Iran, Myanmar don't come to mind as vacation hotspots but they should

A couple of months ago, my wife and I, along with several couples, had the opportunity to visit Iran. Almost a year ago, we had gone to Myanmar. Both countries were our first visits and we were low on expectation. One associates them as unsafe, fundamentalist, authoritarian, underdeveloped and destroyed by the present rulers and their mindsets.

Take Iran. What does the world think of it? A country run by the Ayatollahs, conservative, where women are burkha-clad and men carry beads in their hands chanting prayers. The country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the end of the Shah Pehlavi dynasty would be in disarray, the sanctions by the United States and most of the western world would have crippled the economy, the basics of life be denied to its people, and so on. (Courtesy of The Economic Times)