Loei for Digital Nomads
I don't know why I decided to come to Loei. Once in a while I like to go somewhere with no tourists as a reminder that there's a reason that no tourists go there. I'd read that Loei was beautiful, there were a couple of vegan restaurants here, and I was fairly nearby in Udon Thani, so what the Hell?
Being a town void of tourists proved very true, as I didn't see another foreigner during my week here, right up until the airport departure lounge for my flight back to Bangkok. As you might expect for such a place, English is pretty much non-existent. Don't expect English signs anywhere, or for people to speak English. You're going to have to pull-out any Thai that you know in order to communicate, and Google Translate can help with translating signs.
That lack of tourism has some positives. Despite the communciation barrier, people were so, so friendly here, just because they weren't used to seeing a foreigner wandering around.
I could walk around Bangkok for a month and no one would say a word to me seeing as there's a foreigner every three to five metres. Here's the opposite. Some people would speak to me in Thai, some people would ask me the only English questions they knew, typically 'Where you from?', and sometimes kids would point and say 'Farang'. It was all positive though.
As a digital nomad, I typically don't like to stay anywhere for less than two weeks, but I came here for just one, and I'm glad that I did. As I didn't see another foriegner during my entire stay, and as the locals barely spoke English, I didn't have a proper conversation the whole time I was here. In that sense it reminded me of when I lived in China. So although it wasn't a new experience to me, after a week I was longing to get back to somewhere that I could communicate a bit better.
I came here at a very hot time of the year. It would get up to 42°C in the afternoon, which is great for running, but not much else. I'm not joking about that, my sado masochistic side loves running in extreme heat, but for just wandering the streets it's miserable, and Loei isn't really set-up for it.
What I mean is that in other towns and cities around Thailand, it gets hot in the daytime, sure, but there are enough air-conditioned coffee shops and shopping malls and restaurants and alike that at that time of day, you just travel between air conditioned places and aren't out in the heat for prolongued periods.
Loei doesn't have many air conditioned places to go to. A few 7-11s dotted around, occasional coffee shops, but neither vegan restaurant in Loei is air conditioned, and there are no shopping malls. As a consequence, I found myself spending a lot of time in my room just to escape the heat.
While I did quite enjoy my time here, I think it's better suited to someone who has a decent level of Thai proficiency who wants to immerse themselves. Hopefully that'll be me in the future, and in that case I'd love to come back.
It's a beautiful town, surrounded by mountains, and as I said, the locals are incredibly friendly. Much more so than in other parts of the country. Just be ready though. The typically visited places in Thailand are made for tourists, with English signs, English speakers, and food adjusted for foreign palates. If you've only been to such places and decide to come here, it'll be a bit of a shock.
Perhaps a welcome one, as I always enjoy time away from that blatant tourism, but just be aware that it's not like showing up on Koh Samui.
Loei is surrounded by mountains. This photo was taken looking east from the bridge to Kut Pong Public Park.
Where I stayed
Loei Huen Hao Hug Home and Resort
| Room | 6,214.95 THB |
| 7% VAT | 435.05 THB |
| Total |
6,650.00 THB
(950.00 THB per night)
|
I liked Huen Hao Hug Home... eventually. It took some getting used to.
The first point of contention was that of the two-storey building, my room was on the second floor at the very end. That meant that the wifi signal reached into the room... just. I was far enough away from the router that it was incredibly unreliable and would cut-out sometimes. I don't think I'm an anomaly in needing a good wifi signal for most things in my life nowadays.
I need it for work obviously, being a software engineer and having to do video calls, not to mention that coding is also my main free-time activity. One of the first things I do when I stay somewhere is plug my Apple TV into the room's TV, which I use for Netflix in order to relax at the end of the day, and for Peloton in order to do yoga and other exercise. So if you put me in the room with a shitty wifi signal, you suddenly inhibit my ability to work, to code, to exercise and to relax.
The second point of contention was in most hotels you get a 'Do not disturb' sign, and you get a latch on the inside of the door, so once you're inside your room you can make sure no one else comes in.
In this hotel you get neither.
There is no way of signalling to someone outside that you want to be left alone, and there is no way of locking the door from the inside. The result is that you don't really feel like you have any privacy. For example, I meditate for 30 minutes almost everyday, and to do that I typically put my AirPods Pro on noise cancellation mode and play some relaxing music, which means I can't hear if anyone knocks on the door.
And when you meditate, any distraction like knowing that someone could have come into the room without you noticing makes it really hard to relax. Any little sound that you hear through the music and you're opening your eyes and checking.
At one point I'd just got back to my room on a day that was 40+°C, had stripped down to my boxers in order to sweat into my clothes no more than I already had done, and was lying on my bed with the AC on to cool off. Without so much as a knock, the room door swings open as the maid comes in to clean.
She was very apologetic, but that lack of sense of privacy and the knowledge that anyone with a key could come into the room at any moment took some getting used to.
