SPECIAL REGION 4, BURMA
Here’s a story about trying to get to weird places no one wants you to be.
Mong La sounds awesome. “Special Region 4,” in the northeastern Shan State, was a major hub for opium production until the junta completely eradicated it in the mid 90s. The region’s only source of revenue was gone, but the ethnic generals who controlled it realized that Mong La’s position on the Chinese border and near complete lawlessness made it a prime destination for tourists. The town quickly turned into the “Las Vegas of the East,” with 600,000 Chinese a year coming for the swanky casinos and brothels full of Eastern European hookers. Rich Chinese people were gambling away untold sums of money and it wasn’t long before luxury hotels, fancy discos and an amusment park were slapped together.
You know where this is going.
The relative of a powerful Chinese bureaucrat pissed up US$100,000 in a casino, so somebody pulled some strings and the People’s Liberation Army was ordered to close the border crossing. Everything fell apart overnight and the town was left in ruins.
Desparate for another source of income, the ethnic armies that controlled the area began to rape the landscape of Special Region 4 and ship the spoils off to China. Now entire mountains are being stripped of trees and any wildlife in the way is shot, dried and sold to middle-class Chinese people who think tiger penises will cure erectile dysfunction.
Well, I gotta check that out. If you want more, Dark Appetites (PDF) is a fantastic report on the illegal wildlife trade in Mong La by Karl Ammann (who does completely awesome work). Stay tuned!
From Flickr user SoggyDan
From Flickr user SoggyDan
From Flickr user isafrancesca
Interesting, I can truly say I learned something new today. That fluffy animal is amazingly cute, I can’t believe someone could eat it.
Chinese people generally believe that problem with certain organ can be cured by eating the equivalent part from an animal. My mom used to cook the lungs of pigs for me for my lung problems and that just made me puke. Bull penis is a common but expensive dish in many restaurants in China. Men here are crazy about it, lol.
Oh that does sound more interesting than Mae Aw/Ban Rak Thai, though it was interesting too, and easy as still in Thailand.
Bugger you didn’t make it further.
Enjoyed these posts, I’ll will shut up now before I say interesting again.
Enjoy India! I’m home and jealous.