Beyond the bustling civilized world of Bangkok, Rangoon, and Vientiane, beyond even the leisurely, lackadaisical world of Chiang Mai, Mandalay, and Luang Prabang, lies another world -- largely unknown and inaccessible. This is Asia's mountainous "Golden Triangle", where primitive tribes people exist as they have for centuries, beyond the pale of laws and progress.

We caught a glimpse of that extraordinary world, high in the dense hills of northern Thailand, verging on the border of the Burmese Shan State, some 200 kilometers beyond Chiang Mai. We had planned only to while away several more days in delightful Chiang Mai. And so we would have, if we hadn't met Mr. Moo, a young man well acquainted with several of the remote tribes to the north. His full title is S. Sithichai Moo, but he is well known locally as Mr. Moo. This refreshing young man offered to take us along on his next trek into the jungle.

And so it was that early one morning Jean and I met Mr. Moo and his friend Wat outside the darkened Ladda Tohrung Cafe, which they used as a headquarters. The rain from the previous day persisted in a steady drizzle and I recalled an ominous warning from the proprietors of our guest house. They were a young Thai couple with broad grinning faces and the readiest, most infectious laughter I have ever witnessed. They had advised us against making such a trip into the northern hills.

"Smoke opium, bad, bad. Jungle trip no good. And it rain, it rain." When later we assured them that we really were going, their feces just lighted up and they laughed and grinned at each other "Oh it rain, it rain. All time rain." And so it did.

Five others soon joined us outside the cafe and we rambled off to the bus station in the back of a truck. There we boarded a typically dilapidated public bus and started out for Fang, three hours to the north. The countryside was lush but rugged. Only a few country folk have carved their farms from the dense forest. Along the way, we sighted several working elephants, hauling teak logs out of the forest.

Then, just beyond the village of Mae Taeng, our progress halted abruptly. A large truck had overturned in the mud while repairing the bridge over the Mae Ping River, completely sealing off the road. We were left stranded on the south side of the river, while a south-bound bus sat waiting on the far bank. Eventually a compromise was reached when the drivers agreed to exchange passengers and return to their starting points. So we walked the tenuous strand that remained across the bridge and boarded the bus returning north to Fang.

The first Thais to emigrate from the north founded Fang over 1,100 years ago. But it never flourished, and today it lies isolated from civilization, appearing much the same as any ramshackle country town.

After a hot lunch in Fang, we had to hire a truck to drive us up a rugged gravel road to the tiny village of Tha Nom on the Mae Kok River. There we waited for the boat which was to meet us. The rain had let up, and as we waited we ate steamed Chinese rolls and watched the local girls fishing from the bank with their minnow nets.

As the downpour renewed, we gave up on our boat and hailed a local river ferry headed downstream. The launch was long and narrow, and already brimming with people and goods, but somehow we all squeezed in and huddled under our ponchos in the bottom of the boat.

All down the river we could discern small thatched huts stilted high above the marshes and backed by densely forested slopes. Except for the river, they were isolated from any other people. Occasionally there were several dwellings together, but often just one lonely hut, half hidden among the high rushes that grow profusely along the shore. We stopped at several of these secluded huts to drop off passengers.

It was a slow voyage downstream with only the drone of the outboard cutting through the rain. An hour and a half drifted by before we reached the Shan village of Ban Mai, which would be our jumping-off point.

The Shan, Lao, and Thai peoples, all members of the Thai race, originally lived in southern China, from Yunnan to the Kwang Provinces and eastward. Their principal state was known as Nan Chao. Thousands of these people migrated south from as early as 800 AD until the mass emigration preluding Nan Chao's fall to the armies of Kublai Khan in 1253.

These Shan-Thai tribesmen settled in the upper Menam Valley of Thailand, in the Lao country east of the Mekong, and in the Shan State of northeast Burma. The Siamese state grew up around Chiang Mai and Old Sukhothai in the upper Menam basin, and eventually drove out the ruling Khemers to establish an autonomous kingdom which has survived since 1238.

The Shans remained in the dense mountain areas of northeast Burma. Although they have struggled for centuries, along with other hill tribes, to establish the Shan State as an autonomous territory, the Burmese Army has consistently put down their frequent revolts -- but not without long and bloody campaigns. Tribal insurgents have often fled south toward the Thai border to regroup and appropriate guns and supplies, making this dense mountain wilderness a veritable no-man's-land of thieves, murderers and tribal soldiers of fortune.

Some 60 years ago, there occurred a period of particularly fierce fighting in the Shan State, and the Burmese Army advanced in force. At this time, many of the hill tribes people migrated south across the border to find some peace in the isolated hill country of northern Thailand.

