Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
Exploring the hill tribes and opium fields of northern Thailand on foot sounded like a great adventure. It wasn't.
Jul 22, 1997 | the idea had been, at the outset, to ride elephants around northern Thailand. Take in some temples. Visit a few villages. Dip a toe into the hilly jungle. Do, in other words, the tourist's Thailand. But somehow, after a day in Chiang Mai, the plan changed. That smart, civilized and sober concept was lost in the tropical heat, humidity and licentiousness -- and what emerged instead was hard to define. We would do something that tourists don't do. Our Golden Triangle, we decided, would be the real Golden Triangle. Elephants. Hill tribes. Guns. Opium. Rice paddies. And jungle. From air-conditioned hotel rooms in Chiang Mai it seemed like a good idea.
Chiang Mai, a city of 156,000 in Northern Thailand, is where MTV stops. MTV Asia blares in Hong Kong high-rises and Bangkok brothels, in Kuala Lumpur discos and Macau casinos, but Chiang Mai is beyond the reach of the Asianet satellite that broadcasts MTV. And when MTV Asia -- Japanese idol singers, Indian heavy metal bands, Kylie Minogue and all -- isn't on the tube, you really feel remote. (There is something reassuring about a VJ, any VJ, even if he speaks half in Chinese and his name is Woo.) Where MTV ends, the Golden Triangle begins.
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