Return Trip

My first journey to Myanmar took place almost exactly two years ago, not too many months before the government began making noises about opening up the country. It was fun to compare the before and after.

This time we didn’t see any of the harsh propaganda posters that in the past occasionally appeared on billboards. Commercial advertising seems to have picked up. Traffic has thickened, allowing passengers plenty of time to study the roadside ads.

In teashops and other public places we now saw plenty of photos of Aung San Suu Kyi. Two years ago they were hidden inside people’s homes. Often now she is pictured alongside her father, a hero to the Burmese. He was assassinated when she was a toddler.

In Yangon we heard lots of talk about high prices, especially for lodging. The walls surrounding many private residences had sprouted coils of razor wire since my first visit. The inn where we stayed early in 2011 now goes for three times the price, and has no vacancies until 2014.

ATMs are now sprinkled around, international banks are becoming well represented, and the ultimate symbol of easy consumerism—the 7-11 store—is due to open several branches very soon. Meanwhile, in many small shops operating out of the front of family homes, shelves are full of goods from Thailand.

Outside the capital, the country seemed almost underpopulated. In areas where I would have expected to see more people—along the seaside, for example—we passed endless agriculture. In one two-hour stretch I don’t think we passed a single tree that wasn’t a rubber tree.

Some things hadn’t changed. The country’s time zone, like India’s, remains a goofy 30 minutes behind Thailand’s. Two-wheeled traffic is still prohibited in the capital. And Shwedagon Pagoda is of course as lovely as ever.