When I first saw that there was a cheap, direct flight from Vietnam to Myanmar, I had to look up where Myanmar was on a map and confirm that it was indeed a country. The next day, I was in Yangon, the capital. It was Christmas Day, but, knowing nothing about Myanmar, I assumed that, like in the rest of Asia, Christmas is not a big deal. In Vietnam, you would have barely known it was Christmas at all. I was wrong.

Walking around the city, two things struck me....