Paul's Oriental Travelogue

Asia's Switzerland

I never had to go through a metal detector to enter a country before. Judging by the list of prohibited items, they were searching for contraband chewing gum. So Singapore is pretty clean. But it's not the shiny futuristic cleanliness...
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Portrait of Burma as a Dumb Land

When the plane from Yangon landed in Bangkok, the entire Myanmar National Tukraw Team broke into applause from the back. Really. And I felt like joining them. Who knows why they were happy. Maybe they weren't going back either. And...
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Trein Stesen

Written Malaysian looks like a drunk dutchman tried to re-create written English from scratch, maybe after getting punched in the mouth. Take a teksi from Sentral Stesen to the Gimnasium! Malaysian seems on the verge of being run out of...
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The Muddy Confluence

From a decrepit Rangoon bathroom to a mall below the tallest two buildings in the world, in 24 hours. And it was there I saw it. My heart pounded in my chest. My jaw dropped. Was I hallucinating? No, it...
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"Uncle"

Let's hear it for Kerry Brougham, Chief Rescuer of Stupid Americans (actual title: Consul) at the Rangoon Consular Section, for saving your hapless narrator from a life of destitution and crime on the streets of Rangoon. I got back to...
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Misadventure

Hello, gasp, I'm here! Thanks for the concern and addiction to the web site but my abduction by Kachin insurgents was a marvelous, educational experience and I learned to love them like a dog for his master, living in Stockholm......
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Floatin on the River

That bug from Mandalay was more than food poisoning cause it's stuck with me like the unnatural fetid stink of Burmese dirt. There's walking pneumonia, is there walking dysentery? There is now. I've laid myself up for a day both...
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