On the northeastern frontier of Thailand, where the Mekong traces a permeable border with Laos, Nakhon Phanom reveals a softer side of Isan life—one shaped by the cross-cultural traditions that meet along the river’s edge.

Photographs by Mark Parren Taylor

*Left to right:* Wat Phra That Phanom at night; som tam papaya salad with salted crab.

At 8 a.m., the Thai national anthem hums from speakers strung to lampposts along the waterfront of Tha Uthen. Passersby and border guards stop and stand respectfully, peering across the murky waters of the Mekong to the far shore—perhaps a kilometer away, but another country nonetheless. Narrow boats on the Laos side soon swing into the mighty river. Their engines spit smoke as they plow a course through the slow, strong currents to Thailand.

This morning there are three boats, crammed with passengers bound for the weekly market on the stepped embankment at Tha Uthen. They bring forest honey, bundles of foraged herbs and spices, frogs and the occasional squirrel, baskets of mushrooms and odd tropical fruit. Rice and other goods can be much cheaper on this side of the river, so the Lao day-trippers stock up on as much as they can afford—and what the skipper will allow back onboard—before heading home in the afternoon.

A little over 30 kilometers downstream from Tha Uthen is Nakhon Phanom, the low-rise market town that lends its name to a province stretching some 180 kilometers along the Mekong. This is the far frontier of Isan, Thailand’s vast northeast, and it embodies the region’s essence: relaxed and hardworking, economically modest but culturally rich, fun-loving and broad-minded.

Nakhon Phanom translates as the “City of Mountains,” but that’s a bit of a misnomer: the town, like the surrounding countryside, is mostly flat. The peaks that inspired its name rise across the river in central Laos—an undulation of limestone karsts marking the southern reach of the Phou Hinbun range.

I never tire of looking at those mountains. The hometown of my partner of two decades, Nakhon Phanom has drawn me back countless times over the years, and my mornings here invariably begin with a walk along the steep, grassy riverbank to watch the steamy landscape glow with an amber light. Fisherfolk paddle past in wooden skiffs, dragging nets through the current, sometimes pausing midstream to trade a few words with each other. Which side of the river are they from? Perhaps it doesn’t matter—just as it hardly matters that this town, known simply as “Nakhon” to locals, is named for scenery that lies across the border.

Lao traders arriving for the weekly market in Tha Uthen.

Casting a net in a fishing pond in the countryside north of town.

*Left to right:* A game of sepak takraw (kick volleyball) in Nakhon; family photos at a home in Nakhon Phanom.

*Left to right:* On the banks of the Mekong at daybreak; a bowl of braised beetles.

The river is the thread that ties both sides together. “We used to swim all the way across to Laos when we were kids,” my friend Poang recalls. It’s sundown now, and I’m back at the Mekong, drifting along on a small cruise boat. “These days we can just drive over the Friendship Bridge,” he says, referring to a Mekong-spanning bridge just 11 kilometers north of town on the road to Tha Uthen. “And from there, we can keep going, all the way to Hanoi!” Poang, a 55-year-old engineer whose family has lived in Nakhon for four generations, no longer trusts himself in these broad waters. Yet from our boat, we can still make out the bobbing heads of a few keen young swimmers.

Bound to Laos by 850 kilometers of the Mekong, Isan can feel a world away from Bangkok—separated not only by a day’s drive, but also by culture, economy, and language. Proudly Thai, the people here eagerly stand for the national anthem. But in the markets, temples, and at the dinner table, they speak in a lilting version of Lao.

In the early days of colonial Indochina, French surveyors fixed the border with what was then Siam along the Mekong, though the river has always connected the communities on either side more than it divided them. People still flow back and forth. Laotians come to trade, to shop, and to pray at Wat Phra That Phanom, a gilded pagoda said to enshrine a relic of the Buddha’s breastbone, 50 kilometers south of Nakhon. Each week, an alternative “Lao Market” springs up nearby too.

Here, identity blurs. Locals may be called Isan, Thai, or Thai-Lao, but in truth they’re a kaleidoscope of ethnicities, including Yor, Puan, Phuthai, Kuy, and Khmer, alongside Teochew and other people whose forebears migrated from southern China. Some families even trace their roots to American airmen stationed here in the 1960s and ’70s—men who fell in love with the place, or with someone from it, and stayed.

