the golden triangle is where two rivers merge and separate three countries, laos, myanmar (burma), and thailand, but you can access china eight hours up the river. the location is steeped in history and served as a way to trade opium. the price for an ounce of opium was an ounce of gold, hence the name the golden triangle. due to the huge price in opium, the place was a battleground for mafia and drug lords attempting to control the flow of opium through the countries. we saw the intersection of the rivers where you can view burma, thailand and laos all at once. burma had a huge casino next to the river called paradise. thailand had a huge buddha and buildings, and laos had nothing except a jungle. dee has been to laos and said the country operates like it is in the stone age, hence the dramatic difference between the two sides of the river.

the first stop was the hot springs.

the hot springs had a sulfur smell and the locals used the 80 – 90 degree celsius water to cook their food. to boil an egg, it took 3 minutes, which they carried around in baskets. no thank you. ugh. the fun part of the springs was the haggling with the villagers. dee danced with this one vendor to get her to drop the price on several table cloths but in the end, she couldn’t get the price she wanted. turned out to be a really good price, we just didn’t know at the time. so, we didn’t buy.

the next stop was a famous location called Chiang Saen. a very old wat that had been around for thousands of years and housed a huge gold buddha. a monk was hanging out in the temple who would bless you if you made a donation. i was hesitant, but dee was excited so we gave him some money and sat in front of him with our hands in prayer. he started reciting something and throwing water on us. he wasn’t shy with the water. afterwards, he motioned for me to approach him where he started tying a white yarn around my wrist. as he did it, he was speaking a prayer or blessing and would not complete the knot until he was finished. i still wear it. dee was a little less fortunate. i read in the lonely planet that a monk cannot hand a woman something. the monk has to drop it and the woman can pick it up. so, the monk dropped the yarn in her hand and shooed her away. she was a bit pissed since she wanted the blessing to. after walking around the ruins, which were a bit muddy, dee slipped and fell. she chipped her toe nail and cut up her leg. oh, she was in pain but she didn’t bitch or complain or cry or anything. she is a tough woman. she only blamed the monk since he didn’t bless her. we had a first aid kit and patched her up but she had a lot of dirt underneath her nail and it felt like it was a bit loose. we were afraid that it would have to be removed. she limped around the rest of the day. her poor feet. it is an ongoing problem. she has had numerous blisters, a sea urchin thorns, and now a chipped toe nail.

we arrived at the golden triangle. for anyone ever going there with a tour group, be advised that you will have to pay an additional 300 baht to board the boat to laos. the boat went down the river to view the casino on the burma side and then turned around to go to the port on the laos side to do a bit of shopping and have the novelty of being in a different country for 30 minutes. the 300 baht is worth it. the village where we shopped was cool. i purchased snake whiskey

which is a bottle of “whisky” with a cobra snake in it with another snake hanging out of its mouth. some of the bigger bottles had scorpions and snakes in it. they were scary and dee told me so many times that i will never drink it cause i will die! haha. i wouldn’t touch the stuff but it will be a cool addition to the shot glass collection. we bought some vietnamese, laos, burmese cigarettes and cigars and a bunch of scarfs and gifts. once again, dee finds the table cloths and tries to haggle the price down to what she wanted before at the hot springs but couldn’t. that’s when we knew the price the hot springs women were offering was better. oh well. we are learning.

after returning to thailand we go to a restaurant that overlooks all three countries. you can’t really tell from the photo, but the mountains are laos, the middle is myanmar, and we are in thailand.

after lunch, we head to a location called Mae Sai where you can see the river that divides Burma and Thailand. it also had a huge scorpion next to the overlook. the scorpion was symbolic of the ruler of the land way back when. there was also a another temple with big buddhas representing each day of the week. i also found a golden woman statue which was different than anything i had seen. dee’s toe was throbbing so she sat out on the exploring.

on the way to the tribes, we called the travel agent to see if we could cancel the trekking for tomorrow. the travel agent said there was no refund but we could change the days. after hearing the no refund, dee’s toe starting feeling better. she laughed about the coincidence and attributed it to her jewishness. haha.

we arrived at the hill tribes. they lived in wooden huts and made their own products. they are recognizable by the hats they wear. everywhere we go, we always run into these people. you can hear them approaching because they play this very creepy sounding frog looking instrument and wear their funny looking hat. they are relentless on annoying you to buy something, but they were tame at the village. further up is where we met the long neck tribe. the necks of the woman were so long. turns out if they take them off, they will not die. it will just hurt like hell and you probably would want to die.

they wear the brass collars for several reasons; tradition, beauty, and to avoid being biten on the neck by a tiger (obviously a myth). course logic would suggest that a tiger could bite you anywhere and kill you, right? anyways, the woman with the most rings is the most beautiful. we met her and she had an attractive face and had several kids already.

the girls when they turn four years old receive their first four rings. every year they add another ring or two.

the next tribe we met, which was in the same village, was the big ear tribe. the women had expanded their ear lobes to extreme sizes. i had seen this before in the US on the alternative crowd. ever seen it when they remove it? ugh, it is gross. what is also gross is when the women smile.

they chew on tobacco leaves which makes their teeth a dark red/black. when they smile, you can’t tell if they have teeth or they placed black wax over them.

anyways, turns out these people are catholic!! can you believe that shit? dee and i dropped our jaws when we hear that. they practice their tribal traditions but follow catholicism. wow. they are also burmese refugees and not considered to be thailand citizens. the US gave thailand a large sum of money to start programs to help these refugees in the form of health care and other aspects. some of the people can gain “citizenship” (UPDATE: it is a work permit) where they can go to the cities and sell their products. dee will probably correct me on these facts but that is to the best of my memory.

anyways, we gave a donation and bought some of the handmade products without haggling on the price. on the way back to chiang mai, the kids in the van started singing and driving us nuts. it was dark and we were trying to sleep. they finally quieted down after dee asked them to.

in the van, i closed my eyes and felt the bumpy road. i called it car turblence and then i had a thought, does superman feel turbulence when he is flying? dee said it sounded like something off seinfield. i would assume he does.

dee’s toe felt loads better and the tour dropped us off at the sunday bazaar in chiang mai where we haggled with the vendors and got some really cool things. since dee’s toe was doing much better, we decided to stick to the plan of trekking tomorrow.