The Golden Triangle

After a night in a very strange bar called the Peace Bar, basically a hippy 60s Rasta Bar with all the usual drugs connotations, we decided to put Gary's culture cap on and tour the Chiang Rai province for a day. Our tour guide was supplied by our hotel, the Wiang Inn. She was called Yei (meaning first born, or "oldest girl"). She spoke excellent English and, during the course of the day, maintained a commentary of a separate blog's worth of detail about local life in Northern Thailand. She also had a wicked sense of humour (having threatened to leave me behind many times if I wandered off again). Our travels took us to the most northern point in Thailand, first to Mae Chan and then a sharp right to make the obligatory visit to hill tribe villages. The Akha village was originally inhabited by migrants from Tibet 150 years ago. The village style was thatched woven huts on stilts, the people very into spirit worship, their elders brown and wrinkled finding the whole tourist-with-camera thing very funny, the children following us around demanding 20 Baht for their picture. I tried to flummox them by shouting back "No, you give me 20 Baht!" They think about this a bit and then make a pantomime of giving me money (a stone). I shout "You robbers!" and run after them. Great street theatre! The next village consisted of slightly more modern dwellings, the Yao people having migrated here only 100 years ago from the Yunnan province in China. We visited one house and was surprised to see a fridge and electric cables. Apparently, they've only had electricity for 10 years. Yei says they were all involved in opium growing last century but are now devoted to tourism. Unfortunately, there weren't many tourists to be seen; Yei explains that tourism has dried up in the north in the last three years, Westerners either not coming because of the recession or preferring the beach resorts down south. We bought some local artefacts but it was clear that there was so much of those on offer and so few of us.

Our next stop was Mae Sai, the most northern town in Thailand the focus of which being a border checkpoint across a bridge to Myanmar. People can get a day visa to cross over the River Sai to the cheaper markets but they have to pay 10 dollars to do so. Still, the bridge seemed pretty busy. Mae Sai itself had an enormous permanent market where I bought a new, bigger bum bag for my camera for 8 quid. The next stop at a jade crafting factory saw me neatly manoeuvred into buying Linda’s birthday present for her 60th next month (see? wicked sense of humour has Yei). We travelled eastward for a buffet lunch and a cold bottle of Chang on a balcony overlooking the mountains of Myanmar. Linda bought a beautiful hand painted, hand carved flower made from soap from a local vendor for Carolyn’s birthday tomorrow.

Okay, now you can call me a sad bunny. Some twenty years after I formed a team in my pre-retirement lifetime to study such things, I finally make it to the Golden Triangle in person. I had always treated the phrase as describing a Region in South East Asia but here they use the term to describe a point where the lines of the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet in the middle. In fact, that point is where the Mekong River separating Thailand and Myanmar is joined by the Ruak River separating Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. In the village of Sop Ruak we were duty bound to visit the Opium Museum. Later, I spent an hour comparing notes on smuggling techniques our tour guide (who seems spookily knowledgeable about such things – I’d never heard about the trick with cabbages) and I gather that while heroin is no longer as massively trafficked as it used to be there is still a problem with methamphetamine smuggling in the region. Ah, the professional nostalgia of it all! You can take the boy out of the Job but . . .

One more stop on the way back to Chiang Mai. On the banks of the Mekong River (which flows down south still separating Thailand from Laos until it veers left into Laos itself) there is an ancient capital city called Chiang Saen. The biggest tourist attraction is Wat Prathat Chedi Luang, a crumbling 60 metre tall brick chedi built in 1331. We could have stayed and wandered around the town a bit longer but, sad to say, our collective advanced age was taking its toll and it was time for young Yei to take the old farts home. We made a brave effort to find a bar that night but soon gave up and retired to bed without any supper. Back to Bangkok tomorrow to prepare for the next instalment.

One postscript to this experience is worth mentioning. The day we left the hotel we bumped into Yei again in the foyer as we were waiting for a taxi. She said hello to us then rushed off, reappearing a minute later to hand Linda a little box. It was a gift from her, a pale green jade bracelet denoting good luck. Quite touching. I thought Linda was going to cry.