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There was no direct bus from Chiang Rai, the northernmost city of Thailand and near the border with Myanmar, to the village I wanted to go to, in order to visit a Chinese school there that I had heard about. So I changed bus at the Mae Sai town centre, about 65 kilometres north of Chiang Rai town.

Walking along the streets, one could hear people speaking in Chinese everywhere, almost all in the Yunnan dialect. Asked where they came from, some said from Mae Salong and others from Ban Hintaek. Mae Salong and Ban Hintaek frequently appear in books and reports on the Golden Triangle. Mae Salong was once the headquarters of the remnants of the Kuomingtang army that had fled to Thailand, while Ban Hintaek used to be a base of the opium warlord Khun Sa. The bus arrived quite quickly because the village was less than 10 kilometres away from the place where had I spent the night.

Soon I was talking to the principal of the Chinese school, Zhou Deliang, a rather short man who looked like he was in his 70s, but was still full of vigour. Villagers called him Uncle Zhou.

After learning about my quest to learn more about the peoples and cultures of the Mekong region, Zhou brought me to his home. Speaking in the Dima dialect of Yunnan province, he told me that there were some 110 families in the village. The Chinese school had more than 160 students, divided into eight classes from kindergarten to Grade 6. The students are grouped according to their proficiency in Chinese, so there were some men and women in their twenties in kindergarten. By law, school-age children have to study in local Thai schools during the day, so the Chinese classes are held at night.

Huang Ronghua, the deputy director of the Dawn Gospel Drug Rehabilitation Station in the village, hosted lunch. Zhou Deliang was the one who opened this drug rehabilitation centre, after going to Hong Kong to learn about the subject. Upon his return, he led the villagers in building a thatched cottage to come the drug centre. He started by enrolling five drug addicts in the village, who stopped using drugs in three months. Then he got all the drug addicts in the village to the station, he says, and after half a year, they all quit taking drugs. He wanted to stop when he solved his village's problem, but he couldn't. But the village station slowly grew and became famous, until an international drug rehabilitation organisation took over and expanded into four other branches. One of them is located in the former base of Khun Sa.

During our discussion, a sports utility vehicle stopped in the front of the door and a tall and thin man in his 40s, with a strange tattoo on one of his arms, got out with a warm smile. Uncle Zhou introduced him as a member of the Dai minority. His family name was Dao and he came from Menghai county of Yunnan. He used to be a drug addict and a member of a local mafia. But he gave up drugs at the village station, became a Catholic and married a schoolteacher. He now preaches the gospel in the church of a village in the Mae Fah Luang project,

Uncle Zhou said: "Most people who are working at the drug rehabilitation station and church used to be drug addicts. They changed and now they volunteer to help others."

From the Mountains
Uncle Zhou told me that the village has quite a few Chinese residents, while the other villages are all populated with ethnic minority groups. One is a Lahu village, another is a village of the Hani minority and the third one is home to a mixture of the Hani, the Lisu and the Yao.

In the Lahu village, most houses were raised bamboo structures with bamboo-wattled walls, grass and iron sheet roofs. Walking in these villages was just like walking in one of the Lahu villages in Lancang county of Yunnan — everything was very familiar.

With Uncle Zhou's help, I asked some residents about their ethnicity and said they belonged to a branch of the Lahu and have live there for generations. Some could not tell where their ancestors originally came from, but someone remarked that their ancestors came from Yunnan.

In the mountains, they said, where they lived before coming to settle here, everyone consumed five things: tobacco, alcohol, opium, marijuana and 'ice'. In the mountains, besides grain they cultivated opium and marijuana. They sold part of the harvest and consumed some of them. They exchanged their raw produce for manufactured drugs, and for them this was just a way to make a living from a good that sold well. The village head was a drug user and sold drugs to his villagers.

After moving away from dependence on drugs, they had to follow local regulations in the village, including a prohibition on four of the five items they used to consume - a bit of alcohol was allowed. Settling in the village meant that their children could go to school. Now that they live closer to town, they have more opportunities to make and save money, and it is easier for them to access health services.

Preaching in the Highlands
That night, I stayed at the Dawn Gospel drug rehabilitation station in the village.

In the morning, as light was just coming in through my window, I heard the sounds of someone sweeping the floor. Looking at my watch, I saw it was only 5.30 a.m. I got up fast and washed, but students had already swept all the yards. I was told that they got up at 5:30 a.m. and went to bed at 9 p.m.

The students don't take medicines to give up drug addiction, I was told, but they are helped when the spiritual void they feel is filled. It being a Sunday, Director Liao of the station was going to preach the gospel in a village, where many of Khun Sa's wounded and disabled soldiers live, and where Mr Dao, whom we met two days ago, was posted. So, I went along with Liao to visit that village.

