Thailand is not the country it was in the early 1990s. The northern frontiers were undefined other than on maps. Drug traffickers and private armies of the hill tribes controlled the lands beyond the borders and in most cases the borders themselves. Gems guns, girls, hardwoods, and opium washed across the Golden Triangle and I loved riding dirt bikes through the rugged kills of Northern Thailand, sometimes crossing over into Burma to score a little mah or horse.

These isolated villages were devoid of electricity, TVs, running water, but had tons of opium for medicinal purposes. I’d smoke a little and then return to Thailand, keeping the drugs in my shoe, since the thai police never searched your shoes.

Sokapok or dirty.

It was a land of mystery which Christopher R Cox explores thoroughly in his 1996 non-fiction book CHASING THE DRAGON.

MIAs, opium, Patpong.

And the main character Khun Sa or Johnny Cocoon as he was known to his friends in Bangkok. In 1993 I was traveling with a Thai princess. She was about 80. We went for drinks at the Oriental. As we were waiting for our gin-tonics, she leaned over and said, “There’s Khun Sa. I know him, but this is not the type of place you want to say hello to a man like that.”

I repressed my curiosity for several seconds before slowly turning around to see a very ordinary man with two younger women. Three bodyguards were at his back. One noticed my staring. I returned my attention to the gin-tonic.

Christopher R Cox doesn’t chase the dragon a Cantonese slang expression for smoking opium, although he avails himself curative powers for a case of the runs.

Very effective excuse.

I read the book in about 2 hours.

Fast-forwarding only to the parts about his meeting with Kung Sa and his Shan State city.

Those were the days.