Word: teak
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...over the treetops to land outside the main town of Jinghong?or in Dai Lue, Chiang Rung, "the city of the dawn"?what looked like dozens of Pizza Huts peeped from the verdure. This was the unique architecture of the Dai?their signature, high-canted roofs perched atop thick teak pillars...
...silk sheaths and blouses, cinched by wide, silver belts. "Jau Phaendin?" asks my wife. "Don't you know?" whispers one of the women. The last Dai King, she tells us, was exiled to Kunming during the tumultuous early years of the People's Republic of China, and his magnificent teak palace was torn down by rabid Red Guards. The Dai were a feisty people, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and it was felt they did not need a monarch around to stir up ethnic pride or notions of independence. (These days, the septuagenarian King works at the Yunnan Research...
Granted, there remains an undeniable thrill in gazing out over the looping red ribbons of the Mekong and its tributary, the Ruak, and being able to see not one but two other countries, where vast stands of golden teak shimmer and hint at mysteries within. But it's a thrill tempered by the riot of ugliness erupting all around, and the creeping fear that another decade or so is all that separates this once lovely spot from becoming Pattaya-on-the-Mekong. "This was still mostly farmland 10 years ago," says Junfong Suphan, 48, a farmer who now sells counterfeit...
SPLASHING OUT If your budget is up to doing the Golden Triangle in style, consider a night or two at Le Meridien Baan Boran, for a room with a great view. Perched on a ridge amid some 160 hectares of bamboo and teak, every room offers stunning vistas of this intersection of nations?and you're safely removed from the tacky tourist mayhem and noisy "longtail" boats below. The Meridien's impeccable service and graceful traditional architecture moved the Tourism Authority of Thailand to proclaim it northern Thailand's best hotel. Prices start at $55 for a room...
BUDDHA IN THE BACKYARD Enter the stone gates of the Bagan Hotel and you could be forgiven for thinking you've stumbled upon yet another reconstructed temple. The elaborate teak and brick reception hall is built in the ancient architectural style. Wedged between the major sites of old Pagan and the banks of the Irrawaddy River, the resort is a shady oasis of fragrant flowering trees and rustic guesthouses, which blend with their sacred surroundings. Built in the wake of the government's 1996 Visit Myanmar Year campaign, the resort is run by the enigmatic Juergen Dieter Voss, who, with...