[Khmer] Temples of delight in Thailand

Wat's up? ... Buddhist monks outside the main shrine at the Khmer temple at Phimai, Thailand. Photograph: Getty
Making a splash … Tok Haew Narok waterfall. Photograph: Alamy

There are no full moon parties in Isaan, perhaps Thailands' least touristy region. Instead you'll find sleepy villages, Khmer architecture, and a boutique hotel right on the Mekong

Saturday 18 September 2010
Chris Coplans
The Guardian (UK)

After hacking through undergrowth for a couple of hours, we emerged sweaty, muddy and bedraggled at the 25m-high Tok Haew Narok falls, which (please excuse yet another reference to The Beach in a Thailand article) are the ones Leonardo DiCaprio leapt from in the film. We scrambled down to swim in the turquoise pool below it.

My guide – called Apple – and I were following a challenging 8km trail through the Khao Yai national park, a huge tract of monsoon forest and a Unesco world heritage site two hours north of Bangkok. On the western edge of the Isaan region, it is home to tigers, bears, leopards, deer, gibbons, hornbills and elephants.

The Isaan region covers a huge swathe of north-east Thailand stretching to the Mekong river, Laos and Cambodia. It is the country's least visited area – as close to the "old Thailand" as you can get, and a welcome change from the tour group- and backpacker-choked northern destinations of Chiang Mai and the Golden Triangle.