In a short story of Edgar Allan Poe titled "The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether", a group of nutters run an asylum instead of the doctors. Scary stuff, an asylum run by nutters! It was havoc, so what if a whole country was run by a bunch of psychos? Sure it cannot be possible! Well, think again and take a trip to Myanmar.
Myanmar, or Burma as it used to be called, is a fascinating country. The food is not the best in Asia but the sightseeing is truly amazing. Take for example the city of Bagan, the old capital: where else can you find more than 2,000 temples in a radius of 14 kilomteres with so few tourists that you can literally have one or more temples just for yourself for the day? Local artisans make paper, lacquer boxes, jewellery, paintings and anything you can think of for very cheap price.
The Burmese are also a wonderful bunch of people. Polite and nice as the Thais, but because they have not been much in contact with tourists they are nice in a different way, more sincere I would say. Tourism in Burma is in fact not very developed. For every tourist in Myanmar there are aproximately 5,000 in Thailand. People stare at you but even though they are poor they don't hassle you that much for money and if they do, they at least always try to provide you with a service.
Saying that, the country is a mess. Roads and railway tracks are the ones the British built more than sixty years ago and even in big cities like Mandalay (800,000 people live there) the streets have holes like craters and no street-lights. Forget about traffic lights either, people just honk and scramble crossing the road, praying Buddha that everything will work out.
The Burmese are also a wonderful bunch of people. Polite and nice as the Thais, but because they have not been much in contact with tourists they are nice in a different way, more sincere I would say. Tourism in Burma is in fact not very developed. For every tourist in Myanmar there are aproximately 5,000 in Thailand. People stare at you but even though they are poor they don't hassle you that much for money and if they do, they at least always try to provide you with a service.
Saying that, the country is a mess. Roads and railway tracks are the ones the British built more than sixty years ago and even in big cities like Mandalay (800,000 people live there) the streets have holes like craters and no street-lights. Forget about traffic lights either, people just honk and scramble crossing the road, praying Buddha that everything will work out.
The reason why the country is so underdeveloped it is because is run by a bunch of nutters, just like the asylum in Poe's story: a military junta that have been in power since the British left the country. The junta is doing business mainly with India and China because of the oil, pocketing the money and beating up or executing anybody complaining about the government and the lack of free speech. The Americans have put an embargo (no cash machines in the whole country!) but this is not helping the people, just isolating Myanmar even more from the rest of the world.
The military junta are so out of their mind that they have even moved the capital from Yangon to the jungle for "security reason". More likely to hide the gigantic villas and swimming pools, I dare to say.
Some Human Rights groups argue that tourists should stay away from the country claming that by going there the junta will profit and get stronger even more. As always, idealist Leftish groups don't use their brains and forget to notice that tourism generates a very small fraction of the revenue of the country. Until China and India keep dealing with the junta because of the oil, tourism means just monkey business and staying away from the country will not make any difference to the people in power. But it will for the people. In fact by going to Myanmar, I have given money to restaurant owners, porters, taxi drivers, rickshaw drivers, guides and so on, people that without me will have earned less or no money that day.
The other good reason to go to Myanmar, is that if more foreigners go there, the world will know more about what's going on in the country and maybe, one day, the nutters will go back to the asylum... as patients this time.
The military junta are so out of their mind that they have even moved the capital from Yangon to the jungle for "security reason". More likely to hide the gigantic villas and swimming pools, I dare to say.
Some Human Rights groups argue that tourists should stay away from the country claming that by going there the junta will profit and get stronger even more. As always, idealist Leftish groups don't use their brains and forget to notice that tourism generates a very small fraction of the revenue of the country. Until China and India keep dealing with the junta because of the oil, tourism means just monkey business and staying away from the country will not make any difference to the people in power. But it will for the people. In fact by going to Myanmar, I have given money to restaurant owners, porters, taxi drivers, rickshaw drivers, guides and so on, people that without me will have earned less or no money that day.
The other good reason to go to Myanmar, is that if more foreigners go there, the world will know more about what's going on in the country and maybe, one day, the nutters will go back to the asylum... as patients this time.
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