The Golden Triangle: Thailand, Laos, and Burma
28 September
This will probably be my last entry from Thailand as tomorrow I have to start working my way south back to Bangkok. It has been a seriously wild ride and I would recommend anyone looking to get off the beaten path to come here. I noticed yesterday, though, that I committed the cardinal sin of traveling and I have a strong feeling I've been guilty of this since I got here. I caught myself getting frustrated with a woman working in a bus station who didn't understand my request for a bathroom. Now here's the disappointing part: that joke about how Westerners interact with people who don't speak English really is true. My response was to speak louder and slower (BATH-ROOM?!), thinking this might magically make her understand. I'll have to be extra careful not to be rude from now on, since treating this woman as if she were hard of hearing didn't help me make it any quicker.
I woke up early this morning to catch a bus from Chiang Rai to Mae Sai, the northernmost city in Thailand. We pulled up to the Golden Triangle and I was amazed at the serenity of the intersection of the three countries. The countryside looked like it was straight out of an old Vietnam War movie and it didn't look like much has changed. I also learned why this particular spot is called the Golden Triangle: Asian drug smugglers like to use the Triangle as an international trade zone between the three nations. Laws have curbed much of this smuggling and our guide explained that, at the height of the trade, there was only one thing considered more valuable than the opium: gold.
I don't know if anyone can cross the borders here as easily as I did but the trip into Laos was a snap. PC, our tour guide, gave us the option of crossing or not and I figured since I was in the neighborhood, why not? We arrived in Laos via speedboat on the Mekong River, a body of water that runs across Southeast Asia and up to China. The Laotian people operating shops and cafes on the border couldn't have been friendlier. I've been feeling sick with a sore throat this week and when I went into a shop looking for a cup of tea, the girls working inside gave it to me for free. I showed them my gratitude by buying a postcard and a nifty-looking back massage thingy.
After taking our boat back across the Mekong into Thailand, we rode a bus to the Thai border with Burma/Myanmar. I quickly became aware of how important it is to know and respect international border laws when traveling since one wrong move could land you in jail very quickly. One particular interesting aspect of border-hopping is that there is almost always some free zone between when you officially exit one country and enter another. Security was tight, except for the people selling goods between the countries and I couldn't help but wonder where these people came from. If I'm not officiallly in any country, where am I? Do I cease to exist? Why do we say nations border one another when, technically, they don't?
The differences between even two southeast Asian countries were staggering. Just minutes over the border, I was confronted by peasants selling cartons of cigarettes and illegal prescription drugs. Children swarmed me asking for food and money and I was at a loss. The child-beggars were especially aggressive, tugging at my clothes and following me through the markets. Feeling guilty yet also annoyed, I bought a bag of grapes and gave away what I didn't finish rather than giving all of them money. Today was the first time in over two months I saw cars driving on the right-hand side again and it made me just as disoriented as when I saw the opposite for the first time in Australia. The direction of the traffic wasn't what I noticed first about the streets, though. It was the conditions. Burma is obviously poorer than Thailand and it shows. Roads are buried in mud and covered with potholes. Barefooted peasants carried barrels of plants and vegetables to market and I could've sworn I saw homes deteriorating before my eyes.
Just as I was glad to return to Chiang Mai after our arduous hill-tribe trek, I was very happy to cross the border back into Thailand. Just to give you an idea of how far I've traveled since I left Australia twelve days ago, let me run down what it's going to take to get back to Bangkok in time to fly back to Sydney on Saturday. Tomorrow, I've got a two hour bus ride to Chiang Rai and then another three to Chiang Mai. From Chiang Mai, the overnight train to Bangkok is thirteen hours and then the flight from Bangkok to Sydney is a red-eye, eight and a half hours. On top of that, I'll have to leave myself plenty of time on Saturday since I'm flying out of an airport that, I think, is only opening today and is the biggest in the world. Man, that Yom Kippur fast on Monday isn't going to be easy...
I'm not having much luck right now uploading my pictures but my Canberra episode is up and running! I hope you'll enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Cheers from Thailand,
Jason
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