Kengtung lies in a broad, beautiful valley in remote Eastern Shan State, midway between the borders of Thailand and China. The people of this area are predominately Shan, or ‘Tai Khun’, and speak a language very similar to Thai. In the surrounding hills various hill tribes live a traditional, agricultural way of life unchanged for centuries. In recent decades, the area was closed to the outside world and achieved notoriety as the ‘Golden Triangle’, the centre of the illicit opium trade. With the opium trade now mostly a thing of the past, Kengtung and the road to Thailand have been re-opened.
Kengtung lies in a broad, beautiful valley in remote Eastern Shan State, midway between the borders of Thailand and China. The people of this area are predominately Shan, or ‘Tai Khun’, and speak a language very similar to Thai. In the surrounding hills various hill tribes live a traditional, agricultural way of life unchanged for centuries. In recent decades, the area was closed to the outside world and achieved notoriety as the ‘Golden Triangle’, the centre of the illicit opium trade. With the opium trade now mostly a thing of the past, Kengtung and the road to Thailand have been re-opened.