Community Based Tourism Projects
Recent years have seen the spread of such excellent schemes across the length and breadth of Thailand covering a wide range of activities such as homestays and village visits, hiking, handicrafts and of course cookery. Schemes are typically organised on a village or even family level and provide a welcome contrast to the well-established tourism sites with their coach parks and souvenir shops. Thailand Community Based Tourism (or CBTs as they are known in the trade), generally offer more authentic experiences with greater opportunities for interaction with local inhabitants while also providing additional employment and income sources in areas often bypassed by mainstream tours.
Many such projects do exist in already popular destinations such as Chiang Mai, Krabi Province and so on – as a reliable source of visitors is guaranteed – while certain schemes are frankly so far-flung that they’re difficult to fit into a practical itinerary. The Thailand Community-Based Tourism project described below is a case in point and clearly involved some commendable outside-of-the-box thinking on the part of its creators.
Ban Khok Muang
Ban Khok Muang, or Khok Muang Village, is an off-the-beaten-track destination in a little-visited province in a rarely-visited part of Thailand. The family that set up the project are unlikely to be rushed off their feet and won’t be buying a new pick-up truck any time soon; however, they seem to have as much fun as their visitors and the location fits snugly into both our Emerald Triangle and Thailand World Heritage tour itineraries. The village is situated in Buriram Province in the northeastern part of Thailand, commonly known as Isan, (I-san, Issan – there are various spellings), and lies some 8 kms south of Prasat Phanom Rung.
Prasat Phanom Rung This beautifully restored 11th to 12th-century Angkorian temple sits spectacularly atop an extinct volcano and while sadly little-known to most foreign visitors is the province’s top attraction for local tourists. Even less known, but equally well-preserved and picturesque, is the smaller ancient temple site of Prasat Muang Tam which is conveniently located within Khok Muang, a mere stone’s throw from the village’s community based tourism project.
Our above-mentioned tour itineraries begin that day near Khao Yai National Park and finishes with an overnight stay at charming The Wood is Surin Town so a reasonably early morning departure from Khao Yai allows for walking tours of Phanom Rung and Muang Tam followed by a cook your own lunch experience in the village.
Laap, Larp, Laab – a typical Isan dish The Community Project
The project is set up in a bamboo sala in the family yard, with guests being shown how to cook the main lunch dish, while the professionals knock up a selection of side dishes. Do not expect the typical Thai cookery class fare and you won’t see any spring rolls, green curries or pad Thais – the emphasis here is very much on local, Isan, home cooking. Despite over 30 years in Thailand, we’d never actually come across the main dish before, which we forgot the name of, but resembled some kind of scrambled egg with freshwater shrimps and herbs. Needless to say, it was tasty, the whole experience a lot of fun and well thought out in so far as we were there for a couple of hours instead of the usual cooking school half day, which we didn’t have. Our hosts were delightful and as it’s something they clearly don’t do every day, enjoyed it at least as much as we did. The family did produce a relatively well-used guestbook, although how they manage to find foreign visitors in such a remote spot is a mystery to us. Good on them for conceiving such a great scheme and when they’re not entertaining visitors, the project functions as the village cafe so they do keep busy.