The Shan are but one of the scores of distinct and autonomous tribes who occupy the Golden Triangle. They have migrated at different times, from divergent places, in flight from various enemies, to find sanctuary only in this remote mountain region. Some are distantly related to the Tibetans, others to the Chinese. Each tribe has its own separate culture and distinct language. In one small province in northern Laos, over 25 different tribal languages are spoken. These peoples are intensely proud of their tribal identity and each tribal group clings tenaciously to its own style of dress, jewelry, agriculture, family structure, and social customs.

These are the people we have come to experience on our jungle journey. Most of them live by the age-old 'slash and burn' method of agriculture -- felling trees, clearing stones, and then burning off the undergrowth before planting in the ashen soil. It is a monumental task when you consider their simple tools, the steepness of the hillsides, and the rapid soil depletion which forces them to abandon their fields within four years to clear new land elsewhere. This shifting cultivation eventually spurns the migration and rebuilding of entire villages.

But the "Golden Triangle" did not win its fame because of these primitive people living off the land. Here in their mountain enclaves, inaccessible and perilous to outsiders, they also produce the bulk of the world's crop of raw opium. Most of the tribes we visited had been "discouraged" from cultivating opium commercially, but those who live farther back in the mountains, beyond the realm of authority, still cultivate vast fields of opium poppies as their main crop.

At Ban Mai, we left our heavy packs in the chief's bamboo hut. We packed some food and a few essentials, and set off on foot through the rice padis and up into the hills. The rain continued as it had for days, causing us to slip with regularity off the narrow levees into the rice fields, and turning the footpaths into rivers of mud. This pluvial condition plagued us throughout the entire journey. For four days we struggled through rain, often ankle-deep in the perpetual mud, or wading through swollen streams up to the thigh.

After an hour and a half of this, we sloshed into a bleak Lahu tribal village of some 150 people. This village was quite poor and showed little tribal integrity. Most of the children ran naked and the adults wore mostly old and tattered Thai shirts and pasin (sarongs). Everyone went barefoot. There were only a few Lahu tribal dresses but these were quite beautiful in deep blue and black. There was no elaborate jewelry to be seen, and only a few of the standard thick silver necklaces and bracelets. Several of the children showed the bloated stomachs of malnutrition, and after examining some of them, Mr. Moo dispensed some vitamins to the chief and prescribed their proper use.

These Lahu grow rice and know the jungle well enough to find edible roots, berries, and wild vegetables. The men may go out to work in their rice fields for twenty days at a time, in the growing season. Often we saw their small covered platforms raised above the fields. There were two crude grain mills in the village, run by foot power. They were, in fact, no more than log see-saws with a weighted pestle on one end. The Lahu are one of the few tribes who neither make nor drink alcoholic beverages. But they do grow their own brand of very strong tea.

Age is not calculated by the Lahu. They go no farther than keeping the days of their 12-day week, based on the Chinese calendar of animal signs. Crops are planted by the seasons -- hot, cool, and rainy -- but they reckon no months or years. Therefore, maturity is measured by size, and a woman is old enough for marriage when she can reach across a bamboo hoop of definite dimension. Boys and girls may choose each other freely and the Lahu levee no bride price as do many of the tribes.

The Lahu believe in malevolent spirits of nature and of the jungle. For spiritual guidance, they employ a magic man and magic woman, who are selected from those whose spouses have died. The magic people determine which spirit may be causing a malady or misfortune, and how best to appease it. For a sick man, they may prescribe a large sacrificial feast of chicken, or even a pig, to assuage the offended spirit. Since meat is eaten only at such sacrificial feasts or celebrations, a good meal may be all that is needed to help the afflicted regain his strength.

The most notable function served by the magic man and woman is their duty to sleep with a bride and groom the night before their wedding and teach them the ways of conjugal life.

The rain recommenced as we left the Lahu village, and it continued throughout our one and a half hour climb to a village of the Lisu tribe. There we had dinner and spent the night in the home of the tribal chief.

The chief was a fairly young man, under 35, who had been appointed by the Thai authorities -- likely because he speaks Thai, as well as six of the various and unrelated local tribal languages. Before they came under nominal Thai jurisdiction, the Lisu had no chief. Now he rules on questions of justice within the village and represents the tribe to the outside world.

Their chief is a veteran of several Burmese campaigns. We were told that he had killed many men, but we found him a quite likable and very intelligent man. His large house stands at the entrance the village, and is well enough drained by the steep hillside to sit directly on the ground, with the hardened earth as a floor. It is constructed entirely of split bamboo woven into patterns, and thatched with jungle grasses. Here he lives with his wife and two children, his father, brother, and wife's sisters. He also lodges a few occasional guests for his friend, Mr. Moo.

