got opium?

peace and love in the golden triangle

apparently, kun sa was a really nice guy.

we all remember kun sa as the druglord who controlled the golden triangle with his private army. but to ask a local in chiang sen, the nearest town to the thai bit of the golden triangle (well, the easiest to find bit - where the borders of thailand, myanmar and laos meet), he was a humanitarian leader, who only supported the opium trade 'cos it was the only way to ensure the safety and strength of his people.

but there aint hardly no more opium to be had these days. i suppose you could probably come across some photogenic poppy fields if you were trekking in laos or myanmar, but i was offered lots of souvenirs and not a toke of opium when i went north last week. nobody shot at me, and i saw not a single ak47. in fact, it was a beautiful holiday spot - bring the family kind of place.

in fact - we took a two year old (a friend's).

there's something kinda special about standing in one country and looking at two others. Especially for someone from australia - where you'd have to super-power-like damn fine eyesight to see another country from anywhere. so standing under the relaxing gaze of the giant golden buddha statue the thais have put up on the border and looking over the mekhong and seeing both laos AND myanmar was a satisfying experience for me. i think i stood for 15 minutes or so looking left to right saying to myself "that's myanmar, that's laos, that's thailand. that's thailand, that's laos, that's myanmar. myanmar, laos, thai, thai, laos, myanmar".

simple things for simple minds.


thailand, myanmar, laos...

we also rented a jeep and did a bit of a countryside cruise. there is a so-called "hilltribe village" on the road we drove along. we stopped and walked through it - looking for some traditional thai outfit photo-ops. the hilltribe village was not set up for tourists - which was good because it was real, but bad, 'cos it meant that everyone was wearing chinese track pants and t-shirts. a national geographic film crew would have fled in disgust.

there's something insanely voyueristic about hill-tribe trekking that made me very, very uncomfortable. we walked through these people's village - looked through doorways into their homes - frightened their chickens and annoyed their dogs. i wondered how people would feel back home if i brought a bunch of thais to come wandering through people's backyards in coogee...


would you mess with this guy?

but we made them some balloon animals, so they forgave us.

i had the best lesson i could ever have wanted in thai politics when the guy who drove me back to chiang rai airport turned out to be a local poltiical candidate. got the inside scoop on the intricacies of vote buying and political intimidation through the police and hired gunmen. i feel very happy not to be thai sometimes.