THE NORTH
Until the early years of the present century, northern Thailand was effectively isolated from the rest of the country, a region of wild, densely forested mountains where elephants worked in the teak industry along the Burmese and Laotian borders and old temple-filled town like Chiang Mai, founded in 1297, that were part of the ancient Lanna Thai Kingdom. The first railway linking Chiang Mai with Bangkok only opened in 1921, and good roads did not come until several decades later.