Our main purpose for driving all this way (600+ km) to Ubon Ratchathani is to see the annual candle festival and parade. The parade is tomorrow, so today we decided to spend our time by driving around the province to see some of the sights.
We headed east about one hour to the Mekong and the border with Laos. On the way we stopped for a snack in Phibun Masahan. We bought a sack of freshly cut mango, and decided to be adventurous with a stick of two inch wide, deep-fried buu hin (rock crabs). They were actually pretty good, shell and all. Our taste for adventure stopped there, however, and we decided not to sample the fried frog skin that was for sale.
Our next stop was the Mekong, and a National Park called Pa Taem. The highlight of this park, other than the beautiful views over the river and into Laos, are a collection of prehistoric paintings on the side of a cliff. They looked exactly as you would expect "cave paintings" to be, but it was still pretty cool to imagine that someone was at this spot 4,000 years ago drawing pictures of elephants and fish traps.
We also stopped by the Pak Moon Dam (pak moon means "mouth of the Moon River, where it flows into the Mekong). This dam is quite controversial because it has allegedly killed off many fish species who used to travel up and down the river. The dam itself is unremarkable, but since it is in the news so often, I wanted to see it. (For more information on the controversy, see the International Rivers Network website.)
On the way back to Ubon we stopped by a unique waterfall that pours through a hole in the side of a rock. It's hard to describe, so I will try to post a picture here sometime soon. Another highlight of the trip was visiting a temple complex housed in a cave over looking the Mekong. This temple was unique in that the mummified remains of the former monk abbot are on display in a glass case for all to come and pay their respects to.
In any case, we finally made it back to the town of Ubon long after the sun had set. The big candle parade is tomorrow, so in my next post I'll give more details about the huge wax floats that were lined up outside our hotel when we returned to the town.
