On the road to Mandalay

Poor Burma! Not only is it ruled by a thuggish gang of generals who prefer to call it Myanmar, but yesterday it was home to a magnitude 7.7 earthquake that toppled high-rise buildings and gold-topped Buddhist temples alike. The epicenter was near the fabled city of Mandalay. Tens of thousands of Burmans were killed, and the shock was felt as far away as Bangkok in Thailand and the city of Ruili in the Yunnan province ot China.

Ruili is also known as Juili, and I'm pretty sure was the site of the CAMCO factory and Flying Tigers base of Loiwing. Indeed, its main street aolmost certainly was the half-mile runway from which the Tigers flew off for raids upon Japanese airfields in Thailand. (One of those airfields, by way, was Chiang Mai, now the home of my virtual pal Hak Hakanson, who helped pinpoint the location of Loiwing. He assures me that the quake barely moved the leaves in Chiang Mai.)