Thailand's Golden Triangle: Where cooking, massage and learning how to ride an elephant are all in a day's work

By PAUL GOGARTY

Mekong River: North Thailand is now easily accessible and provides the country's most intimate and authentic experiences - as well as having some fabulous hotels


Fireworks flare and traditional fire lanterns drift skywards as we exit Chiang Mai airport to witness the tail end of the Loy Krathong Festival.

Minutes later, as our mini bus chases tuk-tuks past the crumbling old city walls, a seasoned traveller to northern Thailand points to the smoke billowing over the roadside food stalls and knowingly declares, ‘If Bangkok is rock and roll, the North is the blues - laid-back and authentic.’

The following morning I wake at the Four Seasons Chang Mai to songbirds and water tumbling past my private loggia to the lake where a few early-bird guests are opening themselves like lotus flowers with a yoga session on a floating pavilion.

I however, have a Cook Thai course booked and trade yogic calm for the frenetic pace of the sprawling Tanin food market where the hotel’s sous-chef gives me and five other students a crash course on the bewildering local produce.

Once a little more knowledgeable regarding the ingredients that make up one of the world’s great cuisines, we speed back to the hotel kitchen to pound the exotic herbs and spices with a pestle and mortar.

Just twenty minutes later, with a fair amount of support from the chef, we transform that alien market produce into a pretty sensational spicy sliced beef salad and noodle curry (a northern Thai dish that’s a lot more exciting than it sounds).


The daily grind: Paul Gogarty learns how to pound those exotic spices before using them to make a traditional Thai dish in his cookery class


With such a feast at lunch it makes sense to progress onto an equally decadent pastime in the afternoon, massage. No, not receiving one, but learning how to give one.

I take part in an introductory Learn Thai Massage session at the Lila Thai Massage parlour, where all the masseuse are former inmates of the Chang Mai Women’s Prison.

The owner - who was also the director of the prison for 42 years - now concerns herself with rehabilitation rather than incarceration, running two centres with her daughter and employing 25 staff who all share in the profits generated.

Two hours of instruction and total incompetence later, I feel like I should be given a health warning rather than a certificate - I don’t think I’ve ever felt so irredeemably hopeless at anything.


Beware of trainee mahouts: Paul puts an elephant through its paces...or should that be the other way round?


Armed with some (dubious) new skills, I depart Chiang Mai to head further north, right in to the heart of the Golden Triangle, and stay at the aptly named Anantara Golden Triangle Resort.

From my balcony I can see an orderly column of elephants heading through the bush to the Ruak river to wash off the dust of the day.

On the opposite bank a red building consisting of 13 interconnecting tiled roofs rises in Burma. Half a mile beyond it is the fast flowing muddy Mekong and beyond it, Laos. This is the unique area where the two rivers and three countries meet.

Fifty years ago when Thailand was still Siam it was the most impossibly exotic place on earth. Now it’s our favourite long haul destination and yet for some reason the vast majority of those booking Thai packages tend to ignore the Golden Triangle despite the fact it’s where the country has best preserved its traditions.

For centuries the Golden Triangle’s shroud of mystery was as thick as its early morning mists and it remained inaccessible to all but longtail boats and elephant convoys tramping through the dense jungle.This inaccessibility also provided the perfect cover for the notorious poppy harvests that fed the world’s drug trade.

Opposite the Anantara is the hugely impressive interactive Hall of Opium museum which charts the dark trade that local tribes relied on until recent times when a Royal Project was initiated by the King’s mother and led to the razing of the poppy fields that covered the area and the establishment of fruit, vegetable, rubber, tea and coffee cash crops.

While former convicts were being rehabilitated, the fields healed and local tribes were given new livelihoods. The museum now provides essential education for school parties on the dangers of drug addiction.


Water view! The pool at Anantara looks out to Laos and Burma while the terrace bathtubs at the award-winning Four Seasons (right) look out onto beautiful greenery


On the road back from the museum to the resort, I notice a sign warning drivers to beware of trainee mahouts riding elephants. Soon - having learned three different ways to mount and dismount an elephant and a few essential words such as Pai (forward), Bain (turn) and How (stop) - I am one of those trainee mahouts gallumphing down to the river for a dip with our charges.

As our six elephants submerge themselves (and us up to our chests) and spray each other, us novice mahouts try manfully to concentrate - between howls of laughter – on remaining perched like hats on the elephants’ heads.

My mahout skills are further honed following an exciting longboat ride up river to our final base, the Four Seasons Tented Camp which for the last three years has deservedly won the Conde Nast Traveller’s Best Worldwide Resort award despite having only 14 exquisite ‘tented’ rooms (think Rajah’s pavilion rather than pop up tent).

Located just a slingshot from the Anantara and with even more incomparable views, the resort is supremely stylish, and almost impossible to leave. It just goes to show, you don't need to rough it to enjoy an off-the-beaten-track adventure.

On our final evening, suddenly and inexplicably an endless flotilla of floating candles drift downstream past the camp as more drum-shaped fire lanterns soar heavenwards. No opium high could create a more perfect vision.

Travel Facts
Bridge & Wickers (020 7483 6555; www.bridgeandwickers.co.uk) features three nights (room only) at the Four Seasons Chiang Mai, two nights (B&B) at the Anantara Golden Triangle and two nights at the Four Seasons Tented Camp, (inclusive of all meals, drinks, a spa treatment and activities including elephant training).

The holiday costs from £3,989 pp based on two sharing including return flights with Thai Airways from London to Chiang Mai and home from Chiang Rai, with private transfers from Chiang Mai to the Anantara.

Alternatively, without the Tented Camp, three nights at the Four Seasons Chiang Mai and three nights at the Anantara Golden Triangle with private transfers and return flights from London with Thai Airways costs from £1,795pp.


source: dailymail