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Cuba - More than old cars
Today we took a day tour which took us to The Hill Tribes about half an hour out of Chiang Rai and then a trip to the Golden Triangle and a visit to the Opium Museum.
We were asked to take our passports (not photocopies) as there would be many checkpoints. Not sure if the check points had to do with the drug trade, illegal immigrants or the coup. The ones that we passed through were only manned by the police (not the army) and we were never asked for our passports. One of the checkpoints wanted to know where we were from.
Our guide, Manoon, met us at the hotel at 9am and returned us to the holel at 4pm. The 3 hill tribes are effectively refugees from adjoining countries (Laos, Myanmar and Southern China) with one group having their roots from as far away as Nepal.
In this village the tribal people collectively only numbered 100 people with the women looking after the home and being involved in various crafts to earn some income. In fact all of the people we saw were ederly or very young. The men tend to the fields and hunt with the output from these activities being sold to support the tribes. The villages have their own gardens and livestock to live on.
The Opium district is nothing like it used to be. In Thailand this was encouraged by the King who assisted where he could to change the crops with quite a bit of success.
We were asked to take our passports (not photocopies) as there would be many checkpoints. Not sure if the check points had to do with the drug trade, illegal immigrants or the coup. The ones that we passed through were only manned by the police (not the army) and we were never asked for our passports. One of the checkpoints wanted to know where we were from.
Our guide, Manoon, met us at the hotel at 9am and returned us to the holel at 4pm. The 3 hill tribes are effectively refugees from adjoining countries (Laos, Myanmar and Southern China) with one group having their roots from as far away as Nepal.
In this village the tribal people collectively only numbered 100 people with the women looking after the home and being involved in various crafts to earn some income. In fact all of the people we saw were ederly or very young. The men tend to the fields and hunt with the output from these activities being sold to support the tribes. The villages have their own gardens and livestock to live on.
The Opium district is nothing like it used to be. In Thailand this was encouraged by the King who assisted where he could to change the crops with quite a bit of success.
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