T H I S+W E E K Acting on wild impulse By Don George, Editor > Thai Die By Karl Taro Greenfeld An adventure gone awry in northern Thailand D E P A R T M E N T S The Surreal Gourmet By Bob Blumer Garlic Worship Postmark | New Orleans By Lance P. Martin Big Easy Addiction Passages "In the Ring of Fire" By James D. Houston Pacific Journeys: Three Kinds of Silence Mondo Weirdo Killer Tentacles Readers' Tips and Tales Does your neighborhood still feel like home? - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - LA S T+W E E K Tuesday, July 15 Sex! Sand! Surf! Po Bronson at Club Med A full list of all Wanderlust articles

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIAN CLAYTON Don't get off the elephant! EXPLORING THE HILL TRIBES AND OPIUM FIELDS OF NORTHERN THAILAND ON FOOT SOUNDED LIKE A GREAT ADVENTURE. IT WASN'T. BY KARL TARO GREENFELD | the idea had been, at the outset, to ride elephants around northern Thailand. Take in some temples. Visit a few villages. Dip a toe into the hilly jungle. Do, in other words, the tourist's Thailand. But somehow, after a day in Chiang Mai, the plan changed. That smart, civilized and sober concept was lost in the tropical heat, humidity and licentiousness -- and what emerged instead was hard to define. We would do something that tourists don't do. Our Golden Triangle, we decided, would be the real Golden Triangle. Elephants. Hill tribes. Guns. Opium. Rice paddies. And jungle. From air-conditioned hotel rooms in Chiang Mai it seemed like a good idea. Chiang Mai, a city of 156,000 in Northern Thailand, is where MTV stops. MTV Asia blares in Hong Kong high-rises and Bangkok brothels, in Kuala Lumpur discos and Macau casinos, but Chiang Mai is beyond the reach of the Asianet satellite that broadcasts MTV. And when MTV Asia -- Japanese idol singers, Indian heavy metal bands, Kylie Minogue and all -- isn't on the tube, you really feel remote. (There is something reassuring about a VJ, any VJ, even if he speaks half in Chinese and his name is Woo.) Where MTV ends, the Golden Triangle begins. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NEXT | The real king of the hills: opium

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