And, especially along the Mekong, there’s a significant Vietnamese presence. In the late 1920s, Ho Chi Minh, then a young revolutionary building networks for the anti-colonial movement, holed up for a year in a modest timber dwelling on the edge of Nakhon. That house is now a museum where visitors can buy herbal tea grown in the same garden “Uncle Ho” once tended. Today, more than 1,500 Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) households live in Nakhon alone. My partner’s family is one of them. Like many, their grandparents arrived in the late 1950s, fleeing the intensifying Vietnam War, and built new lives here. They assimilated—adopting Thai or Isan names, trading favors, making friends around tables laden with Thai, Vietnamese, and especially Isan food.

*Left to right:* Ho Chi Minh’s House; Nakhon lads cruising the town in a pickup truck.

*Left to right:* Schoolgirls perform a traditional dance at Wat That Renu in the small town of Renu Nakhon; inside Ho Chi Minh’s house.

*Left to right:* An ornate doorway at Wat Phra That Phanom’s central pagoda; eating noodles the local way.

It’s the local produce—rice, sesame, cassava, and peanuts, along with paddy herbs and pla ra, a pungent fermented fish paste with a flavor profile as murky and deep as the Mekong—that makes Isan cooking so compelling. Stretched across the arid Khorat Plateau, this is a land that swings between abundance and drought, a cycle driven by scorching-hot summers, relatively short rainy seasons, and winters that bring an exotic chill, lifting morning mists off the river.

Two Lao–Isan staples in particular are now regarded as Thai culinary classics, ranked alongside pad thai and tom yum. The first is laab, a zingy, herb-packed salad of minced meat or fish, spiked with chili and sharpened with a splash of pla ra. A sprinkle of ground toasted rice adds a gently gritty savoriness. The other is som tam, the freshly chopped and pounded green papaya salad that achieves a perfect balance of fiery, sour, salty, and sweet. I find myself craving both dishes at almost every meal, always with sticky rice—eaten the local way, by pulling off a bite-size piece and rolling it into a chewy ball before scooping. (Though I admit when it comes to cold noodles, I still reach for a fork and spoon, having never quite mastered the technique of pinching them between thumb and forefinger.)

There is something Mediterranean about the Isan table: plates of grilled meat and fish, pungent som tam, raw vegetables, and mounds of leafy herbs. As diners exchange news and gossip, they fold clumps of greens into packets—or tear sticky rice by the palmful—and dip them into the hot-sour juices of laab, the way Italians dunk bread into olive oil. It’s a way of eating that feels thoroughly modern: seasonal, climatarian, probiotic, sustainable. Sometimes insectivore. Fried crickets, boiled jewel beetles, and fresh ant eggs are all common. “The ants are sour, but their eggs are sweet,” my mother-in-law tells me, popping a few into her mouth like candy.

On any given Saturday we gather for breakfast over Hanoi-style banh cuon steamed rice rolls—known here as khao phan—made to order at a hole-in-the-wall near Nakhon Phanom’s riverside clock tower, built by the local Viet Kieu community as a symbol of Thai-Vietnamese friendship. Auntie brings glasses of sock-dripped Thai coffee, thickened with two types of tinned milk and the tiniest pinch of salt, while my partner arrives with an armful of mangoes. Grandma immediately sniffs at them, chuckling that he bought from the wrong seller, at the wrong price.

The conversations move fast, leaving me behind, and my gaze drifts instead across the Mekong to the not-so-distant mountains—a range seen from a town named by people indifferent to national borders, along a river that keeps washing them away.

Fishing boats on the Mekong as the sun rises behind the hills of central Laos.

Nakhon Necessities

GETTING THERE

Nakhon Phanom’s domestic airport receives daily flights from Bangkok operated by Thai AirAsia and Thai Lion Air. The drive from the capital takes about 10 hours.

WHERE TO STAY

Vela Dhi Nakhon Phanom
Overlooking the Mekong south of town, this contemporary lifestyle hotel has 146 clean- lined rooms and suites (book one with a river view) and an infinity pool (from US$70 a night).

ADDRESS BOOK

Kitchen Khong
On Nakhon’s riverside road near Wat Mahathat, this smart little café serves Mekong fish—both the deep-fried catfish and similar sheatfish are moreish—and several delicious versions of som tam.

Pak Mor Sri Thep
This super-local gem opens at 6.30 a.m. for Nakhon-style Vietnamese breakfasts; any of the banh cuon options are a good bet (Aphiban Bancha St.).

This article originally appeared in the December 2025/February 2026 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“One Side of the Picture”). Buy a single issue or subscribe here.

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