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Why Phrae is 'bigger' than Nan

People in Nan joke about people from Phrae a lot. It's the same kind of inter city rivalry that Sheffield has with Leeds, and that the south (of England) has with the north. Nothing serious, but just a feeling that the city or place that you are from, is (and has to be) better than anywhere else in the world, how the people are smarter etc...

On Friday, driving down the main Nan-Phrae highway, heading towards Tak, one of the guys in the car asked me if I knew about the story of Khao 'Kreung,' the supposed 1/2 way line dividing the provinces of Nan and Phrae.

I'm not sure how true this is, but I really enjoyed listening to it. I hope I've translated it right.

Hundreds of years ago, before Thailand existed, there were lots of small kingdoms and city states. Nan and Phrae were both small kingdoms. One day someone decided that there needed to be a fixed boundary between the 2 places.

Raher than fighting or having a war, someone decided that one person from Nan, and one person from Phrae should ride towards each other, on what's now the main Nan-Phrae highway. The place where they both met, would form the new Nan-Phrae border.

Phrae, being greedy, wanted as much land as it could get. Nan, already surrounded by mountains, wanted as little as possible.

Phrae sent a person on horseback.
Nan's messenger rode on the back of a cow.

They met at khao kreung. It translates as half way mountain, though the 'half way' point is around 70km from Phrae and around 50km from Nan.

After listening to the story I couldn't help but think that the person from Phrae wasn't very good at riding the horse (as he only managed to ride 70km from Phrae...) and that the person from Nan was very, very good at riding the cow (as, even though he didn't want to go that far he managed to travel around 50km in the same ammount of time.)

I'm sure that people from Phrae would have a slightly different way of telling this tale. One day (maybe the next time that I get the chance to go there) I'd love to ask someone what their version of the story is.

Create Date : 31 สิงหาคม 2552

Last Update : 31 สิงหาคม 2552 23:14:00 น.

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