Government involvement helps restore shine to Rangoon?s Strand Hotel... "Rangoon is a picture book of architectural gems from the years of British colonialism. But visitors have a frustrating time discovering them. The city streets so carefully planned and built in the mid-19th century have been allowed by neglectful Burmese post-colonial governments to fade and crumble. Layers of soot and grime accumulated over the years make it difficult to detect exquisite art nouveau and solid Victorian and Edwardian features of buildings that, in their time, would not have looked out of place in bourgeois areas of London..."