A Trip to the Golden Triangle

We left Michael and Kristine in Chiang Mai and took a three + hour bus trip up to Chiang Rai where we're staying for 6 nights. It's a pretty small town in comparison to Chiang Mai but we'll spend our time relaxing here before returning to Bangkok.
Michael and Kristine are in Phuket and we'll meet up with them before they head home next week.
We took an exhausting 11 hour day trip yesterday up through Northern Thailand. Our first stop was the King mother's park (above). Lot's of flowers and gardens, and especially Thai tourists.

We then headed up to the famed Golden Triangle where three countries come together. Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), and Laos. The green land on the left is Thailand. The pointy peninsula in the middle is Myanmar (Burma), and the sandy island is Laos.
This was where the Thai Opium trade was made famous. It's all been replaced by tobacco and tea plantations now but still is an enormous tourist draw. There are at least three opium museums.
But the Thais come here not only to sight see but to gamble. Gambling is illegal in Thailand but there are several Chinese owned casinos across the boarder in Myanmar (Burma). The Burmese government gets a pretty big cut of the profits.

We walked under the bridge between the Thai Burma border and took a boat trip over to Laos all in two hours or so.

These are Akha Hilltribe women. I was allowed to pose with them after making a donation.

Karen Hilltribe girls. They start the process off when the girls are still quite young. It's not a series of rings as some people think but actually a solid brass coil which is wound around the girl's necks.

We didn't know that visiting the Karen Hilltribes was part of our itinerary.

We've always had reservations about the exploitation of the hilltribes, especially the Karen longnecks, for the benefit of tourists.

These people are rarely seen in public because you could see how they would draw a huge amount of attention. Originally from Burma, where they are currently being driven out of their homelands by the Burmese government, many small tribes settled across the boarder in Thailand. The Thais in turn have taken advantage of them and kept them in camps as an attraction for tourists.

In a way it is a bit sad to see but some claim that the money they make from tourists gives them a much better life than they would have otherwise.

Many of the other hilltribes such as the Akha, and Moung are seen at local night markets throughout Thailand selling their wares.