the GOLDEN TRIANgle
20 november
post by scott
The golden triangle isn’t a particularly nice place. Apparently it used to have your quintessential border town vibe – scummy, dangerous, sleazy, wild west sort of place that was rife with drugs. The surrounding area was the biggest producer of opium until an eradication campaign in the last few decades – Afghanistan is now world champion. While there is still a decent amount of poppy grown in Myanmar and the Thai highlands, the golden triangle is now a tourist hotspot – despite the fact that there’s not really anything of interest there. It’s more the allure of the dangerous past. Geographically it refers to the tri-border between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos where the Mekong meets another less famous river. So with the golden triangle as our aim for the day we hooked up with Mr Ning who would drive us there with a few stops on the way.
One of the areas most beautiful natural wonders is this hot spring with a carpark built around it. There is also a fountain there to give the impression of a geyser, which is nice.
As if this wasn’t enough to draw in the crowds, the people of Chiang Rai have built a monumental white temple embedded with devastatingly bright pieces of mirror. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos of the inside (which is still being painted), but the murals seem to warn of the dangers of modern (and western) life by depicting Keanu Reeves, Kung Fu Panda and the King of Pop Michael Jackson embroiled in the flames of hell.
When we finally made it to the Mekong river we hired a longtail boat to take us across to Laos and up to the confluence of waters where three countries meet. Along the way we saw Laotian ladies fishing with these amazing huge net contraptions which have been used for centuries (we know this because we saw pictures of them in the museum later that day!) So we popped over to the Laos side of the river where the locals peddle huge 10L bottles of chinese wine as well as moonshine with snakes in the bottle. Another big drawcard for the Laos side of the river are the casinos which operate there under the law of a “special economic zone”.
Back home on the Thai side we resisted the temptation of copious golden triangle souvenirs, had a bite to eat and headed to one of the most interesting museums I’ve seen – the Opium Museum. Housed in a huge mansion with perfectly manicured gardens, it was established by a royal foundation for the Kings late mother who had a particular interest in stopping opium production and providing alternative livelihoods for the farmers in the golden triangle who depended economically on the crop. There was loads of info about the life cycle of opium from poppy to lung/vein, but also historically about the huge international conflicts it caused. To summarise a long and complex history, it seems like the British were real bastards. Instead of being content with the occasional cup of tea from the east indies, they wanted all the tea in China, so made the Indians grow opium for them and then traded it to the Chinese for tea, subsequently getting a large proportion of the Chinese population hooked and devastating their economy. I never knew that huge wars had been fought over trade of this stuff.
We headed back to Chiang Rai for our last night in the north, where Dad had booked a snazzy hotel on the river. It was great timing because a Thai couple were having a huge wedding around the pool area so we got to see how they do it Thai style. Needless to say there was more releasing of lanterns!