Khemmarat, a charming district in my hometown
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Have I told you that I’m not a Bangkokian girl? My hometown is actually one of the biggest provinces in the Northeast of Thailand, Ubonratchatani. There is not much to do in the town itself, but there are several districts that are worth a visit if you come to this province, and I recommend you go to Khemmarat (เขมราฐ)!
This trip happened not so long after I was back from Taiwan with my grandmothers. My parents proudly presented me about their wonderful journey in Khemmarat. Recently, tourism in Khemmarat has been promoted tremendously. The governor has devoted some space to build a night market, and they are promoting Thai indigo cloth to be the leading product in the market. Apart from those recently built attractions, Khemmarat has quite a long history with several old temples.
The trip was only two days and a night. We started by having lunch by the Mekong river at Kong Paneang (กงพะเนียง). Ubon Ratchathani is known for fish dishes such as fried fish, spicy fish soup, and diced fried fish with sweet and spicy sauce. This restaurant did not disappoint us: the fish was fresh and tasteful, and the river was tranquil.
After that, we went to Wat Pak Sang (วัดปากแซง) which is also located nearby the river. The temple was a bit chaotic, contrasting with the calm Mekong: lots of tourists were making merit while the villagers were diligently selling their farm products. To avoid the chaos inside the temple, my dad and I went to buy some baby fish and gently pour them onto the river bank.
Then, in the evening, we went to the night market (thanon-khon-duean ถนนคนเดิน). The market street was not as long as I thought, but the vibe was incredible! There was a Thai performance show in the middle of the market. Thai women were dancing song after song, entertaining foreigners and Thais till sunset. Meanwhile, our family was seated in Pinto Anya (ปิ่นโตอัญญา), the restaurant opposite to the stage. This restaurant is famous for its food presentation. They served food in Thai food containers, Pinto. We got some Khuay Jub(กวยจั๊บ), Vietnamese style rice noodle with pork sausage, and some seasoning eggs in the pan.
How can I not be in love with this place?
Before we went home, my parents drove us to another temple called Boong Kee Lek (วัดบุ่งขี้เหล็ก.) The highlight of this temple is multiple rows of white and gold Buddha statues. We went to pay homage to the statues. Although this place was also considered a favorite tourist attraction at that time, I did not see a crowd as in the other places we went. The serenity of the temple calmed us down, and that was a perfect ending to this trip.
After we found out that there are some flights from Willard (a regional airport in Champaign) that are inexpensive, we started flying out from here instaead of Chicago. We got a really good price of plane tickets to Seattle, so we decided to go to more national parks! The two parks that we visited were Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks. We thought about going to North Cascade as well, but the time was limited so we planned to visit there next time. Visiting these two popular national parks in the fall was such a good choice–less crowd, nice weather, and fall foliage!
Midwest surprisingly offers us many national parks to visit all year round. One of the national parks near Illinois is the Mammoth Cave National Park in Cave City, Kentucky. We rented a car from Champaign and drove around 5 hours, excluding small stops in Indiana. We had never been to Kentucky before, and we believe that not many international students had been there. Plus, this was the first time we visited a cave in the US, and we start with the world’s longest known cave system!
We’d been thinking of visiting South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and Badlands national park for almost a year. Then an opportunity came when one of our friends gave us a buy-one-get-one-free coupon from Delta. We did not hestitate even a bit in buying two tickets for a round trip from Chicago to Rapid City, SD. Although it was an impulsive trip, we had a lot of fun observing the wildlife in the great plains of South Dakota and North Dakota.
Although Poy graduated from the Scripps-Oxford joint Ph.D. program in Biochemistry for half a year and already started working at UIUC as a post-doctoral researcher, his graduation ceremony was held way later in May 2024. His family also came from Thailand to attend his graduation ceremony in San Diego. We then spent over a week afterward traveling around the west coast, including California, Arizona, and Nevada. It was my first time (and his family’s first time) doing a road trip in the west coast. We enjoyed a huge variety of natural wonders that the west coast has to offer.