Chasing the Dragon: Into the Heart of the Golden Triangle

by Christopher R. Cox

A Boston Herald reporter's journey into Burma/Myanmar to interview the mysterious drug lord, Khun Sa.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Asia, History

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

My name is Christopher R. Cox and I am a recovering journalist. After nearly 20 years as a staff feature reporter for daily newspapers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Lowell and Boston, Massachusetts, where I racked up numerous national and regional awards -- but little financial lucre -- I left the business in 2005 to embark on a full-time regimen of freelance writing, Larium, and Third World travel. Alas, the lucre still escapes me. In its stead I've been able to visit the back of beyond (East Timor, anyone?) for such glossies as Conde Nast Traveler, Audubon, Caribbean Travel & Life, Global Traveler, ESPN: The Magazine, DestinAsian and Reader's Digest.

My non-fiction efforts also include the critically acclaimed adventure-travel book, "Chasing the Dragon: Into the Heart of the Golden Triangle" (Henry Holt & Co., 1996; Owl Books, 1997), about Burma's narco-warlords, and travels-from-hell (Cambodia Section) dispatches to two Lonely Planet anthologies, "Tales from Nowhere" (2006) and "By the Seat of My Pants" (2005).

"A Good Death" (St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, 2013) is my first novel. One of the first rules of fiction is: Write about what you know. Having traveled to Southeast Asia nearly 40 times since 1991, I had a wealth of material to draw upon for the narrative, which begins in Bangkok, Thailand, skirts Kanchanaburi (site of the Bridge on the River Kwai)and runs through the kingdom's little-visited northeast Isan region before plunging into off-the-grid Laos. How undeveloped is the one-party Communist state wedged between Thailand and Vietnam? When I first visited in 1992, four digits were enough to handle the country's entire telephone system. Communications have since vastly improved, though Laos remains an enigma -- the perfect setting for the long-standing mystery at the heart of my story.

Happy trails!

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rule 1 - absolutely nothing in Southeast Asia is free
Rule 2 - nothing is as it seems
Rule 3 - nothing ever goes as planned
Rule 4 - there are no coincidences

Cox is a journalist in search of an interview with the biggest heroine dealer in the world, Khun Sa, who rules a large swath of Shan State in northeast Burma, the core of the Golden Triangle of lore.

This is fascinating stuff, offering a you-are-there look at some of the most remote, unexplored territory on the planet. You will learn much here, including some not so nice genocidal activities, perpetrated against ethnic minorities in the area. That was news to me.

You will pick up a bit of Burmese history. One such item is about how the Kuomintang was sustained in northern Burma by the USA as a thorn in China's side. But they needed income, so became international drug producers and dealers, and after the war on China lost any appeal, the drug business remained. There is some history offered re the infamous Thai sex trade, about headhunters, and about Burmese campaign against the Karen ethnic minority.

There is a very colorful cast of characters here
Barry Flynn - professional adventurer and former tv actor
Bo Gritz - a guy who mounts expeditions to rescue long lost POWs and MIAs
USDA Catherine Palmer - aka Dragon Lady
Khun Sa - biggest heroin dealer in the world. Commander of a private army

The telling is part Heart of Darkness, part Woody Allen. And just what do you bring as a gift to a man who has gazillions of dollars and his own military? That section had a very Bananas feel to it.

Chasing the Dragon is a fun and informative read. It will make you laugh out loud, teach you things you never knew and make us all realize that we do not know as much about our planet as we might have thought.

[Conor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun. This would have gotten a "very good" but there were too many times that Cox was obviously fishing in his thesaurus.

Lots of the information is now outdated now; some of the rough areas he travels through have now become well paved backpacker highways, but Burma is still poor and ruled by the Jaunta.

Also, the books general opinion of Thailand is based on one red light district and the heroin trade in the 90s. It presents what I'd consider an unfair and uninformed picture of people here and of the King.

