Word: umphang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2003-2003
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...TRAVEL Thailand: Umphang's Bloody Past...
...here in the district of Umphang on a twofold mission: to understand the dark past of one of Thailand's top tourism destinations, and to seek some closure for an ailing man. That destination is the World Heritage-demarcated Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary and the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, which comprise an area of surpassing beauty and, until recently, myriad dangers. And that ailing man, Dr. Boonma Kanthakat, is my 72-year-old father-in-law, who is terminally ill with lung cancer...
...dispatched by the Thai government to Umphang, 670 kilometers northwest of Bangkok. Today, it's a region showered with ecotourism awards for its hill-tribe homestays and treks. But back then, it was a hotbed of communist insurgency. Five guerrillas had stopped Boonma at gunpoint one day and marched him to a village. "I was so scared," he recalls. "There were communists everywhere, more than 1,000 men, and I realized I'd stumbled upon their hideout. The leader introduced himself, put his gun under my chin and told me they shot government spies." Boonma was beaten and interrogated. "They...
...guerrillas surrendered their arms in 1982. The highway into Umphang was constructed a year later, but it took another decade before the first tourists arrived. "It cost 600 lives to build that road," says Sombat Panarong, former chief of Umphang's border police and the present owner of the Umphang Hill Resort. "The communists used to snipe at us from the jungle...
...Besides, superlatives are Umphang's stock in trade. By day's end, we would be camped at Southeast Asia's biggest waterfall (Thi Lor Su, an aquatic Goliath some 400 m tall and 500 m wide), getting ready to trek through Thailand's most virginal teak forests before clambering onto Asia's largest animal (the elephant) to tour some of the country's most remote hill tribes...