From Red to Green and Back

When we pulled off the highway and entered the hamlet of Pho Phra Doh, consternation furrowed the old doctor's brow. "This doesn't look like the place at all," he said. But then again, he hadn't been back for 32 years.

We're here in the district of Umphang on a twofold mission: to understand the dark past of one of Thailand's top tourism destinations, and to seek some closure for an ailing man. That destination is the World Heritage-demarcated Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary and the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, which comprise...