Wat Nong Wang Muang, National Museum, Ubolratana Dam and Parties

Having a car did turn out to be a wonderful addition to the trip. Today we drove through Khon Kaen city and visited the beautiful 9-story temple called Wat Nong Wang Muang and stopped at the Khon Kaen branch of the National Museum. I had been to both places before so I didn't take many pictures this time. But if you are curious to see what the temple looks like (it's quite striking actually), you can look here.

The good thing about visiting the temple again (besides being there with friends this time instead of being alone like last time) was that I actually climbed all the way to the 9th Floor. Each floor had some type of museum, with everything from statang bills with Rama 8 on them (100 statang = 1 baht = 1/40 of US$1, making them virtually worthless, but still interesting to see) to ancient Buddhist carvings to huge conch shells to Buddhist scriptures written in Pali language on thin wooden slats to pottery to human skeletons. The top floor held the sacred bone of Buddha and had a great view of the lake and downtown Khon Kaen.

After the temple we went to the museum and then to the Ubolratana Dam (pronounced "Ubonrat", for reasons unknown) where we had a delicious Isaan lunch. On the way back to the main road we pulled up behind a big truck with a full band and a female singer belting out Isaan folk songs. The truck eventually stopped at a small village where there was a huge party going on. Of course the three farang couldn't resist this photo opportunity so we stopped to take a look.

Turns out that it was a party to celebrate two young boy's entry into the monkhood. Every Thai boy spends at least a little time as a monk novice to show respect towards Buddhism and towards their family. For the two boys, it was a serious occasion. For everyone else in the village, it was time to sing and dance and eat and drink lots of beer and homeade rice whisky. We didn't eat any food, but plenty of drinks were offered to us.

After having fun with the locals, we headed to our Thai friend's village, about an hour south of Khon Kaen city. We unpacked the car and showered, then headed out to another party. This time it was an Isaan music concert at a school. The stage was set up in a field behind the school and about 200 local people were in attendance, sitting on straw mats in front of the stage. Jeremy, Terry and I were the only white people there, so needless to say when we walked into the crowd, every single person turned to look at us. They all stared at us for about 5 minutes, smiling and laughing and talking about us the whole time. It was quite an odd experience.