At Maymyo, an old British hill station, there are plush new private hotels and golf courses for the privileged - and corrupt - military elite.
Nobody ever said dialogue and a political opening was going to be easy in what is probably the world's most isolated state after North Korea. When I interviewed Suu Kyi in her dusty, wooden-built NLD party headquarters on her release last May, she told me: “I think this is a far more delicate situation than any we have seen in the past.”
Still charismatic and beautiful at the age of 57, with her porcelain skin and jasmine in her hair, Suu Kyi spoke of the new political process, which was to ultimately involve power-sharing, as a “difficult balancing act”.
But her dialogue partners are nothing if not eccentric. Ne Win, the late dictator, had an obsession with numerology, especially the number nine, so he issued banknotes of 45 and 90 kyats, the Burmese currency . Today's power-holders have their own obsessions. Although number one and two in the ruling triumvirate, Senior General Than Shwe and General Maung Aye, keep a lower profile, they all like to be photographed making offerings in the Buddhist temples that dot the Burmese landscape.
Nobody ever said dialogue and a political opening was going to be easy in what is probably the world's most isolated state after North Korea. When I interviewed Suu Kyi in her dusty, wooden-built NLD party headquarters on her release last May, she told me: “I think this is a far more delicate situation than any we have seen in the past.”
Still charismatic and beautiful at the age of 57, with her porcelain skin and jasmine in her hair, Suu Kyi spoke of the new political process, which was to ultimately involve power-sharing, as a “difficult balancing act”.
But her dialogue partners are nothing if not eccentric. Ne Win, the late dictator, had an obsession with numerology, especially the number nine, so he issued banknotes of 45 and 90 kyats, the Burmese currency . Today's power-holders have their own obsessions. Although number one and two in the ruling triumvirate, Senior General Than Shwe and General Maung Aye, keep a lower profile, they all like to be photographed making offerings in the Buddhist temples that dot the Burmese landscape.