"Lands of Charm and Cruelty" - Southeast Asia*
One of the joys of browsing in bookshops is that you discover interests you didn't know you had. I didn't know I had an interest in Southeast Asia until I saw a clump of books in a used bookshop in Seattle. It sparked an interest and I went on a brief book buying binge with the following results. 1. Chasing the Dragon: Into the Heart of the Golden Triangle, Christopher Cox (1996). Cox traveled to the shadowy zone where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet. An area of drug smuggling, tribes and jungle, Cox reports on a region where few Americans have ventured. Bought new. 2. The Forgotten Kingdom, John Murray (1957). A rare and revealing account of of a largely forgotten kingdom. Murray's book draws on the life of a Russian-born Depot Master in the Tibetan province of Nakhi--on the border of China and Tibet. Great black and white photos showing village markets and the arduous trail on the way to Nakhi. Bo...