The clock tower at the centre of Mahasarakham is the obvious meeting point in town, and the fresh market around it is where to spend an hour in the morning if you want to see the place at its most ordinary. Vendors sell bunches of glass noodles, dried river fish from the Mun and the Chi, baskets of som tam (papaya salad) ingredients pre-portioned with the chillis on top, bagged curry pastes, sticky rice in palm-leaf cones, and the brilliant orange-yellow flowers of the dok khae tree, which Isan cooks fry with eggs in the cool months.
By late afternoon the market hands its space over to the food street. Plastic stools come out under tarpaulins, charcoal grills get going for skewers of pork neck and sun-dried beef (neua dad diao), and pots of gaeng om — a fragrant Isan herb stew — simmer until midnight. The clientele is half local office workers and half MSU students, the prices are low, and the level of English varies by stall. Point and smile, or learn three words of Thai before you arrive.