An email sent to friends on November 21, 2006:
I’m sitting in an open air Thai pavilion, with beautiful teak furniture, bouquets and incredibly creative arrangements of flowers everywhere, surrounded by lush gardens at the Yaang Come Village Hotel.
There are magnificent cloth lanterns in white silk hanging from the trees, Thai spirit houses and various temple-type things on the grounds. There are also many handsome young people in traditional clothing, willing to help us at every turn.
We have been traveling a week now and all are in good spirits. The group of travelers (40 and 5 leaders) are simply wonderful. We range in age from about 38-76. All are cooperative, and generous of spirit. All are very well traveled. We have been to Bangkok for several days and then spent four nights in Burma: Rangoon, Mandalay and Bagan. We staying in the elegantly restored hotels made famous by writers (Somerset Maugham, George Orwell) over the years. It is such a treat. There are butlers hovering outside our doors, fresh fruit always and fresh flowers on the pillows, elegant and simple flower arrangements everywhere we go. The flowers in Thailand, especially, are magnificent.
The highlight has been meeting with Burmese students who are being educated in a clandestine educational program to prepare them for US colleges. The hope is that they will return to Burma, equipped to counteract the repressive and stupid regime. (For example, the government just moved the capitol way out in the boon docks, far from Yangon (Rangoon) and are ordering people to move there. They base it on auspicious numbers, dates, etc, but they haven’t built any buildings or housing. The embassies and consulates are refusing to move. In the meantime the Burmese government is selling the gov buildings in Rangoon to the Chinese, most likely to build the new buildings as well as line their own pockets.)
Any way, we have many lively discussions and briefings. One of the professors with us was an American Ambassador to Burma. He and his wife had a lot of fun visiting the home they had lived in when he was Ambassador. We also had a briefing with the US ambassador to Thailand at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, the day of our arrival. He was deep into preparation for the Current Occupant’s visit to Vietnam.
