Golden Opportunity

Take a tour through Thailand for an opium history lesson

Now that’s edutainment!

We’re standing in the Hall of Opium, trying to figure out who might be smuggling drugs. The main suspects aren’t real people (another fun way to pass the time), but characters in an interactive display.  It’s just one of many educational-yet-entertaining features of this modern museum whose main purpose is to school visitors about the ills and long history of opium in this region. “This region” is where northern Thailand meets Burma and Laos at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers, but foreigners know it by its more infamous name: Golden Triangle.

Technically, the Golden Triangle (so named because you used to need gold and not grimy suitcases of cash to refresh your opium supply) also includes north Vietnam as well, but it was clearly a no-brainer for the Thai tourist industry to promote their own town of Sop Ruak—where three countries and two rivers conveniently converge at one truly un-scenic point—as the center of the world’s former number one source of opium.

Nowadays, you’re more likely to see tour groups than poppies, and that’s due to highly successful opium eradication programs spearheaded by the Thai royal family. Somehow the Thai government was able to convince opium farmers to replace their poppy fields with less socially unsavory crops like apples, flowers, nuts, Arabica coffee and tea. We’re guessing that this might be because the “gold” in “Golden” went to the drug lords and not to the folks actually growing it.

Lest we appear naïve, opium eradication in Thailand doesn’t mean the Golden Triangle is drug-free. The Thai programs had little effect on the remote highlands and definitely didn’t touch Burma or Laos’ own drug regimes. So, while you can travel around most of the Chiang Rai province, safe in the knowledge that you’re not likely to be kidnapped for ransom, the same can’t be said about traveling north along the Mekong River. It gets seriously dodgy up there. You might as well strap money and diamonds to your body, because the only people that will hear your screams are the Burmese drug traffickers or the Laotian militias.

Thus, you might want to stick to safer tourist activities in the Golden Triangle.  We’ve already mentioned the time-worthy Hall of Opium, but if you haven’t had your fill of exhibits about opium’s destructive effects on society, there’s the more serious Opium Museum.  You can also take photos from atop a fake elephant or from Wat (Temple) Prathat Pukhao . . . or just do what the majority of domestic tourists do while in Sop Ruak: take thyself across the river and place some bets.  Gambling dens are illegal in Thailand, so ever-resourceful purveyors of entertainment built casinos on Burmese and Laotian land across the river. A short boat ride, money and your passport are all you need to get to Burma’s 30+ casinos along the Mekong or to Laos’ luxury Chinese-owned Kings Roman Group casino.

So in this former land of opium, where does green fit in? Well, everywhere. You can go to the usual sources, like tuk-tuk drivers, or you might be approached by a hill tribe family at the side of the road. See, opium eradication didn’t mean marijuana eradication, so the farmers growing coffee for your cappuccino are also growing marijuana. However, the volume definitely pales in comparison to other illicit narcotics and quality is reportedly nowhere near as good as in California’s Emerald Triangle. And please note that the best, most chill places to enjoy your stash are actually just outside of the Golden Triangle, i.e. in a bungalow in Pai or Mae Hong Son.

As for legalities, the Thai government doesn’t mess around in their fight against all drugs. Thankfully, as a Category 5 drug (where Category 1 is heroin), marijuana gets the relatively light hand: consumption is punishable by a fine up to 10,000 Baht (about $325) and/or imprisonment up to a year, while possession earns you a fine up to 50,000 Baht (about $1,622) and/or imprisonment up to 5 years. We’ve met folks who’ve avoided the inside of a Thai jail by putting as little as $50 inside a policeman’s wallet, but don’t bet on it.  There can also be serious immigration consequences—deportation and possible “blacklisting”—so if you want to be able to come back to the Land of Smiles, practice common sense.