He developed a taste for opium, boasting in one letter that he managed to smoke five pipes in a night; in later years he would devote many hours during his Vietnam visits to taking the drug.8 And he sought out prostitutes, notably at Le Parc aux Buffles (Park of Buffalo; in the novel, The House of 500 Girls), reputed to be the world’s largest brothel, with four hundred women of various nationalities.
