Thung Kula Ronghai

Thung Kula Ronghai covers around two million rai across five north-eastern provinces, and its name comes from a story about Kula traders who crossed it and wept at its emptiness. It is a hard place to farm: sandy, saline soil, no irrigation across most of it, and a single rain-fed crop a year. That is exactly why the rice is good. Hom mali, jasmine rice, responds to stress by concentrating the aromatic compound that gives it its scent, and the salinity and drought of this plain produce grain that is fragrant in a way irrigated rice from better land is not - Thung Kula hom mali holds EU protected geographical indication status and is the benchmark for Thai jasmine rice. Planting follows the rains from around May, and harvest is November into December, when the plain turns gold and the whole landscape is being cut, threshed and dried by hand and machine.

What you actually see

• The harvest - the plain cut, threshed and dried through November and December.
• The saline plain - the difficult ground that makes the rice what it is.
• The GI status - Thung Kula hom mali, protected and used as the benchmark.
• The single crop - one rain-fed harvest a year, planted from about May.

When to go

November to December for harvest, when the plain is gold and being worked. Outside that it is flooded paddy in the wet season and dry stubble in the hot months.

Honest expectations

There is no visitor site - this is farmland crossed by roads, and the interest is the landscape and the rice. Farm and mill visits need arranging locally. Very flat, hot and open with no shade.

Nearby

Roi Et, Surin and Yasothon are the main towns around the plain.