Golden Triangle

Our first stop is The Golden Triangle lookout where we view where the countries of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos converge:

“Triangle” for being the meeting point of three countries.
“Gold” because this precious metal was the payment system used by the first opium traders.

The cultivation of opium in this region is not an ancestral activity, since it was not until the end of the 19th century when the tribal populations that grew opium migrated from southern China to the highlands of Southeast Asia.

In the early 1940’s the Golden Triangle of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos produced a modest amount of opium, but the suppression of opium crops in China and later Iran in 1955 brought the bulk of the world’s opium production to move to this mountainous region of Southeast Asia.Read more