If you add up meditation, coding, exercising and watching Netflix, you account for about 80% of my conscious hours, and each one being hindered really threw me off at the beginning. That made other things that would have otherwise been non-issues, start to annoy me.
I found that there were a lot of unnecessary items and surfaces in the room. According to the booking.com listing it's a 40m² room. That seems an exaggeration, but even so, there was so much unnecessary stuff in the room that there wasn't even the space that I could comfortably do yoga.
And there were bugs in the room. Loads of them. You expect that a bit when you come to a smaller, more rural town like this, but I've stayed in rooms far closer to nature than this one, and not had to deal with insects in the room to this extent. For my first couple of nights it interrupted my sleep as every point I was about to drop-off, I'd feel another ant walking over me and have to flick it off.
All of this took some getting used to. I learned to tether my laptop to my 5G connection if I needed a reliable connection for anything. Whenever I went out I made sure to make a lot of noise and close the metal gate to the grounds really loudly so that the maid would see me going out and would make-up the room while I was gone, and then I wouldn't have to worry about anyone coming in for the rest of the day. I learned to work around the annoying layout, and I got used to the bugs as well because... well eventually you just need to sleep.
Once I'd got used to these things, I quite liked this place.
The location was great. The running track at the Loei Provincial Hall (see the running section below) was a really short walk away, and there were some useful street vendors nearby. The setting of the hotel is very nice too, surrounded by tamarind trees. That's not as serene as it sounds because there's a lot of noise nearby. There's a main road out the front, and on the one Sunday I was here, there was room-shakingly loud music nearby from when I woke up around 7:30am, until late in the afternoon. I'm not sure where it was coming from and if it's a weekly thing or if I was just unlucky. Put on some headphones though, and the location is pretty serene.
Excepting the above, there are some decent facilities in the room as well. A microwave would have been nice, so that I could get some frozen meals from 7-11, but apart from that, it has a fridge with ice box, a sink for washing up, a boiling water dispenser, and a small selection of crockery and cutlery. There's loads of storage and surface space. Way more than is necessary, even for two people travelling with excessive luggage, but at least you're not short of places to put things, and the bed was comfortable and the AC good.
Now that I know what to expect, I would have no concerns about staying here again. In small, non-touristy towns like this, you have to be willing to make concessions. You aren't going to find any five-star hotels in a town like this.
I would specifically request a room near to the wifi router if coming again. It wouldn't hurt to get a 'Do not disturb' sign either, but once you know what you're coming to, it's a decent place.
You get a desk and chair next to the bed, which is a good place to setup with your laptop.
Where to get vegan food in Loei
Loei only has two vegan-friendly restaurants; both the standard local 'jay' restaurants that you find all over Thailand. 'Jay' ('เจ' in Thai) basically means vegan, but it also prohibits certain vegetables such as garlic and onions. These two restaurants, which I'll detail below, were great, but as is typical for such restaurants, they're family-run lunch restaurants. They close before the evening and as I found, both are closed on Sundays.
I was unable to find anywhere else in Loei to get a hot plate of food, so for sustenance at other times I had to pretty much snack on whatever I could find.
On my first day here I went to Big C and bought a week's worth of granola and soy milk. That meant that I could at least have a bowl of granola everyday. There are vendors dotted around Loei selling pre-cut fruit; I visited them a lot, and was fortunate to have a vendor who set-up a couple of minutes walk from my room selling mango sticky rice.
7-11 has a couple of vegan frozen meals, which never leave you feeling too great but are good in a pinch. If you have a microwave in your room, and a freezer or at least an ice compartment in a fridge, then you can get a few of these to keep for when you need. Otherwise you can have them heated in 7-11.
Other than that I got by snacking on various vegan foods from 7-11 and Lotus. In Lotus they have tinned fruit, such as rambutan stuffed with pineapple. In 7-11 they sell pre-made juices and smoothies, and nuts and crisps.
I'm fairly certain I lost a bit of weight while I was here, because despite the snacking, I was only eating one hot meal per day, and not even on Sunday, but once I'd explored the town and knew what was available it was ok.
This mango sticky rice vendor, who setup a couple of minutes from my room most days, did a lot to keep me fed. This calorie-dense dessert was exactly what I needed when other sources of vegan food were hard to come by. One portion costs 50 baht, although on one occasion I got two, and then felt very sick. I don't recommend it.
Raan J Koh
I came here three times, and each time I was the only customer. I'm not sure why.
The first time I came I was greeted by a middle-aged man walking around with no shirt on. That might be why. Seeing as this is one of the only two vegan restaurants in town, I didn't have the luxury of being fussy, but it's actually a really good place.
There's one person who works here who speaks pretty good English; the best I encountered in Loei. And even though the menu is written just in Thai, it works very well with Google Translate, and if they can find it, there's a copy of the menu behind the counter that's been mostly translated.
