Mae Salong is a fairly isolated non descript town deep in the highlands of the Thai-Burmese border area. It's laid back style and quiet lifestyle hides a colourful & chequered history.

There is a little bit of China in Thailand and I'II try telling that as accurately and as politically correct as I can here.

When Mao Tse Tung's red army swept southwards into Kunming and through Yunnan, a few rag-tag battallions of the nationalist army (Kuo Min Tang KMT) fled into neighbouring Laos, Burma and Thailand. An entire garrison of almost ten thousand men from the Chinese Nationalist 93rd Infantry led by a General Tuan Si Woen settled in Mae Salong and from there planned & plotted their battles with the communists a short way away in China.

Before the nationalist chinese came into town, the highland areas of the tri-border region of Thailand, Laos & Burma were sparsely inhabited by a number of hilltribes (indigenous people who migrated from south & central china hundreds of years ago). They planted poppy on a small scale and used the opium base from the poppy plant for medicinal purposes.

Then came the US Foreign Policy of the 60s & 70s -the idea that the entire South East Asia would progressively turn a communist shade of red from a domino effect with China's proxy wars in Vietnam & Korea. The fall of Vietnam in the 70s amplified these fears and logic dictated that any enemy of my enemy is my friend. It was then ideal that there were these band of nationalist chinese living in Mae Salong and surrounding areas who were not only strongly anti-communist but were also fully prepared to lay their lives on the line.

The CIA started a massive influx of funds & armaments to the KMT in Mae Salong. Unmarked Douglas Dakotas of Air America (aka Civil Air Transport - CIA being the undeclared owner) started making night drops here and the KMT Army quickly became the only army in the world (apart from the US Army) fully funded by American money. With this the KMT took poppy cultivation and opium manufacturing to an industrial scale magnitudes greater than what the hilltribes produced. In the height of the Golden Triangle's dominance in the global supply of opium, Mae Salong had one of the largest opium refineries in the world.

3 failed invasions of China were planned & launched from here and the KMT here became the unofficial thin frontline holding back a red wave of communism that was threatening to engulf Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia.

Afterall, what was opium compared to the evils of communism. Until the inner city drug & drug related crime problems of the 70s & 80s of New York, Zurich, Frankfurt & Amsterdam, that is. Much (as much as 70%) of the heroin dealt in dimly lit street corners of the western world has their origins in the CIA-funded poppy fields of Mae Salong and surrounding areas of Mae Sai, Sob Ruak & Chiang Saen (all townships inside the Golden Triangle). With that came the HIV wave of the 80s that followed from sharing of needles.

The effects of US foreign policy in some remote corner of the planet had boomeranged and had impacted modern society in a profound manner. Matters have not advanced too far from this today.

Today, through the policies of the Thai government and the UNDCP (The UN International Drug Control Program), poppy growing has been eradicated on the Thai side of the Golden Triangle and has been largely replaced with tea and coffee. The chinese of Mae salong now grow and sell one of the world's best oolong tea.