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FEB-1995 JPC

Mama's Milk So Sweet...

Mae Hong Son, Thailand view map

Thailand’s Ghost Lost Village….

We were doing a series of travel articles on Thailand, with the support of the Ministry of Tourism. They organised our itinerary and provided a fantastic guide, Pop to be with us all the time.
We started in the North, flew to Chiang Mai, and then boarded a small van to Mae Hong Son. The trip was fantastic, but even more so the before sunrise boat trip to the Long Neck village, on a river bordering Burma (Myanmar).
Very happy with our work, Pop proposed to take us to a ‘lost’ village in the mountains he had heard of. Even the driver and his assistant have not been there.
The road was amazing, and took 3,5 hours. Soon the road was not asphalted, and we begun to wonder if the effort was worth it!
When we arrived, it was almost the end of sunset, of a very long day when we were extremely tired.
To our surprise, the village seemed completely empty. There were some women, obviously from the same family, with their babies in the same porch. They seemed surprised to see us, but continued feeding the babies, naturally, relaxed.
Suddenly, a man came, and tried to talk to Pop and our drivers. I noticed they became very agitated. In the meantime, Filipa, my friend, wandering a bit around, pointed me to the inconspicuous garage where a very high end and powerful Toyota black van was parked.
No time even to take any further photos, the 3 Thai helpers came to us and said to leave quick! They explained they could not talk properly to the man, because he could not speak 1 word of Thai, although the drivers helper managed to understand some words because he was from the area, and explain we were just taking some photos of original people.
We got into the van, as the sun had already set, but could very well see from afar some high power bikes with men with Kalashnikov machine guns on their backs, returning to the village!
On the painful way back, at nigh Pop, very apologetic, explained to us that village belonged to the Opium drug dealers, it was extremely dangerous, not even the Police or the Army would go there! It was a mistake that could have cost our lives…
…But what a mistake!
I was so happy!


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Paolo Peggi (aka Bracciodiferro)18-Oct-2015 09:33
Impressive good work.V
Paolo