The village is five kilometres away from Mae Fah Luang district and home to more than 1,000 people. Most of them are Baiyi (also known as the Dai minority). It is said that Ban Hintaek used to house the residential quarters of the families of Khun Sa's army. Many wounded and disabled soldiers were reportedly sent here to be treated and to recuperate. Some 20 to 30 disabled people still live in the village. A few of them are Catholics now. When Khun Sa was there, they got 600 baht (12 U.S. dollars) a month. Now, they have to rely on their families - but the disabled ones have to till the land or work themselves.

Khun Sa's Former Base
As we still had time, we stopped in front of what used to be Khun Sa's area some two decades or so ago. Small houses, hidden amid lush trees, had red walls and iron sheet roofs. These days, they house an exhibition to show tools used during Khun Sa's time, such as saddles, and some pictures and documents. The exhibition said that Khun Sa, of Chinese and Shan heritage, gathered Baiyi and other ethnic minority people and engaged in armed drug smuggling in the name of creating the 'Shan state'.

A small temple stands nearby and a small river runs along the foot of the hill. Beside the river is a well near where cattle were killed — it is said that only by killing cattle with water from this well can one get effective blessings. The talk among people here that Khun Sa always took water from this well to kill and to cook. Afterwards, he rewarded his soldiers with meat.

Behind the temple was what locals said was the execution ground.

Wang, 40 and talkative, used to be a soldier for Khun Sa. Now working at the drug rehabilitation centre, he told me that he had grown up in Myanmar and had two brothers. He was only 11 years old when he joined the army, starting with the troops of Lou Xinghan. Later on, he was transferred to Khun Sa. In 1976 he was sent here to guard the area and go out with the drug caravans. His income was just 60 baht a month (1.2 dollars today).

Legacy of the Past
Later, I rented a car and headed for 'Xi's Tomb' in Mae Salong, which used to be headquarters of the remnants of the Kuomintang troops. It is an Oriental-style garden, but it is hard to tell if it is done in Chinese or Thai style. It is not big, but sits on top of a hill. It has many steps, like Dr Sun Yat Sen's mausoleum in Nanjing. Visitors need to crane their necks to see the tomb; the climb is tiring.

Stone pillars circle the building. Between two main dragon columns, there is, made out of mosaic tiles, the big Chinese character for "fortune".

The tomb houses the remains of Gen Duan Xiwen, commander of 39th division of the Kuomintang army. Later on, he became the general of the Kuomintang troops that had come to seek refuge in the Golden Triangle. After the Kuomintang's Gen Li Mi withdrew to Taiwan after their defeat by the communists, he became the top leader here. From how local people talk, Gen Duan Xiwen had been a powerful man when he was alive.

Standing beside the tomb, I looked down at the village. Some red and green roofs in the valley were surrounded by tea plantations, where ethnic minority people in colourful dresses worked. They were now engaged in tea planting and selling.

Fengbing village is located in the suburbs of Mae Salong. There are 17 disabled people there. Most have many children, but a few live alone. They are all "heroes" from the Kuomintang days and can still get some money from the government. Their family members have to work in others' tea gardens. Survival is not easy.

A Chinese Wedding
I was to continue on my trip to countries downstream on the Mekong River, but held this off after receiving an invitation from Uncle Zhou to attend a wedding in Mae Salong.

We left without breakfast. Five other villagers went with us and all of us piled into the car of the village head. We arrived there at 9:30 a.m., but some guests had already left after having eaten at the wedding banquet. Outside, people milled about and many motorcycles were parked on both sides of the street. It looked like everybody in town had gathered together here. They mostly spoke the dialect of Simao, from Yunnan.

The banquet area a big open ground with some tents and some 100 round tables. Dishes and cups were strewn on some tables and people sat around at other tables, waiting for others to join them. Guests came and went, tables filled and emptied as the hours passed by. People called it a flowing banquet. I thought it was just like a wedding banquet in inland China.

As we still had time, the villagers invited me to visit a tea garden owner nearby. The owner, Wu, was in his 40s and his ancestors were from Zhenyuan in Yunnan. He owned one thousand mu (some 67 hectares) of tea gardens and was building a big teahouse - the Cottonrose Palace - in the suburbs.

The Cottonrose Palace is quite unique, to say the least. It was made up of three big buildings in the shape of teapots, one the colour of gold and the other, silver. A third was under construction. Two big statues of golden lions stood at the front door.

Boss Wu invited us into his golden 'teapot'. As women attendants flitted about, Wu talked about his plans. He wanted to make his place the tea cultural centre of the Golden Triangle, he said, and he wanted to invite some ethnic minority performers from his hometown of Yunnan.

After this, I continued on my journey going to the southern part of the Mekong region. I left thinking that there might have been some more interesting things I could have explored, if I had more time. I hope to come back here someday, but one thing is for sure: these places are no longer a mystery to me.