The High Lands: Exploring Drug Tourism Across Southeast Asia
MAR 7 2012, 8:06 AM ET 17
Whether they're seeking pleasure or meaning, more and more vacationers are experimenting with dangerous drugs from foreign cultures.
Mountain ridge outside Doi Phu Kha National Park.
On a hot, dry-season afternoon, David, then 25, found himself unable to speak, his vision blurring as the ground beneath him transformed into a pile of slithering snakes and snails. His pulse quickened and sweat pearled on his forehead; he quick-stepped to avoid the reptiles he felt brushing against his heels. He could hear his friends calling him but their voices were distorted, slow then quick, louder, then lost in the distance. A man came into focus before him. "Where is the bridge?" David asked, hoping to walk back to his hotel.
"It's right next to you," the man replied. David turned. There was no bridge. Turning back, there was no man. David was experiencing his first trip on magic mushrooms, consumed along the shores of the Nam Xong River in Vang Vieng, Laos.
After a day of beach hopping and beer guzzling with travel mates, E., then 19, entered his kayak to paddle back to his hostel along the marine blue waters of the Gulf of Thailand. Dehydrated, drunk, and delusional, he informed his friends he was tired and going to swim back. Ignoring their pleas, he jumped overboard and, after reaching the edge of a rock wall on a nearby shore, he attempted to scale the side of the cliff with bare hands and feet, scraping his stomach so badly that he nearly bled out.
In 2008, newspapers reported that volunteer English teacher Benjamin Light traveled north from Thailand to Laos. Joining fellow tourists partaking in the "lazy river," in the Phoudindaeng Village, near Vang Vieng, Benjamin floated downstream in an inner-tube as he was handed shots of alcohol from shore-lined bars. Fellow inner-tubers surrounded him as he floated along the murky, shallow waters. Various swings and zip lines were strung above, tangled into the tropical forest. On his way down the river, Benjamin grasped a tree swing, jumped over the rocks and inner-tubes, and threw himself into the river. Emerging from the water, he stumbled ashore and murmured "excuse me" to those standing nearby before falling to the ground, suffering a fatal seizure. He was only 23.
