Every November, over 300 elephants parade through the streets of Surin in one of Southeast Asia’s most extraordinary events. This complete guide covers the programme, the Kuy people’s ancient elephant culture, the welfare context, and everything you need to know about getting there from Buriram.
Every November, Buriram floats krathongs on water that has been sacred for over a thousand years — the ancient Khmer ponds of Prasat Mueang Tam. Your complete guide to Loy Krathong in Buriram: what the festival means, where to go, and what makes this corner of northeast Thailand unlike anywhere else in the country.
Twenty kilometres from Phanom Rung, on a different extinct volcano, sits one of the most overlooked temples in Thailand — ancient sema stones carved 1,300 years ago, flamboyant 1982 architecture, Jataka murals by Burmese monks, a 29-metre reclining Buddha, and panoramic Isaan views. All free. Almost always quiet.
The Buddhist temples of Buriram are not monuments. They are the centre of everything — where the community gathers, where daily life is organised, and where the rhythm of the year is set. This is a guide to the living wats of Buriram: what really happens inside them, how to take part, and why the most remarkable ones are the ones nobody has ever written about.
Buriram has more Khmer ruins than most visitors ever see. Beyond Phanom Rung and Mueang Tam lies a province scattered with prasat — hospitals, dharmasalas and three-prang complexes spanning a thousand years. The complete guide to the lesser-known sites.
An extinct volcano within easy reach of Buriram city, Khao Kradong is free to visit and genuinely underrated — a 20-metre Buddha containing sacred relics, a water-filled crater you can walk around, ancient Khmer ruins repurposed as a bell tower, and two annual festivals that draw almost no outside attention.
Every May, villages across Buriram fire homemade rockets skyward in one of Isaan’s most exuberant celebrations. This is Bun Bang Fai — and the approach to health and safety is entirely optional.
Prasat Mueang Tam temple is one of the finest Khmer ruins in Thailand — and one of the least visited. Ancient L-shaped ponds, carved stone lintels and near-total silence, just 8 km from Phanom Rung.
Prasat Hin Phanom Rung sits on the rim of an extinct volcano in Buriram province — one of the finest Khmer temples
outside Cambodia, and one of the most undervisited ancient sites in Southeast Asia. Here’s everything you need to
know before you go.
