While Surin is a fairly small town, there are plenty of things to see and keep you occupied for a few days. Surin has quite a few temples, a city pillar shrine, a country park, an elephant festival, an elephant knowledge park, night markets and more.
Elephant Knowledge Park (NEW – OPENING SOON)
The Elephant Knowledge Park is new, but not open yet. We’ve watched it being built over the last few years, and it seems to be getting near completion. Hopefully, it will be open when you visit Surin.
Elephant Knowledge Park will be part museum, part shopping mall, and part boutique hotel. It’s just a 2-minute walk from the train station, so an ideal location. It’s also a 2-minute walk from Surin’s main bus station.
This looks like a high-quality development, with lots of wood used in the traditional-looking buildings. It should be a great addition to the city.
Kid Teung Bakery & Cafe is at the entrance, so it’s a great place to stop for a coffee.
Elephant Knowledge Park Details
Location: Thanon Sanit Nikomrut
Opening Hours: Opening Soon
Roi Ruen Rom Market (A Traditional Thai Food Market)
All Thai towns have fresh markets, and this one in Surin is mainly open late afternoon and evening. All the food here looks very fresh, with most produce harvested or produced the same day.
This is a local Thai market, so it’s an authentic place to visit. You rarely see foreigners here, and mostly only Thai is spoken.
This market has everything you need, including vegetables, fruit, cooked meats, cooked Thai dishes, cooked insects, sweet treats and many other items.
Above you can see a stall that sells a range of Thai dishes that are cooked and ready to eat. These dishes are very popular.
No Thai market would be complete with a selection of fried insects. Yum Yum.
Roi Ruen Rom Market Details
Location: Corner of Luck Muang Road & Sirin Thon
Opening Hours: Around 15:00-19:00 every day (peak time is 16:00-18:00 when you’ll have the best choice)
Surin Night Market
Surin night market is open every day and is a popular place to visit for (mainly young) locals. It’s open from around 17:00-22:00. although this can vary slightly.
The market is split up into two sections, one for food and the other for mainly clothes, accessories and toys.
Most people seem to come for the food, which can be eaten at the tables or taken away. As this is a local market, all the food is Thai and not Western. In fact, it’s quite rare to see any tourists in the market.
The clothing section is mainly women and children’s clothes. There was an unusually large number of stalls selling winter clothing when we visited.
At the end of the market, there’s a small park with benches where you can sit and relax. Some locals buy food at the market and they go to the park to eat it.
Surin Night Market Details
Location: Krungsri Nai Road (between Jitrbumrung Road and Tanasarn Road)
Opening Hours: Around 17:00-22:00 every day
The City Pillar Shrine is a sacred icon and is important to the people of Surin. It was installed in 1968.
The pillar is housed inside a beautiful building that’s a much redder color than the photo above suggests. The sun was very strong when I took the photo, so the color doesn’t show up very well.
The inside of the building is stunningly beautiful. Just take a look at the ceiling, shown above.
Take a look at the entrance to the building above, and then take a look at the image below that shows the building many years ago. What a transformation.
What the building used to be like in the old days.
City Pillar Shrine Details
Location: Luck Muang Road (near the junction with Soi Poipreeng)
Opening Hours: All day, every day
Surin Elephant Roundabout
Surin is known as Elephant City, and you can see some life-size elephant statues at the elephant roundabout, next to the lake.
Surin Elephant Roundabout Details
Location: Roundabout where the following roads meet: Jitrbumrung Road, Krungsi Nok, Suriyarat Alley and Road 214
Where To Stay In Surin
For our four days in Surin, we decided to stay at Maneerote Hotel, which is where we usually stay. It’s centrally located, clean, very reasonably priced, and has a cafe on the ground floor.