Day 255: The Golden Triangle
We finally reached the end of the trail in our journey of northern Thailand – the tripoint border of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos in a spot called the Golden Triangle.
The Golden Triangle is not only a geopolitical landmark, it is also home to one of the largest opium-producing regions in the world (only recently surpassed by Afghanistan in terms of drug production). We started out the day with a visit to Thailand’s “Hall of Opium” museum to learn about the history of the area – we spent a good two and a half hours there and time just flew by! (No, not because they were giving out free samples.)
Buffet breakfast in our mountain resort
Visiting the Opium Museum for a little “edu-tainment.” Helpful hint: we arrived right around 9AM when the museum opened…along with three school groups and a large group of orange robe-clad monks – when we left at noon, the place was deserted. It doesn’t pay to go to the museum early.
Rad school buses, kids! To be fair, even though we were sharing the museum with at least 500 school kids, they were pretty well behaved (even Thai children are polite!). Had we been in an American museum with the same number of ankle biters? Forget it! Understandably, the kids weren’t as interested in reading all the plaques as we were, so whenever a group came into the same room we were in, all we had to do was stand aside and wait for about 5min for the group to pass, then we would have the exhibit to ourselves again
The entrance to the Hall of Opium – photos weren’t technically allowed here, but the hallway was so spooky we just had to document it! The walls were covered in haunting sculptures – as if the victims of heroin abuse were trying to warn visitors about the dangers of drugs (Kids – Just Say NO!)
A small plot of poppies grows in the atrium of the museum entrance. Once we enter, we learn about the history of opium trade in Southeast Asia. Long story short: the British are drug dealers who get the Chinese so addicted to crack that they are able to swidle the Middle Kingdom out of ownership of Hong Kong for the next 99 years. Gangsta.
OK, I have no idea why there was a freaky wax statue of a little Chinese girl in the corridor of the museum – there was no explanatory plaque, she didn’t seem to be a part of the exhibit. Igor wanted Lindsay to sit next to her for a picture, but she refused as she was sure the thing would come to life at any second
Teddy bears and the soles of shoes – just some examples of the many ways people have tried to smuggle drugs from the Golden Triangle in the modern era
Contemplating words of wisdom and the effects of drugs in the museum’s “Hall of Reflection”
After learning about the historical Golden Triangle, we drove down the road to visit the physical Golden Triangle along the Mekong River. While Myanmar and Laos had a small scattering of buildings along the shore, both countries looked very sparsely inhabited compared to Thailand, which practically had a permanent street fair along the riverbank. In addition to the multiple Golden Triangle photo op locations, the border had several tour operators running boat rides along the river to skirt the edge of Myanmar and even step a toe into Laos – USD $30 and a one hour tour gets us an unofficial visit to another country (no stamp in the passport, tho).
The Sop Ruak – the dead center of the physical Golden Triangle, where three countries meet
The Golden Triangle is the meeting of three countries along the Mekong River: Thailand, Myanmar and Laos
While it won’t give us a stamp in our passports, when we find out we can take a 30min trip across the river to Laos, we can’t resist the temptation to visit yet another country! We bravely surrender our passports to the tour company (since we didn’t pay USD $100 for a Laotian tourist visa we are not allowed to go through Immigration and enter the country proper – we can only visit a tiny island in the Mekong River with a big souvenir market) – hey, this still counts!!!
Crossing the river into Laos
Our boat driver points out a Burmese casino upriver in Myanmar (the building with the big crown), before heading down to the Laotian island of Don Sao
WE IN LAOS! Just to prove it, we buy and mail a couple of postcards. Sadly, we only have two mailing addresses memorized, so y’all reading this probably didn’t get one.
We have about half an hour to window shop in the market in Laos before we have to return to our boat – we see a huge variety of violent-looking souvenirs (what’s with that?), and kick ourselves when we see the huge wine selection – we *just* bought a crappy USD $6 bottle of Thai “fruit wine” at the local 7-11, as we figured the 2PM-5PM ban on alcohol sales would leave us literally high & dry that night. Word of advice: if you are in the Golden Triangle, do your booze run in Laos! There is a bigger selection, better prices and no time restrictions!
Snake-marinated brandy – now that will put hair on your chest!
We stop in a local market on the way back to the hotel to see if we can find food to bring back to our room for dinner – while there is plenty of fresh seafood and veggies, there’s nothing we can prepare without a kitchen
Another awesome sunset in our remote mountain suite
When we inquire about the corkage fee for bringing our own cheap bottle of wine into the resort restaurant, we are appalled to find out it costs USD $9 just to open the screw-cap bottle! We want to boycott the restaurant purely on principle…but we also don’t want to drive anywhere for dinner. We compromise by ordering the CHEAPEST items on their room service menu – not only do we get to have our own beverages, we also avoid the 15min hike to the lobby – score!