The Golden Triangle

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With slightly hazy heads from a boozy last night in Chiang Mai we took the four hour bus to Thaton, our first stop in the 'Golden Triangle'. The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's two main illicit opium-producing areas. It is an area of around 350,000 square kilometers that overlaps the mountains of Northern Thailand, Eastern Burma and Western Laos. Tourists visit the area expecting a kind of underground, wild west scene when really it's just a lot of quiet hillside villages where everything (except the seven eleven) shuts down at 8pm. It also has some spectacular temples that are set on the highest points on the hills giving great views of the surrounding hill tribe villages and winding rivers.

We arrived in Thaton late afternoon, the town is based around one main road and the Mae Kok river which is usually a transit point for boats to and from Chiang Rai. Not many travelers make an overnight stop in Thaton but after walking for a few minutes from the bus station we found plenty of riverside Guesthouses willing to let us stay for a reasonable price. We checked in and then took a walk into the town which aside from a couple more guesthouses and a restaurant or two there wasn't much to see. We had something to eat and then went back to our guesthouse. For the first time in months, possibly the first time in our trip, we had a TV in our room. Just before we settled down in front of some terrible channel we decided we wanted a snack, it was around 8.30pm now but when we tried to find somewhere to buy a chocolate bar everywhere was completely closed, no one was around; the town had completely shut down.

The next day we got up early and decided to walk up the steep path leading to the temple that sits at the very top of the mountain behind the town. The first part of the ascent was through a Buddhist Monastery that resides on the side of the hill, we saw some young monks wandering through the grounds clutching textbooks in their brilliant orange robes. Town and city monks wear the bright orange robes whereas forest monks wear a darker colour orange robe. A little further up from the monastery was a giant white Buddha, by now we had climbed quite high up the hill and the views were starting to look beautiful, it was a very peaceful place; we were the only people there and we felt very far away from the hustle of the town down below, and even further from the cities and the swarms of tourists we're forever trying to avoid.

We walked further up the hill to a golden Buddha, he wasn't as huge but the views were even better, we could now see even more of the Mae Kok river which was beginning to snake around the surrounding mountains. After a short rest here we carried on up the windy road in the midday sun to the top of the mountain, as we turned the final corner in the road we could see the very top of the temple poking out from the tree tops, it was beautiful. Once we reached the temple we spent a while taking in the views, we could now see across to the other side of the mountains which belong to Burma. We took a look inside the temple which is filled with hundreds of different Buddha statues from all over the world. There was a little room in the center of the ground floor which had a life size waxwork figure of a famous Buddha, he even had a real pair of glasses perched on his wax head and was dressed in orange robes.

The inside the temple looked very new and was very glamorously decked out in gold and silver with bright colours. The outside was also very colourful with pastel coloured tiles covering every inch of the walls and statues of tigers and bears and other wild animals adorned the entrances.

As we went to leave the temple a monk in a pick up truck drove past us, he stopped and asked if we wanted a ride back down to the monastery so we jumped in the back and within what felt like 30 seconds we were back down almost at the bottom of the hill. We then spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade with our books next to the giant white Buddha. That evening we had dinner by the river and watched Barack Obama's inauguration on CNN. We hope he can fix the economic crisis so our pound stops dropping.

The next day we left Thaton on the back of a Songthaw for Mae Salong, our next stop in the Golden Triangle. After switching our Songthaw for a bus and traveling for a couple of hours across the spines of the hills allowing for stunning views on either side, we arrived in Mae Salong. An American man named Warren immediately approached us and gave us some tips on which guest house was good/cheap/clean, we managed to find a place charging 50 baht each (1 GBP) one of our cheapest sleeps yet. They also offered free laundry and had a delicious menu with huge portions for a tiny price, the owner was a cheerful man who was always carrying a tea pot and offering us complementary cups of the local tea.

Our very friendly guesthouse owner also helped us figure out what to do with our day in Mae Salong by giving us a map of the surrounding area with a couple of walks highlighted on it. The next day after a breakfast of fried rice - which is now becoming a normal morning meal for us - we set off on a light 4 km walk around the town. The first part of the walk took us up 700 steps to a nearby temple, once at the top we bumped into Warren who we'd met the previous day, the views from here were lovely and we sat for a while taking in the scenery while Warren regailed a few of his travelling tails for us. He didnt fancy the rest of the walk up the steep hillside so we left him at the temple and carried on up the road upwards towards the spine of the mountain.