Mr. Moo originally worked for a tribal crafts store in Chiang Mai. He would trek into the mountains and trade a few coins for tribal handicrafts to be sold at a considerable profit to tourists in Chiang Mai. Over a period of time he became personally acquainted with several the tribes and even learned bits of their languages.

But he could see that the people were being exploited, and that they had needs greater than money. So he quit the trading business and began taking visitors along to finance his trips into the jungle. Now he brings in vitamins and medical supplies for the tribes people and even treats minor illnesses and injuries. He always pays the people for sharing their food and shelter, and encourages his companions to bring useful gifts as well -- pens, notebooks, and vitamins, in addition to the well received sweets and cigarettes.

This Lisu village comprises only 90 people but it is much more prosperous and progressive than the Lahu village we had visited. A public water system, consisting of two bamboo aqueducts, conducts water through the village at shoulder height. Each household has a section of bamboo to divert the stream temporarily as it drops from one shaft to the next. The water has been channeled from a stream above the village and eventually it runs down into the fields. The community also maintains two crude grain mills, run by a water wheel at the nearby stream.

Lisu men take only one wife because the price of a bride is prohibitively high. She may cost the equivalent of US $400 or more, depending on her beauty -- and many of the girls are strikingly beautiful. Their features are different from the Thais; their faces rounder, and perhaps even more lovely.

A Lisu boy may follow the girl of his fancy to the stream when she goes to do the washing. There, at a distance across the river, he sings to her and plays on a small lute. The girl will ignore his suit for quite some time. But if he persists for several days without becoming discouraged, and if she truly likes him as well, she will finally raise her head and join in his song.

This is all the indication he needs. She will now return with him to his parents' home to help in the preparation of a feast, which is brought to the home of the girl's family. During the feast, the families try to agree on a fit price for the bride. As always, bargaining is the rule. After a compromise is reached, the fee is settled in silver or animals and a wedding is arranged.

Our feast that evening was more along the lines of the standard fare. We were served bowls of glutinous rice and a tasty soup made with marrow squash and another vegetable, quite strange to me. Squatting by a low bamboo table, we ate with metal chopsticks, a convenience unknown at a Thai table. Later, we sat around the open fire, brewing tea and trying to dry out our boots while grandpa rolled wads of betel and rocked his grandson to sleep. Wat and Mr. Moo chatted with the chief and told us something of the Lisu way of life.

The Lisu are descended from an early Tibeto-Burmese civilization of Yunnan, southern China. They were introduced to Buddhism long ago but their present life is ruled by the whims of the nats (spirits). A sacred "spirit shelf" sat high on the rear wall of the main room. Originally a Buddhist concept, the offerings now presented there are for the spirits, of which the Buddha is but one.

Like other remote tribes, the Lisu produce their own distinctive clothing. The men wear characteristic baggy bright blue shorts gathered at the knees, and open shirts of black and red. The women wear colorful dresses in basic black with large sections of bright blue and decorated with strips of red, white, and green. The style is that of a long skirt with a short-sleeved open jacket attached. To the open front is attached a colorful flap which can be drawn across and fastened to the right shoulder. One dress involves yards of material, with diagonal seams and ample gathering. The front flap usually hangs loose, leaving the breasts exposed and accessible to the babies which many of the women are seldom without.

The dresses are truly magnificent, but a woman may be able to make only one in a year. The chief's wife bragged to me that she had four such dresses, and led me outside to show off another one, hanging on the side of the house to air.

Jewelry is more than mere decoration among the hill tribes -- it is their basic form of wealth. Many of the women and children wear huge silver rings around their necks. They may also carry pounds of ornate silver chains, bracelets, pendants, and earrings. But the Lisu keep much of this cumbersome wealth stored away except on special occasions.

We spent the night on cots woven of split bamboo. It rained throughout the night but only a few drops found their way through the thick grass roof and onto our blankets as we slept. The weather may be hot and humid but up in the hills the nights can become quite cool.

We arose early the next morning and were off again into the rain and the jungle. The air was hot and stifling among the dense trees and I sweated amply under my poncho. We continued climbing through the hills and across narrow valleys. The trail often divided and crossed other paths, but our guides knew just where to go. Without them, we could have wandered for weeks through those verdant hills without finding anything.

On level ground the trail was ankle-deep in mud, and on the steep slopes it became a slippery nightmare. We crossed and recrossed several streams, balancing on, or falling from branches placed across the swollen current. And still it rained, as we wound our way farther up into the mountains, closer to the Burmese border. A still mist of clouds hung over the lush hills, affording only a hazy view of the immediate area.

