A day on the Nong Han

North of Sakhon Nakhon, the place where my grandparents live, there is a large lake, called Nong Han. As this area once was part of the powerful ancient khmer empire there is an old legend, that a huge old sunken khmer temple remains still there on the ground of the lake. They say, that the nets of the fishermen still touch the main Buddha statue of this temple. The holy remains of those legendary times are said to be guarded by had gigantic sea snake with nine heads.

These old legend frightens many of the local people living near the lake. So we received several strong warnings when we voiced our intention to sail across the lake. But despite all warnings we were determined to experience this widely unexplored lake ourselves.
About in the centre of the lake, where the clear waters are deepest, there is an mysterious island. Nobody is allowed to live there except the monks of a remote temple. The island for this reason shelters a great and nearly untouched nature. Near to the shores the warm waters are shallow and muddy. An area of some hundred acres there is covered with water lilies, especially the famous beautiful lotus flower.

Not only looks the lotus flower very beautiful – you may as well eat its fruits. Like the local people we collected the edible fruits of lotus flower.

I had a hard time to harvest sufficient lotus fruits for all of us. But I must confess, that I felt a great relief, when my mother surprised us with a rich picnic. We sat down at the banks of the out flowing river which feeds the waters of the Nong Han into the huge Mekong river some hundred miles further to the east. We had a good meal and refreshing rest.

This was very necessary as the wind had become much stronger and the our way back in our small boat became kind of a challenge.

Moritz Fraisl,
2007-08-26