Flight to Inle Lake, Myanmar
Myanmar – March 2017
We flew from Yangon to Inle Lake with Yangon Air. Why? I have no idea, it was simply what the agency came up with. Yangon Air’s motto is, ‘You’re safe with us’ – I mean, why would an airline mention safety at all? The poster in the airport was begging for someone to scrawl next to it, ‘Despite what you’ve heard’. The plane was one of those propeller ones, and the model itself looked like it was picked up on the airline second hand market – a long time ago. The interior was grubby and the exterior paint-job looked like a Ford Anglia that had been hand-painted rather than sprayed. It had that dull mat finish consistent with a sixth-form collective charity effort, “Let’s paint the old folks’ home for extra community points”.
If the plane looked rickety, it went up a notch to become ‘WTF rickety’ when it was in the air. If you were told that the principal components in the plane’s construction were string and paper clips, you wouldn’t demur, save for an exclamation of, “What, no Sellotape?” The flight path was identical to that of a butterfly as it bounced and bumped along on the turbulence. The engines sounded like a cement mixer – two cement mixers.
There were eight people on the flight. My thoughts turned to the flight lists, should we have gone down. The lists were all hand-written at the check-in, which might have been endearing, but might not if they ended up as a scrunched-up ball in the bin after we turned towards the departure lounge (a row of red plastic seats). The in-flight magazine produced a first – in all my years of flying I have never seen a full-page advert for anti-flatulence tablets. I farted my approval loudly. You could fart as loud as you liked with these engines – I suspect everyone was – you could even try for an epic if you wanted to, by sitting side-saddle and squeezing out the first four bars of the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ for example. In a quiet moment, as the engines faltered, fellow passengers may have caught the easily recognizable refrain and joined in. Much better than soloing aimlessly, and ensemble farting is, after all, a higher order skill.
As we approached Heho Airport we were given a boiled sweet, something I haven’t seen since Syrian Air in 1981 when it was a boiled sweet and a cigarette. Progress. The landing was predictably hard-core, as much to do with the potholes in the runway as anything. Yangon Air, ‘Feel Someone’s Wind in your Hair’.
One nice touch, which was more Haha than Heho – all the passengers’ bags were stacked on a trolley which took four guys to push up the ramp onto the landing strip. One of our co-adventurers appeared with a Zimmer frame with two wheels on the front. So, one of the baggage handlers peeled off and pushed the fellow, plus frame, up the ramp whilst he steered the course. He was ever so grateful. ‘Heho Airport – Disabilities ® Us’.
We flew from Yangon to Inle Lake with Yangon Air. Why? I have no idea, it was simply what the agency came up with. Yangon Air’s motto is, ‘You’re safe with us’ – I mean, why would an airline mention safety at all? The poster in the airport was begging for someone to scrawl next to it, ‘Despite what you’ve heard’. The plane was one of those propeller ones, and the model itself looked like it was picked up on the airline second hand market – a long time ago. The interior was grubby and the exterior paint-job looked like a Ford Anglia that had been hand-painted rather than sprayed. It had that dull mat finish consistent with a sixth-form collective charity effort, “Let’s paint the old folks’ home for extra community points”.
If the plane looked rickety, it went up a notch to become ‘WTF rickety’ when it was in the air. If you were told that the principal components in the plane’s construction were string and paper clips, you wouldn’t demur, save for an exclamation of, “What, no Sellotape?” The flight path was identical to that of a butterfly as it bounced and bumped along on the turbulence. The engines sounded like a cement mixer – two cement mixers.
There were eight people on the flight. My thoughts turned to the flight lists, should we have gone down. The lists were all hand-written at the check-in, which might have been endearing, but might not if they ended up as a scrunched-up ball in the bin after we turned towards the departure lounge (a row of red plastic seats). The in-flight magazine produced a first – in all my years of flying I have never seen a full-page advert for anti-flatulence tablets. I farted my approval loudly. You could fart as loud as you liked with these engines – I suspect everyone was – you could even try for an epic if you wanted to, by sitting side-saddle and squeezing out the first four bars of the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ for example. In a quiet moment, as the engines faltered, fellow passengers may have caught the easily recognizable refrain and joined in. Much better than soloing aimlessly, and ensemble farting is, after all, a higher order skill.
As we approached Heho Airport we were given a boiled sweet, something I haven’t seen since Syrian Air in 1981 when it was a boiled sweet and a cigarette. Progress. The landing was predictably hard-core, as much to do with the potholes in the runway as anything. Yangon Air, ‘Feel Someone’s Wind in your Hair’.
One nice touch, which was more Haha than Heho – all the passengers’ bags were stacked on a trolley which took four guys to push up the ramp onto the landing strip. One of our co-adventurers appeared with a Zimmer frame with two wheels on the front. So, one of the baggage handlers peeled off and pushed the fellow, plus frame, up the ramp whilst he steered the course. He was ever so grateful. ‘Heho Airport – Disabilities ® Us’.