ABSTRACT
Tourism is no longer a dirty word in Mae Klang Luang, a small village in the Dol Inthanon National Park in northern Thailand and a couple of hours drive from the city of Chiang Mai. In the past, Thailand’s tourists – numbering some 13 million a year – had little interest in such places, with their modest clusters of bamboo and thatch homes set on gentle slopes among rice fields. Instead, they piled into the beach resorts of the south, forged to succour the dreams of stressed-out Westerners. Thailand is good at providing such respite (see page 212); but it is not so good at nurturing a tourism that benefits the many Thais who have seen their traditions and communities overrun by hordes of hedonists.
