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Khon Kaen Province North Eastern Thailand
Kong Kaen is one of the largest provinces in Thailand and home to the provincial city of Khon Kaen.
The city itself is alive with activities for the local Thais and also increasingly, for foreign visitors and expats who live there.
Where is Khon Kaen Province?
The surrounding province is quite typical of Isan – being based upon farming activities as the main employment.
Rice is the main crop, and because of the climate in Isan, and the methods of farming, production will be for just 6 months every year. Khon Kaen follows the traditional way of survival.
The city is different. Here you will find a busy city feverishly trying to reinvent itself and break from the traditional cultures of Isan.
However, Thai culture still rules in most activities – even if being stretched to the limit by those who seek to change the area and their lives.
The large university of 25,000 students, with its influx of young Thais from Khon Kaen and other parts of Thailand will be instrumental in bringing about change – certainly on the ‘social’ level.
Khon Kaen can justifiably claim to be the centre of Isan in geographic terms at least. However, it has 'commercial' competition from neighbouring provincial cities such as Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat), Ubon Ratchathani and Chaiyaphum.
How to Get to Khon Kaen
Khon Kaen is based in central Isan (slightly North) and is bisected by the main A2 highway from Bangkok to the Laos city of Vientiane.
Many foreigners will simply know it as one of several towns they will pass through on the way to Laos to get an extension visa with which to stay in Thailand. The coaches rarely stop at Khon Kaen.