Just sayin'

[Wes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up thinking it was something very different than what it was. I'm not upset about it. The book was pretty good and moved along at a crisp pace, but to get what I'm really after, I'm still going to have to do a lot more reading.

I read a review of this book somewhere that claimed the author had his thesaurus out and was getting paid by word variety and I kind of have to agree. When you get right down to it, there isn't a lot of meat to this story when contrasted with the page count. The meat that's there is interesting, but all in all, not a lot happens. I appreciate the difficulty of the author's journey, but the journey is only mildly interesting compared to Khun Sa, Shan State, Myanmar, Thailand, the drug trade and everything else going on in the Golden Triangle.

Pick it up if you know nothing about the Golden Triangle and want to get a small taste of the crazy and difficult situation that is Southeast Asia.

[Sybil Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realize that the author was trying to write a comprehensive novel, but I got really tired of all the references to the different groups/factions in Asia - honestly, I could not keep them straight. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book! Fascinating and gripping and well written, you could tell he was a journalist by how crisp yet descriptive his writing was. If you love travel or international affairs this one is a must buy.

[J.B. Siewers · Rating 3 out of 5]

the guy did a tremendous job. The descriptions are breathtaking but it got a little slow , but that might just be me , super interesting

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christopher R. Cox, a reporter, travelled to the Shan States, a largely autonomous part of Northwest Myanmar, part of the Golden Triangle, in the early nineties. It was, at the time, the fiefdom of the late warlord and drug-dealer Khun Sa, once the major producer of worldwide opium. Wedged between China, Laos, Thailand and the rest of Myanmar, its mountains and rivers are ideal for growing and smuggling opium. Cox obtained an interview with tennis-playing General, who emerges as a man of some vision, interested in economic development and health care (Cox spent some time as patient in the local hospital), and willing to negotiate with the U.S. to cease drug exports, for a tidy payment, of course. But it's clear that the area hosts and ethnic mix beyond anything New York has ever seen. Khun Sa was able to keep the insular, oppressive Burmese junta at bay (they eventually allowed autonomy to the area), and he had an army, but even he had competitors within the area: the ferocious Wa tribe, reputedly still head-hunters, and aligned with the Burmese military; a renegade group of Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang that headed south from China after losing the war; the Burmese Communist Party--each of them with their own smuggling routes. Khun Sa's benevolence toward his own people extended to other ethnic groups, such as the opium-farming Pa-O but only thinly: someone, after all, had to grow the stuff. Cox found his way to the Pa-O and interviewed one of the farmers, who learned the trade from his fathers but was willing to grow something else if people would only train and pay him for it. Heroin was unknown but Cox saw one of the local opium addicts, a ghostly figure who worked for the drug. Khun Sa was under indictment but--fortunate that he operated in a theater so far from the U.S.--he outlasted the prosecutors and DEA workers charged with stopping him, and eventually retired, a prosperous businessman, to the Myanmar capital. The book is least interesting when it focusses on Cox and his acquaintances--a veteran obsessed with finding the apparently mythical American prisoners of war left behind after the war in Vietnam, and an expat handler and former actor. The book is particularly unenlightening when discussing the inability to understand local customs or digest local food.

[Paul Klein]

Not just another intrepid reporter in danger. My own personal knowledge of the area comes from experiences in Viet Nam and Thailand, but a fellow writer, Antonio Graceffo (The Monk from Brooklyn, and others), has been working and writing/videoing from Shan State in Burma, the focus of this book, and I have an interest in learning more about it. Just started the book, so my at this point I can only comment that it is compelling reading.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read about Burma and the Shan State and of course, the opium trade that pervades the area. It was a real eye-opener for me and helps shatter a few illusions and assumptions about what life is like in that environment. I read this after another book about Burma and this too triggered an interest in me to learn more about this country and its history.

[Steve Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book with lots of historical/political comentary mixed in with an adventure into the heart of poppy country in remote Burma.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Possibly the worst book I ever read.

[Clinton Sheppard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Lots of adjectives. Didn't hold my interest. Stopped at chapter 3.