Monasteries with jumping Cats.  Villages built on stilts. An ancient and vast plain with thousands of ancient Buddhist temples. The friendliest, and bravest,  people in SE Asia. I got back from my trip to Burma, or Myanmar as it is now known.  A visit here is like going back in time by thirty years, with intermittent electricity, an absence of commerce, low car ownership and a pedestrian pace of life.  And some of the most jaw dropping wonderful and important Buddhist sites anywhere is Asia.  I only had a week, but I managed to cram in the capital Yangon (Rangoon), the temple plains of Bagan, a river trip to Mandalay and an evening show by the infamous Moustache Brothers, and a couple of days on beautiful Lake Inle. Burma is rich in oil, minerals, precious stones, natural gas, and valuable teak but the overwhelming majority of the poor have virtually nothing.  They even have to pay 10% tax.  They get bugger all in return.  A basic education, and a barely adequate health service.  They don't even get a reliable electricity supply, which goes off at least once an hour.   The military elite in contrast take everything, swanning about Yangon, and the administrative capital, in new SUV's and virtually commandeering the private national airline for their official visits.  I imagine they all have vast wealth stashed away in various secret bank accounts around the world.

The people in the countryside don't talk too much about politics.  But the the people in the cities, where the more go ahead and ambitious are found, despise the government for denying them the opportunity to better themselves, or to travel freely abroad (not that many of them could afford to even if they wanted to).

But despite all this, the people are the most friendliest, genuine and beautiful people in perhaps all of SE Asia.  Constantly smiling, and calling out the usual greeting of "Where you from" they gave me hospitaility wherever I went, inviting me into their homes for Chinese green tea and a locally made cigar, or showing me around Yangon.    They are desperate for contact with tourists - tourism is down by over 50% since the demonstrations back in September and the tourism industry and those that support it are hit hard.

And as for the debate about whether to go or not, then nothing has changed my mind.  Going is better than not going.  Encouraging regime change means the West putting pressure on India, China and the other ASEAN trading partners to limit trade until the military make meaningful concessions to democracy and the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi.  It means boycotting French Total oil, who have extensive operations in the North and other companies whose trade with Myanmar largely benefits the military and not the ordinary people.  All that is achieved by boycotting tourism, is denying the ordinary people much wanted contact with the outside and the chance to hear how life is in democratic nations free from fear, and the precious dollars that the visitor can directly give to the local people, and lift them a little above the poverty line

Off to Bangkok this Thursday, my third trip there this year. 

I'm planning to take off to Burma as soon as I can for ten days.  While there is a good argument either side, on whether to go (and therefore the argument goes, tacitly support the regime) or not to go, I'm firmly in favour of sensible, well informed tourists still going to Burma.  I think if you experience a country at first hand, and as far as possible, you take the time to understand the political and cultural history, then you are more likely to give a more vocal, well informed opinion of the horrors and in-equalities that regimes like those in Myanmar inflict on their people. 

A strong reason, often given,  for not going is that Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of the opposition, in 1995, recommended that tourists do not visit.  But it seems that she was referring more to package tour trips, where most of the dollars go directly into the hands of the junta.  I'm hoping to avoid most of the Government hotels and outlets as much as I can, though whether that is really possible or not I'll have to see. 

I can't help thinking though that the people of Burma would much prefer contact with outsiders, than to remain isolated and forgotten, especially now the international news agenda has moved on from the aftermath of the Monk's uprising last month.