The rest of the walk was very pretty, we had great views of what we assumed was Burmese countryside and we passed a Chinese cemetary which was situated on the side of the hill a small distance away from a Chinese village. After a couple of hours we found our selves walking back into Mae Salong through the markets that sell all the tea and coffee that is produced in the area. That evening we sat down for some more tasty cheap food on our guesthouse balcony and we were joined by Warren. He mentioned that we must really get along with one another in order to travel together for such a long time, and that he couldn't find anyone he got on with enough to travel with except his ex wife who wouldn't leave her home because of her cat. After dinner Warren stood up and announced he was leaving.

Not long after Warren left a French man arrived at the guesthouse on a bicycle. Intrigued as to what he was doing travelling on a bike in the hilliest parts of Thailand, after he had checked in we invited him to join us for a beer. It turned out he had bought his bike in Chiang Mai and was planning on cycling through Northern Thailand, Laos, China, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iran, through Europe and back to France and he was going to spend around 2 years doing it. Amazed by his plans we sat up for a while swapping travel stories and talking about the countries we'd like to visit. After a few more beers the conversation seemed to slide from travels to politics to corruption and inevitably, religion.

Rather suddenly our new friend seemed to change; especially when Luke mentioned that he was agnostic and believed much more in science than any other greater being. Unable to accept Luke's feelings he persistently tried to reason that Luke was merely misinformed and that really he did believe in God but he just didn't know it yet. At the time Luke was in the middle of reading Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' so he had a fair bit of ammunition to reason that science can explain everything that has ever been created. This conversation could have gone on all night. After giving up on converting Luke he then tried to warn us that the mark of the devil is hidden in barcodes and that the end of the world is almost upon us. It was getting late now and he was still trying to convince Luke that all scientists were liars, we somehow reached the subject of dinosaurs; I mentioned as a joke that perhaps a scientist had invented them too. Instead of finding this funny he said that he thought I had a very good point. It was time for bed.

The next morning we checked out ready to leave for our next stop, Chiang Rai. Whilst having a quick bite to eat before our bus picked us up we saw our friend from the previous evening engrossed in something on the internet. We went over to say goodbye and to confirm our suspicions that he was in fact reading up on the dinosaurs and trying to find evidence that they were invented.

We arrived in Chiang Rai early afternoon, after walking for quite sometime in the sweltering heat we found a guesthouse and spent the rest of the day pottering around the not-so-large city buying in any supplies we knew we wouldn't be able to find once we got into Laos. We also met an American man who was staying at our guesthouse but had been living in Chiang Rai for over 3 years, we sat outside our guesthouse with him for longer than we'd have liked listening to him tell us stories about his Spanish ex wife who he'd suspected of being a secret lesbian by using his 'sixth-sense'. The moment came for us to make our excuses and leave when he began telling us he was more than convinced that Elvis was his daddy.

That evening we set out heading for the night market in search of food when Luke suddenly realised that he no longer had our cash card in his wallet. This is now a familiar situation for us, we knew exactly what had happened to it, for the third time on our travels we had managed to walk away from a cash machine without collecting our card. Luckily this time we had a spare so after a phone call to the bank to cancel the 'lost' card we were back on our way to the night market. The evening after that was fairly uneventful, we did see 'Elvis's illigitimate son' amongst the crowds at the night market but managed successfully to avoid him.

The next day we left Chiang Rai. We walked to the bus station and made our way to Chiang Kong, a small boarder town set on the Mekong river. This was where we would cross the boarder into Laos, most people come here to either do this or get the slow boat up the Mekong straight to Luang Prabang which takes two days. We had decided to avoid the crowds on this popular trip and first head North to the Luang Nam Tha province. There's not too much to report on Chiang Kong, it has beautiful views of the Mekong but the night market sold barbequed rats, we stayed one night before crossing the river to Laos the very next morning.

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