Homestay Khonkaen

At home with a Thai host family

Day 1. At home with the Thai.  Today you will travel to your host family in the country village Khampom. Upon arrival in the afternoon you can take a leisure stroll through the village, accompanied by your guide who has a lot of inside information and can tell anecdotes about village life. Observe village life and local activities such as cotton or silk weaving or production of straw mats or rice noodles. You can try everything for yourself if you want. Have a cozy conversation with the charming villagers, your guide will translate. During dinner you will be warmly welcomed by the local Thai village people. Overnight stay at the host family (D).

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Day 2: Village life & farming. Visit on schooldays the village school. See the ceremonial beginning of a school day with the children singing the national Thai anthem followed by Buddhist prayer. After the ceremony you can enter the classroom. You will soon find yourself captured into an entertaining dialogue with the school children who are probably as curious about Western life as you are about Thai life. Your guide will translate everything again. This school visit will be one of your more memorable experiences. Continue your walk through the village, you will stop from time to time to see how the villagers leisurely spend their day or earn their living. Lunch is taken along the route at a local noodle & rice food stall.

Next you will go into the rice fields. See how rice is grown or harvested, depending on the season. In the afternoon you will visit the village market and buy the ingredients for your evening meal. Walking back to your host address you can see the village farmers guiding their cows or buffalos back home. This evening you will prepare your own evening meal. The host mother will explain how while your guide translates. This often leads to comical moments and also you will learn how to make an original Thai meal by yourself.  Overnight stay again with the host family (B, D).

Day 3: Free to spend at own leisure.  Today is free to spend at your own leisure. Take a leisure stroll through the village or visit the village temple. Early risers can see how monks humbly receive their daily alms at sunrise. There is a variety of excursions that you can book locally. Tour along the Mekong river, visit the Khmer temple complex at Phimai, see the historical sites of Ban Chiang or take a morning stroll through one of the beautiful forest parks. As this will be your last dinner with the host family, probably half the village will want to say goodbye to you. Following Isaan tradition you will receive a lot of good wishes and a wrist full of little ropes…  Overnight stay again with the host family (B).

Day 4: End of this module. After breakfast you will transfer to Khonkaen city where this module ends. From here you can move on to your next destination, for instance Khonkaen to Chiang Mai,  Touching Laos,  Mekong route,  Phu Kradung challenge,  Angkor heritage,  Khao Yai safari  or  you can go back to Bangkok by train, bus or flight  (we can book this for you). You can also extend your stay with as many nights as you want.

This tour can start any day but we recommend that you plan your tour such that day 2 or day 3 will be a weekday because then the school visit is possible (except for some bank holidays and not always predictable local holidays). The village school is closed from March till May and in October and activities in the village will be very low. The best period for the Homestay Khonkaen is Jun - Sep and Nov - Feb.