In a jungle clearing deep inside Southeast Asia's opium-growing Golden Triangle, four young men light incense sticks and kneel to pray before a bronze statue of an imposing figure astride a horse.
Even after numerous journeys through the wilder parts of this frontier region, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos converge, the scene catches me slightly by surprise. It is not often that you find people paying homage at the feet of a life-size effigy of one of history's most notorious drug warlords.
