Ben Hopkins travels to Thailand’s northern-most province to discover
an opium eradication project that is gaining world attention

When HRH the Princess Mother – the King’s mother – first descended upon Chiang Rai’s Doi Tung it was by helicopter. There were no roads and the nearest market town was a two day walk over mountainous  terrain.  The  year was  1988  and  the  region was  split  into  fefdoms  and  controlled by regional groups and warlords from the renegade Shan and KMT armies. Fear and confusion would have gripped the hill tribe people when they frst looked up to see the Princess Mother’s helicopter descend upon the land. After all, the overwhelming majority had no nationhood and no  education while  their main  source of income was opium. Only when the Princess Mother blended in amongst the locals and made Doi Tung her home was the lingering sense of fear replaced by hope.

The Princess Mother arrived from the sky and the locals proclaimed her Maeh Fah Luang; meaning Royal Mother from the Sky.

Her Highness passed away in 1995 at the age of 94 but her legacy, the Maeh Fah Luang Project represents a remarkable journey. Remarkable on one level because when the Princess Mother chose to return home from Switzerland she was 88 years old; most would expect someone in such late years to opt for the comfort of a palace in Bangkok. But no, the Princess Mother chose a mountain top in a part of the Golden Triangle that had been bypassed by the 20th century. Remarkable on another level because the plan she set in seed 30 years ago has transformed this region from a morass of ecological and social failings into a rejuvenated landscape where sustainable crops have replaced opium and lives have been transformed.

Driving cautiously along mud tracks that cling to the valley slopes and rise skyward my guide, Khun Nuj, explains one of the reasons why Doi Tung has been so successful, “In Thai­land, governments last for two years at the most so there’s no long term planning. As a Royal Project we don’t have that problem.”

The project is scheduled to be complete by 2017 by which time the regions 10,000 or so hill tribe villagers will be empowered to run their own businesses with full autonomy. Statistics can be manipulated but photos taken ten, twenty and thirty years ago reveal a landscape that has emerged from barren and brown to green and lush. Mortality rates have plummeted, modern medicine has replaced practices steeped in shaman­ist belief; Thai nationality has been given to almost 90% of the villagers, the numbers of hill tribe teenagers entering higher education is increasing year on year while opium as the main source of income has been replaced by coffee, tea, macada­mia nuts and traditional crafts such as pottery, weaving, paper making and jewelry.

“Hold on,” the driver cautions as he skillfully wheel spins our four wheel drive up a steep mud track leading to the Pang Mahan project center, an offspring of the Doi Tung Project. Perched 1,060 meters on top of a mountain Pang Mahan overlooks the valleys and folds of Doi Tung to the south and the Burmese border to the north. The air is cool and the view is stunning but the people camped up on this mountain are involved in far more than admiring nature; they’re rehabilitating the land and bringing sustainable livelihoods to the people.

Scattered around the mountain are 14 villages containing different religions and tribes but all dependent upon the same ecology for survival and prosperity.

There’s a long list of interconnecting schemes being run simultaneously. Pig Looking remark-banks control the distribution and monitor the health of livestock. Spring ably young and water that descends from the mountains is staggered in 526 damns provid­ing widespread irrigation, drinking water and generating modest amounts of hydro electricity. The hill tribe people are asked which crops grow best on the land which is then administered to them using a lottery system to avoid accusations of favoritism. Buddhist, Islamic, Christian and Animist leaders are bought together from various villages to seal the bonds that are essential to progress.

“We work closely with the hill-tribe people,” explains Golf, the project co­ordinator. “Most have their own dialect so we use translators. Also, most of them can’t read or write so when land is shared out and agreements are made we take photos of them holding a map with their land marked on it.”

Listening in is Massud, a government official from north Afghanistan’s Balkh region. It took a long time in coming but finally the success of Doi Tung has caught the attention of the higher ranks of UN officials and in 2003 Project Afghanistan kicked into action. Ministers, religious leaders, governors and even “warlords” from the world’s largest producer of opium were flown over to learn from the Doi Tung Project. What quickly became evident was that although the environmental and cultural circumstances between the two countries differed significantly there were, and are key lessons for Afghani­stan to learn from the Doi Tung experience. Chief among these is the futility of destroying opium crops without first planting alternative seeds and devel­oping a long term plan to replace the livelihoods lost.