Before noon, we arrived at the entrance to an Akha village on a hilltop, high among the clouds. The Akha erect a "spirit gate" each year to guard the entrance to their villages. From the simple wooden gateway, shaped like a Japanese torii, hang small ornaments woven of straw, symbolic of the crafts followed by the village -- silver work, weaving, and basketry. We had come to a series of three such gateways, indicating that the tribe had settled there three years before. Beside the gateways stood the crude figures of a man and woman, carved from forked branches as symbols of fertility.

Just inside the gateway was a large stone and clay furnace where the Akha melt down their silver, often from Indian rupees and other coins smuggled through Burma by tribesmen and opium traders. Money is worthless here in the mountains, and silver is the unit of exchange.

The Akha people are related to the Lolo branch of the Tibeto-Burmese race, and migrated south from Yunnan and Kwangsi. They are one of the most primitive people in the mountains and are avid cultivators of opium poppies. They always make their home high in the mountains above 3,500 feet, where they also grow corn, rice, cotton, and peppers.

The Akha were in the middle of a three-day festival celebration of the rice harvest. Because of the rain, however, the festival had been halted for the day so we weren't able to witness any of the festivities. But the villagers had dressed in their finest costumes and donned all of their jewelry.

Their clothing was black, embellished with much red. Akha women always wear magnificently colorful headdresses spangled with trinkets and coins from various countries. They also wore large silver neck bands, bracelets, and long chains of beads. Several of the girls wore charming earring-necklaces -- large silver earrings, joined by a thick length of weaving intertwined with beads and silver chains in a colorful array which hangs across the neck from ear to ear. It is most attractive, especially on the very handsome young Akha girls. Many of the women wore multicolored woven leggings (photo, right) from the ankle to the knee, below their knee-lenth black cotton skirts. The men were dressed in baggy shorts and black cloth jackets studded with tooled silver discs.  (Photos, left and right (clickable):  Akha women).

As in most tribes, tobacco is somewhat of a staple, and is smoked with equal avidity by the men, women, and children. The Akha make pipes and roll huge cigarettes from dried banana leaves. Several of the women puffed on long-stemmed pipes that hung down almost to their waists.

Due to the constant drizzle, we spent most of our time in the large central hut, built directly on the ground. Many of the Akha had gathered inside to dry off by the one small fire. We too, now soaked to the skin, shivered in the wind that swept their hilltop clearing. Most of the villagers wandered inside to get a look at their strange visitors, especially when they heard that we had cigarettes. This one ignoble gift, more than any other gesture brought us closer to all of the tribes people we met. One old woman insisted on trading one of her gigantic cheroots for two of our curious little white ones. Soon someone produced a dingy bottle of freshly made rice wine. One of the men removed a wad of cloth from its mouth and offered the bottle to me with a wide grin. "Wine" is probably an undeserved compliment, but it was alcohol all right, and not bad considering their means.

Eventually the rain abated and we all went outside to escape the smoky air of the hut. Some of the children began playing on the swings they had constructed for the festival. They were simply sturdy vines hung from a pole raised on bamboo tripods, but they were gaily decorated with flowers and ferns. As we left, one of the boys rushed up to me with a wad of rice cake, which I couldn't refuse despite its gritty texture and questionable salubrity.

Although they have a reputation for cruelty, especially toward their women, the Akha were a very friendly, handsome, and quite likable people. Theirs was perhaps the simplest and most severe life we saw on our trek.

The drizzle commenced again as we left the Akha village and began the steep descent down the far side of their hill. After slipping and sliding down the slope for the next hour and a half, we reached a plateau and traversed a broad hot-spring area. The trail widened here, but it was well used, and we had to thread our way carefully through clumps of grass just to wade in mud up to our ankles. A miscalculated step would plunge us in up to the knee in the heavy brown ooze.

Here on the plateau, we rested to wring out our socks and rid ourselves or the leeches we had collected on the way down. It gave us a moment to reflect on our experiences. In the next two days we had two more tribal villages and a Kuomintang refugee village yet to visit before we would return to Ban Mai and eventually float on down the Mai Kok to Chiang Rai and relative civilization.

Yes, life here is rugged and unforgiving. Yet I felt no pity, no sorrow for the tribes people. For these handsome, noble people I felt only awe. In their own separate and diverse ways, they co-exist with nature and confront life with a zest and a candor unknown to those of us who live so far beyond realization of our own mortality.

I couldn't help thinking of the world of progress that will someday root these people from their hills, and drive them from their 'primitive' ways of life, into contact and assimilation into the world of modern realities. Someday, their pristine way of life, the way of their ancestors' lives for centuries -- however one may judge it to be -- will be denied them and lost forever, to be finally forgotten as a childish phase in man's past; as a painful reminder of our mortality -- to be studied only, but never again to be lived.

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