A City of Blood, Dreams, and Gold

Burma (also known as Myanmar) might seem like a strange choice for a vacation. After all, the country was isolated from the rest of the world for half a century, and has only just begun to allow visitors. Until just a few years ago, it was one of two places on Earth (the other being North Korea) where even Coca-Cola was not sold. Even now, while it appears that the country is slowly beginning to open up, and the powerful ruling military junta is considering relinquishing some of its power in parliament, freedom of travel is incredibly restricted. While foreign trade has slowly begun once again, the government still gets terrible press for its poor human-rights record. It is democratizing slowly, but has a long way to go. The 2015 elections will be a critical moment for the nation, although its future is unclear.

So why did I choose to visit Myanmar? I was curious. I wanted to see for myself what this mysterious country was really like. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to be a part of the first small wave of foreigners allowed to visit before the country officially opens up to visitors (supposedly in 2015, although I'm not sure about that date).

I spent the last day of my previous holiday at the small, hot, crowded, and generally unpleasant Burmese embassy in Bangkok. It took all day to file the necessary paperwork, and the staff were quite unhelpful. All this aside, Bangkok is the one place to get a Burmese visa processed in one day, no questions asked.

I left Bangkok's Don Muang Airport on Friday night flying Nok Air. I was fortunate to get a window seat, and as we took off I couldn't help thinking how impressive the city looked far below. The bright lights and busy streets made Bangkok look like a beautiful golden spiderweb.

I was struck by the opposite while we were landing in Yangon just over an hour later. My first impression was of how dark everything looked. There were very few lights below us, and the streets seemed more or less empty. We appeared to be flying over dense dark jungle, and the few dim lights I saw below made Yangon look more like a small rural suburb than the country's biggest city. I quickly realized that this trip would be very different from anywhere I'd been before.

Yangon (formerly Rangoon) once served as the capital of ancient Burmese kingdoms, British Burma (the easternmost territory of the British Raj), the Union of Burma, and the current Union of the Republic of Myanmar before the capital was unexpectedly moved to the newly constructed and eerily empty Napiadaw in 2011. In its time Rangoon was home to the likes of Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell, and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who called it "a city of blood, dreams, and gold." I was curious to see with my own eyes what this legendary city held for me.