In essence, Myanmar was a socialist dictatorship until the military junta decided to loosen its grip. It was much like the former German Demcratic Republic (GDR,) or communist China, with which Bert is somewhat familiar from personal experience.
Everything was state-owned, including the hotels. Guests were not customers who generated income; no, they were annoying disruptions to the daily peace and quiet. The state-run hotel in Bagan was downright filthy, but there was nowhere else to stay. And with a sleeping bag in our rucksack, that problem could be almost entirely circumvented.
The postal service was of the same standard. We don’t know whether things went wrong at the hotel where we posted our postcards, or at the Myanmar Postal Service. But the postcards Brigitte is writing here never arrived.
The fact that Myanmar led such an isolated existence was also evident on the streets. Import duties on lorries were probably very high. Most of the large lorries on the roads were from the 1940s and 1950s. The public buses in the capital, Yangon, were built on lorry chassis dating back to the Second World War. A paradise for enthusiasts of this sort of lorry, of course!