The Academy
It is a little known fact that the airport of a small, smoky city in Southeast Asia has more licensed therapists in one building than anywhere else in the world—for the transition from the pristine terminal to the poverty outside can be so traumatic, that the city provides free counseling and a shot of morphine for any outsiders spending a night in the city.
Travelers are required to take the drugs before they leave the airport, but if you desire an undiluted experience of the cough-syrup colored haze, there is a way to opt out. To do so, you must come prepared with at least four kilograms of attested forms, and then defend your case before a series of increasingly hairless pharmaceutical salesmen. If you make it through the trial, the final salesman (head glistening in the cold light of the airport) will award you a visa, a single-use bus ticket and a guide to the only tourist attraction in the city: the Academy.
The guide, a brochure that smells like petrol, proudly claims that the ruins of the Academy are one of the best-kept secrets in the modern world. Without getting bogged down with specifics, it implies that the greatest minds of the subcontinent walked through its overgrown hallways (inexplicably, the attached illustration of one of these “great minds” looks a lot like Plato). On the final page, it lets you know that pictures of your visit may be obtained by sending in the attached form to the Bureau of Voluntary Tourism.
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