The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

It was a scene that would have made Clint Eastwood laugh.

I had learned that Burma was allowing travelers in on 72-hour visas, and since I would be traveling in the Far East I booked a flight out of Thailand to Rangoon.

The country hadn’t allowed people to travel there and placed a lot of restrictions on those who did.

I stayed at the Strand Hotel. It had been a resting place for the likes of Oliver Stone, David Rockefeller, Mick Jagger, Peter Ustinov, Lord Mountbatten, and Rudyard Kipling, but not while I was there.

It had been one of the jewel hotels in the Orient and was a stopping point for many officials as they traveled the Burma Road during the war.

The setting was quite formal. Due to the lack of guests, I dined in the dining room alone.

Rangoon, now called Yangon, was a fairly large city, but there was little vehicle or walking traffic. An armed soldier stood on most street corners.

There was little to buy, not that much to see. With only 72 hours, not enough time to get to Mandalay and back.

Two men in black suits and acting official had visited me in my room to ask why I had come to the country. I was tempted to tell them because it was there, but didn’t.

While dining at breakfast, alone again in the dining room, one of the workers asked me if I enjoyed Clint Eastwood movies. Naturally, I said yes. He told me that at 2 p.m. they were going to show one of his movies in the lobby and that I was invited.

I showed up at 2, along with everyone, apparently, who worked there, and settled in to see “Fistful of Dollars,” a movie that I had seen several times.

They were excited, and I was excited for them.

The person showing the movie got the reels fouled up and he started the movie in what was the middle of the film. No one seemed to mind. I had a hunch that they would have enjoyed anything American.

Since the communists had taken over the country, the leaders had stripped the country of western influences.

The last reel shown was the first reel. It would have made Eastwood smile.

There was a lot of help at the hotel. It made you feel special to be served so thoroughly. It certainly was the right setting for it.

The tennis courts were busy, and there was an international gem show going on in a different part of the city.

At the time,1970, Rangoon, in Burma, was a city of about 1.9 million people. Now, as Yongon, Myanmar, it has swollen to over 5 million, but things, from what one can read, are pretty much the same, only worse if you are living it.

The Strand Hotel opened in 1901 and had become one of the more popular “good” hotels in the Orient.

Some things that I did and saw have faded some from my memory, but the Clint Eastwood movie showing that afternoon will not soon be forgotten.