A visit to Chiang Khan was to me like a blast from the past - a past long gone. As little as nine years ago, Chiang Khan was a sleepy little town. There was nothing unusual about the town, nothing to keep passers-through from not simply passing through. Today, the town has converted a stretch of a narrow street (along the banks of the Mekong River) into "how rural Thailand once was".
It is about as real as Disneyland, but Bangkokians ignore the "make believe" aspects and focus on the cute photo opportunities provided. The atmosphere is fake, but Bangkokians can come up and wander along the street, take pictures, check out tacky souvenirs, and hang out in retro-style cafes and mini-bars in their designer clothes. The main hassle the city slickers face is the scarcity of parking space.
Personally, I prefer to stay a bit further down the river. The Mekong at Chiang Khan is quite wide and do not seem to flow anywhere. A few kilometers downriver, however, the Mekong breaks up into pools of still water during the dry season, while it flows at a rapid pace in a narrow canal close to the Laotian side.
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