Roi Et Destination Guide

Updated 7th Sep 2026

Roi Et is a provincial capital in the middle of Isaan, organised around a lake with a tower standing beside it. The name is the Thai for one hundred and one, and the tower stands over 101 metres to match. This page covers flying in, what the town centre holds, what is worth the drive out into the province, and when the festivals fall.

Getting there by air

Thai AirAsia is the only airline running scheduled service to Roi Et Airport (ROI). In the Department of Airports' own flight records, Bangkok's Don Mueang airport (DMK) is the other end of every scheduled arrival through 2025 and January 2026, and Suvarnabhumi is not named on any of them. Flying in from elsewhere in Thailand therefore means a connection at Don Mueang.

The schedule and the booking form for the inbound leg sit on the Bangkok to Roi Et page, and the return leg on Roi Et to Bangkok. Thai AirAsia has its own page for baggage and fare conditions.

One carrier also means one point of failure. No second scheduled airline appears in those records, so a disrupted service has no alternative carrier at Roi Et to be moved onto.

The airport, and getting into town

Roi Et Airport is in Thawat Buri district, which is not the same district as the town. The aeronautical information publication for the aerodrome puts it 19 kilometres east of the city, in a written description rather than a measured field.

That same entry lists taxi and car hire as the transport available at the airport, places the hotels, restaurants, banks, post office, tourist office and hospital "in the city", and gives first aid as the medical provision there. Sort the transfer before you land rather than after.

The aerodrome's published operating hours are 06:00 to 21:00 local time. A delayed evening flight has little room before that closing time.

What the terminal itself holds is covered on the Roi Et Airport page.

A flight-training airfield as much as an airline one

In 2025 the Department of Airports recorded 7,144 training movements at Roi Et against 2,820 scheduled airline movements, so training traffic came to more than twice the airline traffic. Both are annual totals for the whole of 2025 rather than a daily rate, and the training is not spread evenly through the year. Of that training total, 7,098 movements were filed by a single flight school, Bangkok Aviation Center.

Thai Aviation Academy also has a campus in Thawat Buri district, which it puts about four kilometres from the airport, and it gives flat terrain and weather that is usable year round as the reason for being there. The training aircraft in those records are mostly Cessna 172 variants, with smaller numbers of Diamond DA42 and DA40, Tecnam and Beech types.

The airline side still moves real numbers, and the same records count 386,425 scheduled domestic passengers at Roi Et in 2025, counting both directions together.

The town centre

Bueng Phlan Chai is the town's lake, in Nai Mueang, and the town centre is arranged around it. An island in it holds a flower garden with a walking Buddha image, a flower clock and an artificial waterfall called Phu Phalan Chai. The city pillar shrine stands on the lake's grounds. The lake is also where provincial fairs are held.

Ho Wot 101, better known as Roi Et Tower, stands beside the lake in Srinakharin Park on Suriyadet Bamrung Road. It is over 101 metres tall, which the provincial authorities put at more than 33 storeys, and it is shaped like a wot, the bamboo panpipe of Isaan folk music. Inside are shops, coffee shops and restaurants, the Roi Et City Museum, and an open-air viewpoint that runs the whole way round.

Wat Burapha Phiram is at 559 Phadung Phanit Road, and was formerly called Wat Hua Ro. Its standing Buddha image, Phra Phuttha Rattanamongkhon Mahamuni or Luangpho Yai, is built of reinforced concrete and stands close to 60 metres without its base, which adds roughly another eight. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) calls it Thailand's tallest standing Buddha image on its Wat Burapha Phiram page, and there is a museum inside the base.

It is a different image from the walking Buddha on the lake island. Phadung Phanit Road is also the street TAT points visitors to for silk and cotton fabric, so the temple and the fabric shops share a street.

The Roi Et National Museum is on Phloen Chit Road, near City Hall. It began as a collection of local silk textiles and handicrafts and was rebuilt as a national museum by the Fine Arts Department, which describes it as the first city national museum to open under that policy. It opened in 1998 and there is an admission charge.

It opens Wednesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 16:00, and closes on Monday, Tuesday and public holidays. That closure catches out a long weekend that runs on into the week.

Out in the province

Everything else is a drive. Ku Ka Sing, in Kaset Wisai district, is a Khmer sanctuary inside a working temple, with three prangs on a single laterite base and rectangular library buildings in front of them. A wall with entrance pavilions on all four sides encloses it, with a U-shaped moat outside that.

Ku Ka Sing is believed to date from the early 1000s and to have been dedicated to Shiva, and a Shiva lingam sits in the inner chamber of the central prang. One lintel shows Indra on the Erawan elephant above a Kala face. TAT puts the site roughly 60 kilometres from town, which is over an hour on the road.

Ku Phra Kona is a separate sanctuary in a separate district, Suwannaphum, which TAT's own directions put about 60 kilometres from Mueang district along Highway 215. Its three brick prangs face east on a single sandstone base and are believed to be 11th century, and the central one was renovated in 1874 with plasterwork and a re-tiered roof that considerably changed its appearance. A fallen lintel shows Shiva on a bull.

A troupe of monkeys lives at Ku Phra Kona. Keep food out of sight and bags and phones closed while you are there.

Phra Maha Chedi Chai Mongkhon is further out again, at Wat Pha Nam Thip Thep Prasit Wanaram at Pha Nam Yoi, in Nong Phok district in the east of the province.

None of these is a half-hour errand from a hotel. Each one is a taxi or a hire car for most of a day. The two Khmer sanctuaries are in different districts, but TAT's own directions link them: from Ku Phra Kona it is about 18 kilometres further to Ku Ka Sing, so the pair is one long day rather than two trips.

Festivals, and when they fall

The seasonal picture for the country as a whole is covered on the best time to visit Thailand guide. What shapes the local calendar is the festival one.

Bun Phawet, the province's merit-making ceremony, falls in the fourth lunar month, so early March. It runs at Saket Nakhon Plaza in the same Srinakharin Park, with 16 processions and the 13 chapters of the Mahachat sermon, the Phra Upakut procession and the khao phan korn parade. Free stalls of khao poon, a rice noodle dish, are set up around town for it.

Rocket festivals run in several towns across the province in May and June. The World Hom Mali Rice Festival, an exhibition of northeastern rice, farm technology and cooking contests, runs in December, though not always in town: the 2025 edition was held at Thawatchai Reservoir in Thawat Buri district rather than by the lake. In September 2025 TAT ran a Molam festival of Isaan music at Roi Et Tower.

Check the current year's dates for Bun Phawet before you book flights around it, since it moves with the lunar year.

Frequently asked questions

Is Roi Et worth visiting?

It is a working provincial capital rather than a resort town, and what it has is compact: a lake with the city pillar shrine, a tower over 101 metres tall beside it, the tallest standing Buddha image in Thailand by TAT's reckoning, and a national museum built around local silk. The lake, the tower and the temple are all in Nai Mueang, so one day covers the town centre. The Khmer sanctuaries need a second day and a car.

What is Roi Et famous for?

Thai Hom Mali jasmine rice, grown on the Thung Kula Ronghai plain. That plain covers about 2.1 million rai and spreads across Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Surin, Si Sa Ket and Yasothon, so it is not Roi Et's alone. The province is also known for the khaen, the Isaan woodwind instrument that TAT says is best made in the village of Si Kaew, for molam music, and for traditional textiles and wickerwork.

Which Bangkok airport do flights to Roi Et use?

Don Mueang. In the Department of Airports' flight records for 2025 and January 2026, Don Mueang is named as the other end of every scheduled arrival at Roi Et, and Suvarnabhumi is not named on any of them.