The food is all made-to-order; there is no buffet, at least not at the times that I came, but it was all really cheap. Each time I came I got two dishes, and each one was 40 baht and could constitute a meal in itself.
The menu is all vegan equivalents of typical Thai dishes. Stir-fried pork with basil, for example. The mock meat wasn't overwhelming though, it felt just a small part of the dish, which I welcomed.
They're also on FoodPanda as 'Ahan J Kow'. This is the only option for getting vegan food delivered while in Loei.
They have an extensive menu of vegan meat-inspired dishes. This fried vegan crispy pork with basil rice dish costs 40 baht.
Jay Im Buun
Jay Im Buun is a very typical 'jay' restaurant with a point-and-hope buffet. They also sell a few other dishes; I saw people ordering noodles, but I was always happy with the buffet.
Be warned to get here early. I came at about 1:30pm one day and they'd already run out of rice and only had three items left in the buffet. It was still good, but if you want to have any choice, you're better off getting here by late morning.
There's not a word of English spoken by any of the staff here, and on my first visit, a young child of the family that runs the restaurant was enamoured by the presence of a foreigner, so rocked on a chair right behind me saying 'falang' repeatedly.
That got a bit annoying.
Given that this is one of only two places in Loei to get a hot vegan meal, I'd have put up with a lot more than that.
Jay Im Buun have a point-and-hope buffet. Three choices with rice costs 40 baht.
Where to run in Loei
Prior to coming to Loei, I'd looked at Kut Pong Public Park as the most viable place to go running, and it definitely is a viable place to go running. During my evening wanderings I saw people running here.
I didn't walk around the entire park, but there's a track around at least part of it. It's not huge though. A circuit of the park would maybe be 400m. A possible extension would be to include running on the other side of the water, which has a path going around it.
On my bus into Loei from Udon Thani, I noticed a separated cycle path that runs south alongside the 201 highway from roughly adjacent to the Loei Bus Terminal. I didn't see a single bicycle on it though; just the occasional stray motorcycle (despite the 'no motorcycles' signs).
As the bus was getting towards Loei town, I was salivating at this empty cycle path, as I thought it'd be perfect for running, and I stand-by that.
One warning would be that I walked down it a little bit on my way back from a supermarket one day, and I passed some slightly territorial dogs, who can react more aggressively to people running than people walking, but even so, I maintain it's a very viable option if you want to go for a longer run without doing loops.
The reason that I never ran along this cycle path, nor in Kut Pong Public Park, was that they were both a bit of a distance from where I was staying. Much closer to my room I found that the Loei Provincial Hall had a cycle track in its grounds. It was ridiculous as a cycle track as it was only a little over 400m long and had sharp corners. I'm not sure who'd ever want to cycle there, and I never saw anyone who did. However for running it's perfect.
I did two runs here, both in the daytime, so I had the track to myself. In the evenings it attracts a few more runners, but I never saw it actually become busy, so it's a really good place to go.
It's just over 400m long. To do a 5km run was 12 laps, so it does get a bit repetitive. I wouldn't have wanted to run much farther here. Luckily I'm horrendously unfit at the moment, so I was happy with 5km.
My first run at the Loei Provincial Hall
Where to do laundry in Loei
This might seem a strange section to include; it can't be that hard to do laundry can it?
Well you wouldn't have thought so. My usual strategy for finding somewhere to do laundry is to get on Google Maps, search for 'Laundrette', and go to a nearby place with positive reviews. That's what I did in Loei, but pretty much every place that Google Maps says is a laundrette, isn't a laundrette.
I'd find myself at clothes shops, or at peoples houses, but I was wandering around for hours before ever finding a laundrette, and given the time of year, it was 40°C and I got a really sunburnt head. So to save you also giving yourself skin cancer, this is the place that I finally found that actually is a laundrette.
Of course it's only about a three-minute walk from my room, just in the opposite direction.
It's run by a couple of older women who don't speak a word of English between them so we attempted to communicate with my very broken Thai, but I was able to understand that I should come back the next afternoon.
When I did, my clothes were clean and folded, and what will have been roughly 3kg of laundry cost 150 baht.
There isn't any English signage and the ladies that work here don't speak a word of English, but I was able to get by with my broken Thai. This was the only place that I found in Loei where I could drop-off my laundry to be cleaned.
Being sociable in Loei
There's nothing. Literally nothing.
I searched for any Meetup events. Nothing. I searched for any Facebook events. Nothing. So on a Saturday evening I decided I'd just go to the one bar I'd seen described as being a 'Western' bar in Loei: Saloon Loei.
It was closed.
I wandered down the rest of Ruam Pattana, which I'd read was the closest thing to a bar street that Loei has. Almost everything else was closed as well, so I gave up and went home.
That's the spirit.
If you know people locally I'm sure your experience would be different, but being in Loei alone and as a foreigner, I found nowhere that I wanted to go and have a drink.
Which is probably good, because I'd been drinking too much.