip was especially cutural as well. We saw a funeral at the temple, a history museum, a celebration for young guys becoming monk novices, an Isaan folk concert, silk weavers and rice planters, and vistited a 1000 year old Khmer temple. It was one of the best weekends yet.