Golden Triangle

We have a full day planned for today, with the driver that took us from the airport picking us up at the hotel and heading out of the city and up north. Fueled up from the breakfast buffet (is there a limit on how many croissants an 11 year old boy should eat?), we are on the road by 9 am, which seems pretty good since are still getting used to the time zone. Even my trusty traveling companion, who has mastered the art of the late start, is in good spirits.

Our first stop is a Karen village about 30 miles north of town. The Karen (or more specifically, a subgroup called the Padaung) are probably the best known of the hill tribes in Thailand due to their tradition of elongating their necks with metal rings (in the tour packages they refer to them simply as Long Neck Villages). Despite my initial reservations about paying to visit what is essentially a people zoo, I have to admit that I found it quite interesting. The villagers have mostly set up stalls to try and sell handmade crafts (that look suspiciously consistent from stall to stall), but seem content and are happy to allow pictures. We even find a Karen version of Grandma Katie, who despite not speaking a word of english (and us not speaking a work of whatever her native language is) chats us up like we were friends from high school. She has been affectionately dubbed Corky Longneck.

Continuing north, our next destination is Doi Tung, atop which sits a mountain retreat built for the royal family is the style of a Swiss chalet. It is still in use from time to time, but in large part it has become almost a shrine to the king’s mother (who used it as a summer residence). As Nick and I aren’t appropriately dressed for such a meaningful place (knees showing, yikes!), the staff fix us up with some elegant one size fits all jeans (which I predict will be the next great jeans craze after Pajama Jeans). I feel a bit sorry for Nick, as he can’t really pull off such a wide range of outfits as I can, but he’s a trooper nonetheless.

The chalet itself is interesting, with spectacular views across the border into Burma, and at it’s simplest, reinforces that it is good to be the king. The context in which it was built though is what makes it particularly compelling. Doi Tung is located within the Golden Triangle, which was not always such a happy place. Extreme poverty, rampant drug use amongst the hill tribes, lawlessness, and massive clear cutting to make room for opium poppies, were the order of the day as recently as the 1990s. The king’s mother took a particular interest in this region, helping establish health care and education programs in the region that have helped wean the local people from opium production and into more sustainable efforts such as coffee growing.

From Doi Tung, we head back down the mountain and into Mae Sai – a border city next to Myanmar (Burma). Here we make the obligatory “factory tour” stop at a place making carvings out of jade. The claim is that all of the jade (and most of the precious stones for sale in the adjacent store) are brought in from Myanmar, and that, or course, they are much cheaper here than anywhere else in Thailand. For whatever reason, I haven’t gotten comfortable with the idea of buying gem stones from sketchy vendors, so while Angela satisfies her need to try on one of everything, Nick and I head out onto the street to find some lunch.

We pick up a piece of fried chicken from a street cart, but hit the jackpot when we come across a Thai food court. No one there really speaks english, so we point to a picture of something that looks good and sit down to eat. When it arrives, the meat resembles pork, and has some bones so we know it came from some kind of animal with an internal skeleton, but beyond that, it’s hard to say. Complimented with a bowl of dishwater soup, it actually eats pretty well, and I have to give Nick his due props for not even batting an eye.

Economically unscathed, we leave Mai Sae (with a few quick photos of the Myanmar border to show we were there) and head to Sop Ruak, which is the point where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos all meet. The is an official museum located here focused on the history of opium (not surprisingly named the Hall of Opium). We debate a bit whether it is appropriate for an 11 year old, but probably better to learn about it here than at Timbercrest, so we head in. Given the topic, it is very well done, covering the history of opium from the Egyptians, and its evolution from a medicinal substance to a highly addictive drug, and the far reaching impact it has had ranging from events like the Opium Wars to the death of John Belushi. Not the most upbeat of destinations, but worthwhile.

The real reason people come to Sop Ruak is to take a long-tail boat to what is purportedly Laos (although what could just as easily be an island in the Mekong River that an enterprising group of boat owners and knick-knack sellers decided to tell tourists was Laos to drive more business). It has already been a long day and we waver a bit as to whether we are up for another hour long excursion, but ultimately decide to suck it up since we have come all this way.

By the time we are finished, it is starting to get dark, and even though we do make one more stop in Chiang Saen to see an old temple, it is hard to make much out. Pretty beat from a long day, we start the hour long drive back to Chiang Rai and turn in for our last night.