Farming is the traditional livelihood here, despite appallingly infertile soil the friable sandstone contains few nutrients and retains little water and long periods of drought punctuated by downpours and intermittent bouts of flooding.
Continue reading to find out more about In the s, government schemes to introduce hardier crops set in motion a debt cycle that has forced farmers into monocultural cash-cropping to repay their loans for fertilizers, seeds and machinery. Children and elderly parents remain in the villages, increasingly dependent on the money sent back every month from the metropolis and awaiting the annual visit in May, when migrant family members often return for a couple of months to help with the rice planting.
Relics of an even earlier age, prehistoric cliff-paintings also draw a few tourists eastwards to the little town of Khong Chiam, which is prettily set between the Mekong and Mun rivers. Due north of Loei at Chiang Khan, the Mekong River begins its leisurely course around Isaan with a lush stretch where a sprinkling of guesthouses has opened up the river countryside to travellers. At the eastern end of this upper stretch, the border town of Nong Khai is surrounded by wonderfully ornate temples, some of which are used by the significant population of Chinese and Vietnamese migrants.
The grandest and most important religious site in the northeast, however, is Wat Phra That Phanom, way downstream beyond Nakhon Phanom , a town that affords some of the finest Isaan vistas.
During subsequent centuries the territories along the Mekong River changed hands numerous times, until the present border with Laos was set at the end of World War II. At about the same time, major US air bases for the Vietnam War were set up in Khorat , Ubon Ratchathani and Udon Thani , fuelling a sex industry that has plagued the region ever since.
