Word: burma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Burma Air Corporation is an experience in itself. The plane we flew on was a Fokker propeller plane, an old East German number--remember World War I? Half of the seats in the aircraft fell or crumpled forward and the ones which didn't fall forward generally collapsed backward when you sat down. Needless to say, there were no safety cards or safety announcements. In fact, there was no boarding announcement, either--just a sort of spontaneous herding to the door...
...Tourist Burma, your official hosts for seven days, try to discourage this activity by requiring you to fill out a bewildering number of currency forms, and have them stamped every time you change money, take a trip, stay in a hotel, or go to the bathroom. If your form says you only have 100 kyats but you come to the hotel with 500, they know you've been playing dirty, slap your wrists and send you back to "Go," do not collect...
...naturally, we were a little surprised to find ourselves approached for this illegal sale by the baggage handlers in the airport and even by the Tourist Burma representative himself. But, as we were soon to discover, in Burma the bureaucracy is half the fun, since nothing really works anyway, and nothing is on time. But who really cares, because the people are the friendliest and nicest in the world, and time stopped a hundred years ago anyway. If you're late enough for everything, maybe you'll miss your plane and get to stay another week...
...Burma may be the most devoutly Buddhist country in the world, but it is also the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma: this is the "Burmese way to socialism." In order to work out such a complex destiny, its leaders basically closed the country from its independence after World War II until, in the seventies, a 24-hour tourist visa was instituted. Now tourists are allowed in for seven days--the longest, busiest week of your life...
...Mandalay are the very picture of mysterious beauty. Their girlish tresses are dark and lustrous, their complexions delicately olive, their looks a spicy blend of innocence and experience. And the names of these exotic sirens are . . . Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Beals. From the go-slow huts of socialist Burma to the go-go bars of socializing Bangkok, the hands-down pinups of Southeast Asia are the Yale flashdancer with exactly two movies to her credit and the pouting young starlet from Private School. Farrah, Christie, even local actresses hardly get a look-in. Unlike many American fan letters, reports Cates...