Pipe Dreams in the Golden Triangle

Let's face it: not many people come to Thailand for the museums. Bangkok's thousands of night-life venues are high on the list of attractions, but fewer visitors feel an obligation to view the antiquities at the national museums in Bangkok or Chiang Mai. This is due in part to the upstaging of Thai civilization by the Khmer; for many tourists to Southeast Asia, Cambodia with its temples at Angkor is the cultural must-see.

So what to do when full-moon parties draw more visitors than your national treasures? Thailand has made...