Blogger Thailand’ 2017 Winners Celebrate Taste of Isan
By Phoowadon Duangmee
Tucked away in Thailand’s Northeast region, Buriram is officially a destination for ‘winners’.
Winning entrants in this year’s TAT Newsroom Blogger Thailand 2017 competition hosted by The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) were recently rewarded with a media fam trip to Buri Ram. This former arid farming prairie has been transformed into Thailand’s hot destination for sports and so much more.
These days Buriram United Football Cup is frequently crowned champion of Thailand’s Premier League, and their home ground ‘I-Mobile Stadium’ is a tourism draw in itself.
This year six bloggers won a five-day trip to Thailand’s Northeast Region, or Isan, with Buri Ram as the primary destination.
They turn out to be a diverse lot, including Turkish-born Engin Kaban and Indian national Kapil Kumar who are computer engineers by trade that find writing travel stories more enjoyable than computer code.
The outing was designed as an eye-opening media familiarisation trip and it delivers. It offers real local Thai experiences ranging from watching water buffalo laze beside verdant rice paddy fields, to making fiery tongue-smacking ‘som tam’ papaya salad for the first time.
A visit to the Queen Sirikit Sericulture Centre proves an eyeopener. The group is captivated, if not transfixed, by silkworm larvae in different stages of evolution. They learn the most important stage is when the cocoon is treated with boiling water, unbinding the silk from the cocoon so it can then be woven into thread.
Other simple pleasures were gleaned from the group’s Thai cooking class. Making fish cakes, a humble staple at any Thai meal, suddenly is transformed into a culinary adventure.
“The fish cakes were growing and growing and we were afraid that they would explode,” said Engin, relived by the apparent success of his first Thai…
