Musings from the Golden Triangle 20th December
Chiang Saen, Northern Thailand. At confluence of Mekong and Ruak rivers where the Mekong splits Burma and Laos and swings eastwards as it hits the Thai border.
Early morning run along the banks of the Mekong. Sun rising slowly through the blanket of thick mist that embraces the riverside cornfields and villages and clings more hazily to the hillsides that are touched gently by the remaining pink hues of the fading dawn rays. Golden heads of rivergrass dance, chatter and sparkle, boatmen yawn as they ready their sampans or long speedboats, fishermen prepare and repair their nets, brightly clad smiling babbling children clamour and scramble into the back of vans and trucks and trishaws, roadside workmen huddle by a fire. Friendly gestures ask if I am not cold. It is 10 degrees and they all wear jackets and scarves...
Across the river in Laos, wisps of smoke from morning fires, tops of trees and glinting temple roofs begin to appear out of the misty shroud into the sunlight and close above me towers and presides over all of this a (ubiquitous) brilliant giant gleaming golden Buddha, flanked by garishly decorated, morose-looking elephants - a religious but also defiant symbol to the Burmese that their border stops right there in Buddhist Thailand....
Burma lies to the North-West over the river. To the North and East is Laos, where we have spent 6 wonderful days. This is the Golden Triangle: epicentre of all that is fascinating and terrible about the centuries-old trade, trafficking and smuggling of gold, spices, goods, animals, humans and opium - the black gold. China is not far to the North up the Mekong. Its influence in this area is still huge.
Chiang Saen, Northern Thailand. At confluence of Mekong and Ruak rivers where the Mekong splits Burma and Laos and swings eastwards as it hits the Thai border.
Early morning run along the banks of the Mekong. Sun rising slowly through the blanket of thick mist that embraces the riverside cornfields and villages and clings more hazily to the hillsides that are touched gently by the remaining pink hues of the fading dawn rays. Golden heads of rivergrass dance, chatter and sparkle, boatmen yawn as they ready their sampans or long speedboats, fishermen prepare and repair their nets, brightly clad smiling babbling children clamour and scramble into the back of vans and trucks and trishaws, roadside workmen huddle by a fire. Friendly gestures ask if I am not cold. It is 10 degrees and they all wear jackets and scarves...
Across the river in Laos, wisps of smoke from morning fires, tops of trees and glinting temple roofs begin to appear out of the misty shroud into the sunlight and close above me towers and presides over all of this a (ubiquitous) brilliant giant gleaming golden Buddha, flanked by garishly decorated, morose-looking elephants - a religious but also defiant symbol to the Burmese that their border stops right there in Buddhist Thailand....
Burma lies to the North-West over the river. To the North and East is Laos, where we have spent 6 wonderful days. This is the Golden Triangle: epicentre of all that is fascinating and terrible about the centuries-old trade, trafficking and smuggling of gold, spices, goods, animals, humans and opium - the black gold. China is not far to the North up the Mekong. Its influence in this area is still huge.
Sounds like you're having a lovely trip. The photos are amazing, especially the tiger! Hope you have a lovely Christmas Day wherever you find yourself! Look forward to hearing more when you get back.
ReplyDeletelots of love
Roy & Alison