Looking remarkably young and relaxed for a govern­ment official Massud joins me for lunch on a sheltered platform overlooking a valley that descends and rises to a distant horizon. Massud explains how ideas garnered from Doi Tung have been practiced in his region of north Afghanistan. “There’s no opium in my part of Afghanistan, only sheep. How­ever, we looked at the way Doi Tung built trust at a grass roots level; then we looked at their system of monitoring the health of livestock. Before adapting the Doi Tung system our sheep suffered a 13% mortality rate. Now it’s down to 2.5%.” In a region where sheep are the main source of income reversing the curve away from higher mortality levels has profound implications not only for the health of people but also for resolving conflict.

A small group gathers as Massud drops his fork and points to an eagle draw­ing circles in the sky high above the valley. Golf tells us any moment now he’ll descend head first. “He’s seen a chicken… his lunch.”

“But first the eagle must poop,” another project worker informs us. Curi­ous for more details I ask why. “Because when his poop hits the ground the chicken will eat it and then the eagle will take the chicken.”

“One thing I must remember if I’m reincarnated a chicken… never eat an eagles shit,” interjects a Welshman named Tony, a teacher who has dedi­cated the last six years of his life to bringing education to the children of Doi Tung.

It’s a joke that spreads laughter around the table; in a sense illustrating the importance of breaking down communication barriers as a prelude to progress.

Tony has introduced the Montessori system into the schools of Doi Tung. It’s a system developed in Italy at the turn of the 20th century. “The method we use differs from what is practiced in Thailand’s mainstream education. Using this system we give the children the know how and the tools to teach them­selves and to think independently.” In other words it’s a system that teaches children how to think not what to think. The results can be measured by the increasing number of hill tribe teenagers entering higher education.

The mountains of Chiang Rai are an impressionist’s dream. If you’re lucky enough to camp on high; mornings will emerge with blankets of mist float­ing like magic carpets through the valleys bellow. Hues of green peppered with a rainbow of colors will emerge and deepen and fade as the sun traces an arc from east to west. Driving cautiously down the mountain we catch site of a flurry of brilliant butterflies untroubled by a giant lizard that crawls lazily into a muddy pond.

The mud track we follow leads us through coffee, tea and macadamia nut plantations. “The coffee plantations take about three years before produc­ing and the macadamia trees take about seven. We had to wait until these plantations were producing enough for the people before the opium could be eliminated.” Khun Nuj explains, once again stressing the importance of replacing opium with a sustainable livelihood.

Driving through an Akha hill-tribe village we spot a large group of men sitting around drinking tea. Kids are jumping in and out of a pool while a sleepy dog lolls about in the road moving only when his tail is about to be run over. But where are the women? “Oh, they’re all in the mountains work­ing on the land. In Akha culture the men stay at home and drink tea while the women work,” Khun Nuj explains with a chuckle while I consider what good deeds I could do in this life to be reborn an Akha male.

On the edge of a village we visit a health center that has for the most part overcome the obstacles in bringing modern medicine to the hill-tribe vil­lagers. Nassan, a health official who has been on the Doi Tung program for the past 23 years explains a few of the changes she’s witnessed. “One of the main problems we used to face were superstitions born from animist beliefs. For example, it’s considered extremely bad luck to touch a pregnant woman’s stomach. Infant mortality was extremely high so we had to use a slow ap­proach to gradually make them trust modern medicine.”

Another major cause of death was respiratory problems born out of poor ac­commodation. “Most of the hill tribe villagers have changed their thatched roofs for tin and tiled roofs, this cuts the respiratory illnesses dramatically. However, there are a few thatched roofed houses left.” When I ask if they’re preserved for historical or aesthetic reasons she shakes her head and replies, “No, there’s nothing attractive in poverty.”

And there in lies a good point. Images of thatched roofed villages look great on postcards but there is nothing attractive in walking two miles to collect water, having no electricity when the weather turns harsh and having no
transport when the only hope for survival is to reach a hospital within six hours.

Of course, lying in the balance is the importance of maintaining ones cul­ture. “We hope this project won’t lead to a new generation who disown their culture,” Khun Nuj says as we drive back to the Doi Tung Center at dusk. “The project takes their traditional skills like agriculture, weaving and pot­tery, develops them and opens up a market to make them self sustainable. Nothing remains static but change is always best when taken slowly.”

It’s a thought worth pondering from the balcony of my room in the Maeh Fah Luang resort, but with a diamond studied sky delivering a shooting star every ten minutes I’m content to sit back and allow myself to be entertained by Mother Nature.

