I didn't know the Burmese word for 'apostrophe' then
or I would've had words with the manager of the "Sport's Club"
Carl, the manager of Melbourne's Rusden House, was very helpful in arranging the accommodation for Padma's sister's son. His accent over the phone sounded familiar; so I asked where he was from. He'd come from Burma fifty years ago!
Which made me think that he might appreciate a Burmese shan bag, of which I still have several, and so I picked a traditional design for Padma to give to him as a present. Luckily, Padma checked the inside pockets and found these old Burmese kyat notes and a ticket to the swimming pool at the Inya Lake Hotel. They'd been inside the bag since 1975!
For the first six months of my stay in Rangoon I lived in the Inya Lake Hotel, a Russian-built monstrosity on the outskirts of the city and billed as Rangoon's luxury hotel, but later moved into my own house in Komin Kuchin Avenue which had no pool and so I kept going back to the hotel.
The admission was six kyats - then worth US$1 at the official rate but only ten cents on the black market - and those four bank notes must've been the change I was given. What golden memories they brought back!
