Why a Booktrail?
1968: a job transfer catapults the family of young Dashiell Bonaventure across the globe
Pacific Dash
What you need to know before your trail
In 1968, a job transfer catapults the family of young Dashiell Bonaventure across the globe, from the Illinois cornfields to a scintillating, fresh new world in far-flung Hong Kong. Though the innocent teen believes his expatriate high school experience will just be temporary, he is mistaken. For thus begins Dash’s lifelong odyssey drifting between continents and crisscrossing Asia in constant pursuit of adventure and self-discovery.
For decades, he wanders through Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Thailand, Myanmar and more. Eccentric and flamboyant personalities roll through his unplanned life while Dash roams the jungles, beaches, and cities of the Far East, living out of a backpack and at other times flying in private jets.
Along the way, Dash falls desperately in love but also makes bitter enemies. He saves lives while also nearly losing his own. He backpacks and motorcycles across Indonesia, works in an illegal offshore casino in the Straits of Malacca and later becomes enormously rich in the seedy enclave of Macau as a casino VIP junket pioneer.
Travel Guide
PACIFIC DASH is the story of a young man’s travels over two decades and coming of age via that process. Dashiell Bonaventure’s life plays out primarily in Southeast Asia, although the story begins when he is a teenager and his family is transferred to Hong Kong in North Asia, on the underbelly of China, due to a family job transfer.
After surprising twists, Dash’s travels take him to an Ivy League University in New England and from there to a life of backpacking and wandering through Asia. He samples the beaches, bars and vice dens of that exotic continent, meandering from Bali to South Malaysia, Singapore and up to Macau.
He works at an illegal floating casino and becomes involved in the re-intention of the North Asia casino business in Macau, inventing the 1990s casino junket business seeking out ‘whale’ gamblers in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China itself.
This novel immerses the reader in exotica and is the next best thing to a trip itself. Experience Asia as it was at the end of the last century, the glitz and grit. Flamboyant characters populate Dash’s life, like Little Fatty, Fiona Ting-Ting Lo or Snakehead Goh.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Pacific Dash
Destination: Hong Kong, Bali, Malaysia, Indonesia, Macau Author/guide: Chet Nairene Departure Time:1968
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