Day One, Arrival in Burma
Our 15-person group of 8 Americans, 5 Brits and 2 French met up in front of a hotel in Bangkok and were transferred to the airport. Our Thai Tour Leader, from Diethelm Travel, had an unpronounceable Thai name, and asked us to call him "Charlie." Charlie suggested buying a carton of 7-7 Cigarettes and a bottle of Scotch for our personal trading, and then collected a kitty to buy ample supplies for "greasing" our way in and out of Burma. Our stash of cigarettes and scotch would give us enough money when traded on the black/grey market for the entire 5-day stay.
Burma Airways was a twin-engine jet (a dilapidated, old piece of junk) missing most of the seat-back tables (those that remained were cracked or broken), who knows when the cabin was last cleaned, cockroaches crawled on the seats while flies and mosquitoes buzzed around! Burma Airways wasn't a member of IATA which meant they weren't required to maintain "normal" standards. All I cared about was taking off and landing safely...and hoped the cockroaches wouldn't crawl on me.
We landed safely at the airport outside of Rangoon and noticed only one other airplane there...the painted plane of the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Charlie set about distributing cartons of cigarettes to the Customs Inspectors and we were in.
Met Mary, our official Tourist Burma guide, who immediately gave us bad news. The Prime Minister of Malaysia was visiting and our group was "demoted" from any kind of decent hotel (The Strand) to "schlock" hotels (beginning with the Thamada in Rangoon) during the entire trip. We were also bumped off our plane on Day 4, Mandalay-Rangoon (thank you, Mr. Prime Minister) and would have to take a 14-1/2 hour train BACK TO RANGOON, AND, all Rangoon sightseeing had to take place NOW since there would be no time at the end.
Mary's last words were on shopping in Burma...YOU CAN'T! The best way to get around that was to do a little "under the table," "behind the curtain," trading of goods and hope that we could get them out of Burma without a problem.
Okay, we could deal with this. A hotel room is only to sleep in...a train is a train and would be an adventure...and "ex-Marine" (husband, Steve) and I always had the week in Phuket, Thailand to look forward to and recoup after this. We were ready to begin...
