Things to do in Roi Et.

The province's most extraordinary building, and one of the largest chedis in Thailand. It measures 101 metres wide, 101 metres long and 101 metres tall, with sources putting it at roughly 109 metres including the gilded finial — and the dimension is a deliberate reference to the province's name. Roi Et, ร้อยเอ็ด, is read as "one hundred and one", although the town was actually named for eleven ancient gates built for eleven vassal states; in old Thai the numeral eleven was written ๑๐๑, and later readers took it literally. So the province built a chedi to the dimensions of a misreading. It stands in Nong Phok district in the eastern uplands, well out of the provincial town, and the drive is a substantial part of the visit — this is the quietest quarter of Roi Et and there is no public transport worth planning around.

Phra Phuttha Rattana Mongkhon Maha Muni, known locally as Luangpho Yai, stands on the eastern side of the provincial town and is widely described as the tallest standing Buddha image in Thailand: 59.2 metres of concrete finished in mosaic, or 67.55 metres including its base, completed in 1973 and counted among the four tallest statues in the country. It is the "renowned tallest Buddha image" the provincial motto names. You can walk up inside the base, and the position on the eastern edge of town makes it the easiest of the province's landmarks to reach on foot or by tuk-tuk from anywhere central.

The town is built around an artificial lake with an island in the middle, and the island carries the shrine of the city pillar — home to the spirit Mahesak, revered locally — which is what the provincial seal depicts. It functions as the town's public space and its festival ground: the Bun Phawet merit-making ceremony is held here on the first weekend of March, and the candle floats parade here at Asalha Puja in July. On an ordinary day it is simply where the town walks in the evening, and it is the reason Roi Et town feels more pleasant than its size would suggest.

The southern districts carry the province's Khmer heritage. Ku Phra Kona, in Suwannaphum district, is a group of three east-facing brick prangs standing in a north–south line on a single sandstone base, surrounded by a boundary wall with entrance pavilions — gopuras — on all four sides, all in sandstone. Ku Ka Sing, in Kaset Wisai, comprises three prangs on a single laterite base carved with motifs, with bannalai libraries at the front and a gopura on each of the four sides of the enclosing wall. Both sit on the Thung Kula Rong Hai plain, and both are reminders that this flat rice country was part of the Khmer world long before it was Lao or Thai.

The Kin Khao Pun Bun Phawet festival was first held in 1991 and has run annually since, on the first weekend of March at Bueng Phalan Chai. Monks deliver all thirteen chapters of the Vessantara Jataka — the Great Birth Sermon — a Phawet parade moves through the town, and stalls hand out free khao pun, the fermented rice noodles the festival is named for. It is the item the provincial motto calls "the Bun Phawet tradition", and it is the one weekend of the year when Roi Et is genuinely busy. Confirm the exact dates with the Tourism Authority of Thailand before travelling for it.

The southern half of the province is Thung Kula Rong Hai, the plain that spreads across Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Sisaket, Yasothon and Surin and grows the jasmine rice that carries the province's name abroad. Hom Mali Thung Kula Rong-Hai — Khao Dawk Mali 105 and RD15, rainfed, one crop a year — took a Thai geographical indication in 2006 and a European Union Protected Geographical Indication in 2013, the first Southeast Asian product granted EU GI recognition. As a thing to see rather than eat, it is a landscape: enormous, flat, and at its best in the weeks before the cool-season harvest. Roi Et's forest cover is down to 346 square kilometres, or 4.4 per cent of the province, precisely because this is what the land is.