Opium poppies once covered the hillsides here, and sunflower fields like this one often grow from seeds dumped over the fields in an attempt to eradicate the poppies. Strict laws and alternate agricultural opportunities for farmers have helped bring an end to most of Thailand's opium production. The opium trade continues, however, with poppies grown in neighboring Myanmar (Burma) and elsewhere.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, The Many Faces of Thailand," February 1996, National Geographic magazine)