Downtown Yangon is a mix of decrepit colonial buildings and concrete tower blocks coated with a velvety mildew from the summer humidity (it hits 120 degrees in July). The air in this densely packed part of town smelled like sewers, gasoline, and incense. Swarms of soldiers wearing flak jackets and carrying North Korean machine guns guarded hotel lobbies, directed traffic, and sardined workers into military convoys, transporting them to and from work. There are roughly half a million soldiers and almost as many monks in this country of 50 million.

Along one potholed road we found booksellers, their stalls filled with sad, dog-eared paperbacks and Burmese comic books. One of the few English titles was Burmese Days, which Orwell wrote when he was a policeman here in the waning days of the British empire. Though people knew about Nineteen Eighty-Four (one Burmese guide referred to it as “the generals’ bible”), that book was nowhere to be found.

We ended our first day at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the extraordinary temple built on a mount in the city’s heart, a world away from the throngs of downtown. Shwedagon is where Theravada Buddhism meets Disney. Dozens of glittering gold-leaf domes reach into the sky, the most magnificent one crowned by 4,351 diamonds weighing 1,800 carats. At sunset, the entire platform shimmers in a hazy orange light.

There are all manner of astrological posts and Buddhas among the stupas—reclining Buddhas, alabaster Buddhas, Buddhas somehow smoking lit cigarettes between their plaster lips. Supposedly there’s also a relic of the original Buddha’s hair. Given the sounds of clanging gongs and constant praying, and the sight of so many Burmese laying flowers as offerings, it’s strangely serene. One thing about the Burmese—they embody the word grace. Men and women are gently spoken, and they glide as they move. Westerners are lumbering and bloated by comparison.

Through our travel agent, we were able to choose hotels that weren’t owned and operated by the government. Though it’s likely that foreign companies—mostly French and Japanese—paid hefty bribes to enable them to build in Burma, we took some solace in knowing that our money wasn’t going directly into government coffers. Tipping generously in cash also enabled a select few to benefit from our dollars. 

Most Burmese have never known a decent government. Before the generals, they were ruled by another thug, Ne Win, who hijacked the country from 1962 through 1988, when he was squeezed out. In less than a decade Ne Win’s experiments in socialism had left one of Asia’s strongest economies in tatters and his people close to starvation. He was also criminally insane. A devotee of numerology, he, like many Burmese, believed that the number nine was auspicious, so one day in 1987 he ordered all banknotes to be printed in 45- and 90-kyat denominations and declared all the old 50- and 100-kyat bills worthless. Overnight, the life savings of half the population were wiped out. When the students rose up in 1988 to protest their sinking standards of living, the generals staged a coup, then smashed the rebellion. Led by Than Shew, a bully who never finished high school, the 12 senior generals and their secret police proceeded to make themselves the wardens to a nation of prisoners.

Today, three years after our visit, life in the Burmese gulag has reportedly become even more dire. Though the country is rich in natural gas and oil, its cities are plagued by blackouts. The largest export crop is heroin. There are no hospitals, and an estimated 60 percent of the population is malnourished. Homeless children have been seen sleeping in mesh cages—dog crates, effectively—on the rutted streets of Yangon. Last September, when the generals raised the price of fuel 400 percent, the monks and 100,000 supporters took to the streets and once again made Burma front-page news.

Throughout our trip , the subtext hummed: Should we be here? The few other tourists we met asked themselves the same question, but there was so much magic interspersed with the deprivation that the answer was always evident. Burma is nowhere near as grim as East Berlin was under the Communists. Under that divided city’s brown, coal-stained winter skies, people shuffled along like sullen automatons. Crowded cafés were memorably silent, as no one spoke above a whisper because of Stasi spies. As tourists we were scorned, insulted, or ignored when requesting service. Burma had retained its joy and color. Our guides took immense pleasure in pointing out the spies who hovered like gnats around the perimeters of noodle shops. Deprivation was all around, but the people didn’t wear it on their faces. They have a rich history and a powerful connection to Buddhism that seemingly supports them through disasters, political and natural. Nowhere is this more evident than in Bagan, the jewel of Burmese culture.