Peeling myself from the sheets I lap up breakfast before climbing into the SUV and descending the mountain en route to a tiny hamlet that is quite literally hidden in the woods. “We’ve arranged for you to meet Khun Tung, an ex drug addict,” Khun Nuj explains. “Today he’s the village leader.” It’s another Akha village that couldn’t look more attractive if lifted from the pages of a Rudyard Kipling tale. Fern leaves the size of elephants ears flap in the wind as we walk down a narrow track to the front door of Tung’s resi­dence. Chickens are running around avoiding dinner while Tung’s daughter in law waves us in with one hand while balancing her baby on her hip with the other.

Tung looks remarkably young for his 54 years. He’s wearing a denim shirt and his hair shimmers with grey and silver tones. Hungry for a horror story I ask what demonic forces led him to follow the path into Dante’s inferno; or rather, what were the circumstances that led him to become an opium addict.

“As a young man all his friends smoked the opium,” Khun Nuj translates.
“At the time there were about 70 families in the village, there were three women who smoked everyday and about 50 men.” Hill tribe villagers had been growing opium and using it in moderate quantities for medicinal pur­poses for centuries before it was grown to fund renegade armies and CIA operations during the Indo China war.

During the 1980’s Tung and his friends would smoke it in the mornings, do a little work during the day and spend the evening in a soporific haze. With four children to feed and a growing dependence on the drug life became difficult to impossible for Tung. He tells us he became skinny and weak, his friends were unable to work and younger people began to use the drug. The opium replaced life. When a similar epidemic afflicts an inner city neighbor­hood the result is often violence and theft, was it the same in Tung’s village. “Oh no,” Nuj translates, “he says there was no fighting, but things were sto­len, he remembers two chickens were stolen but there was no fighting.”

Fighting seems to be an alien concept to these gentle people while thefts are almost unheard of. “How can they steal when they have nothing to steal?” Khun Nuj asks rhetorically.

A four month stint in the Maeh Fah Luang rehabilitation center flushed the drug from Khun Tung’s system and enabled him to start life anew. He was one of the lucky ones, he was only an addict for three or four years so he regained his strength quickly. As we leave Khun Tung bounces a football. He used to play but now he insists he’s too old. His sons all play but he prefers to sit around with the older men, drinking tea and planning the festivals which mark the cornerstones of Akha culture; in Doi Tung at least a culture rejuvenated with the elimination and replacement of opium.

Before visiting the world class Hall of Opium museum I’m taken to a com­pound of workshops where traditional crafts are practiced. Today the Maeh Fah Luang Project directly employs around 1,500 people of the Doi Tung re­gion, about 20% of the working population. In the workshops they’re honing their skills in pottery, carpet making, weaving and paper making. Nearby there are also laborites full of young biologists taking tissue samples from plants, generating the seeds and placing the dominant forces into bottles for replanting. All of these cottage industries employ the local villagers and train them to run their own businesses.

Located in the official heart of the Golden Triangle where Burma, Laos and Thailand converge on the banks of the Sop Luak and Mekong Rivers stands the Hall of Opium, Thailand’s most impressive museum that would stand its ground in any of the world’s great cities.

The museum was the idea of the Princess Mother and its aim is to educate the public in the role opium has played in shaping human history as well as its medicinal purposes and the dangers it poses. Cut into the mountain we follow a long corridor that opens out and descends into the bowels of his­tory. The British feature prominently, forcing shiploads of the ‘foreign muck’ onto the Chinese in the 19th century culminating in the wasting of mil­lions of lives and two wars. Entering the 20th century we learn of how the Golden Triangle became the world’s leading producer of opium during the Indo China War with all opposing factions, including the CIA complicit in the trade and using the profits to fund their military objectives.

Passing through history we enter the present day. Videoed case studies present heart breaking tales of promising lives lost to heroin and tales of hope from former addicts who chose the road to recovery.

Finally, we emerge in the sunlit Hall of Reflections. Pillars adorned with plaques bearing words of wisdom from religious leaders, philosophers and writers strike a poignant note. There are quotes from the Koran, the Bible and Buddhist texts but what strikes a chord as I come to the end of my Doi Tung tour is from the Chinese philosophy of Taoism, “A journey of a thou­sand miles must begin with a single step.”

The Maeh Fah Luang Project represents an epic journey; a journey of a thou­sand miles; a journey that began when HRH the Princess Mother made the mountains of Doi Tung her home.