I spent the year-end and New Year in Rangoon (Yangon sounds like a Japanese film monster to me, and Myanmar like some kind of bad breath condition) at The Strand, which was until a few years back operated by Zecha and his Aman associates. You can detect their legacy in their darkish celadon hued rugs in the suites and the gray upholstery on the chairs in the Bar, and while a bit worn, both are attractive in this instance (unlike the murky, dull, cloudy turquoises used as the solitary color at Amantaka in Laos, for example). We were told that Aman didn't make one red cent on The Strand so they gave it up. The current General Manager is a wonderfully breezy, very talented and witty caucasian woman named Regina Salzmann, who presides over the classic landmark with great humor, refinement and warmth, a human asset adding considerably to the hotel's historical charm and now elegant guestroom interiors. Burma being a military junta state has visitors and then no one - on and off - regularly, so on some days the place is almost empty and on others, there are quiet gaggles of delegates to conferences and meetings. There doesn't seem to be a large number of tourists in Rangoon. And I saw almost no Japanese anywhere in Burma at all. Probably since one of their journalists was shot and killed during a riot a few years back. I've been to Rangoon twice in the past but my last trip there was 33 years ago, and things have changed.

The volume of cars and buses is conspicuous and at times as noisy, smoky and intolerable as the present day din that makes Hanoi, for example, unbearabe for longer than a few short hours. The Shwedagon Paya seems to have been touched up in fake metallics and flat paint, and the once sleepy alleyways lined with colonial townhouses and offices are teeming with pedestrians, stall vendors and shoppers of all kinds. The saddest thing is the demolition of so many fine colonial buildings, replaced by that truly hideous, boxy, mirror-fronted Third World architecture we see in places like Dhaka or Rawalpindi.

The good news is that some of the food is now varied and passable, with a few restaurants and cafes actually serving quite respectable western style dishes, when it used to be heavily tripe-based glop. And then you have the wonderful Burmese - a physically attractive people with a distinct sense of humor and wit - odd for a former British colony - and who enjoy talking about all kinds of things (even how they all seem to applaud Aung San Suu Kyi) and who seem genuinely happy to see visitors from overseas.

There is a new airport that is very far away from town, although it's not too large (and nothing like the pathetically misplanned new Bangkok Airport with its miles after miles of walking - or breathless running - to catch connecting flights, with minimal and confusing signage) and seems to function quite smoothely. I have to say I nonetheless missed the tiny, domed, octagonal old British built airport that was much closer to town and approached by a rustic two lane road surrounded by greenery.

Such is "modernization"....