The worldheritagesite in Ban Chiang relates to the remains of the Ban Chiang culture that was named after the village that developed on the site where the ancient culture has lived around 200 years ago when settlers moved there from the territory that is today Laos. The site is famous for the pottery which was most famously used for burial rituals and that can be split into three time intervals between around 5,000 years ago and 2,000 years ago. Additionally remains of bronze and iron processing have been found often next to skeletons.  
 
We have visited the three components that are presented in the leaflet available in the national museum of Ban Chiang. The museum is the most interesting component however it´s only in the buffer zone as in this area no burial remains have been found. It was dedicated to the archaeology by the king when he visited the excavation sites in 1972 and was supposed to support the national understanding of the origin of the Thai people or generally the people of the region. The first room is at the end of the museum, so you have to walk through the whole exhibition and in the end climb up one level to the room that is dedicated to the visit of the king. There is a lot of emphasis on the visit by the king and his questions that he asked to the archaeologists. In other countries the presentation of his visit would probably be seen as exaggerated but in Thailand it fits to the status and popularity that the king has. There is an audio guide on YouTube available by QR code in the museum that was quite good. So consider bringing a SIM card with internet and headphones. Reading through the whole exhibition can take a full day. With the audio guide I had the impression that the most important components are covered. The audio files are maybe 1,5 hours in total and I spent 3 hours in the museum. It´s much bigger than one would expect in a small village like Ban Chiang. And it´s also presented in a good way even though some repetitions can be witnessed. The museum is open on all days except Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.. 
 
The second component is a 900 meter walk to the east. There are some small street restaurants, a nice Sala at the lake and a very good café at the street with cakes along the way. At Wat Pho Si Nai, a Buddhist monastery, there was one of the main excavation grounds for the archaeologists. It seems logical that it was here as the whole core zone where the findings of remains occurred, was mainly covered by houses of the village. Once the pottery became popular the villagers started selling it which caused a huge loss to the history of the Ban Chiang culture. Probably the remains in the monastery where more protected as there was no looting going on in the religious place. Today one still enters the ground of the monastery and there is the hole of the excavation visible with some replicas of the pottery and bones to give an impression of how the excavation looked when it was active. The signs on the walls are a repetition of the information from the museum. The site is open until 6 p.m.. 
 
The final component is a private house that was donated for the excavation work by a villager in the 1970s after the visit of the king. It was fun to search for it together with the help of some locals that looked irritated but interested as foreign tourist wandered through the small streets. The information in the leaflet where the house is, is quite imprecise. Finally we found it in this position: 17°24'21.1"N 103°14'34.0"E. There is a traditional house of apparently 200 years of age and a sign explaining the excavations that were conducted here and their findings. Today there is only grass growing on the soil and nothing can be seen of the excavation anymore. The property was fenced but we opened the fence and entered as a neighbour invited us to. 
 
We had our base in Udon Thani on the train route Nakhon Ratchasima- Nong Khai on the border to Vientiane, Laos. In the 7th biggest city of Thailand there are many accommodation options and we could arrange a taxi from the hotel reception. The taxi driver dropped us off in the 50 km distant Ban Chaing and took one hour after calling him to collect us again in Ban Chiang for the drive back to the hotel at a cost of 1,400 Baht. 
 
I found the visit a bit similar to the one of the Chinchorro culture in Arica, Chile. It´s also about the burial remains of an ancient culture and luckily here is also a museum available giving some context. The pottery is quite impressive putting it into the context of its age.