After a recent wild trip to Myanmar, the only adjectives that come to mind are straight out of a fairy tale: magical, special, charming. (Rather embarrassing for a journalist.) And yet in many ways, those are apt descriptions. The country is, after all, a throwback. A place and people stuck in a time-warp after a half-century of military rule, closed off from the rest of the world. Most men and boys wear traditional longyis (like sarongs) and women still use traditional yellow paste instead of rouge to paint circles and other designs on their cheeks.

The country is only now coming out of the shadows and going through crazy rapid growth. In every industry—telecom, construction, agriculture, business—Myanmar is essentially the last uncharted frontier. So it follows that everybody wants a piece of it.

For all these reasons, Myanmar is an utterly fascinating place to visit. Of all the countries we’ve visited in our two months on the road—including Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Singapore—it is my favorite. It’s the closest thing to unspoiled country and people you’ll ever have the chance to encounter, short of a five-day trek into remote jungles to visit, say, isolated Indonesian tribes. In total, we spent a week in Myanmar, which is a short stay. We had three days in Yangon (one too many); one day in Naypyitaw, the new capitol sprung out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere; and three days in Inle Lake. We were pressed for time and skipped Bagan (famous for its temples) and Mandalay (the ancient capitol and walled city). Another trip.

That said, Myanmar’s not for everyone. What I consider charming, others would call dirt and mold. Long years of British rule here have left their stamp on the city’s architecture; and there are a lot of European-style prewar shop houses and walkups, most of them covered in grime. Some even look like ruins, with shrubs and trees sprouting from cracked seams despite the fact that the buildings are fully occupied.

Being in Yangon, the country’s biggest city and former capitol, is a bit like being in Manhattan’s Chinatown in the summer, minus the cheap knockoffs. It’s hot and gritty, and there’s just so much humanity going on that it feels both thrilling and tiring at the same time. Everything you ever took for granted in Western society is thrown in your face here. Crossing the street is like playing the game Frogger in real life. Pedestrians scamper across one lane at a time and stand on the lines as car whiz by at 40 mph. The “bus station” is really just a stretch of road where everyone congregates and all the buses stop, snarling traffic. If you like smooth touring, look elsewhere.

A day in the life of Yangon, Myanmar. Photo by Sara Lin

Getting around

The books and the blogs aren’t kidding when they say the country has very little infrastructure, and what infrastructure it does have is overcapacity or simply doesn’t work. There aren’t enough buses for local commuters. Not enough roadways. Not enough power. Not enough cell phone SIM cards to go around. We walked into one mall and found dozens of people mobbing a little kiosk, but its glass display cases had nothing inside them. Turns out they were clamoring for SIM cards and buying two or three for their family and friends because they’d heard the government might be upping the price on cell services again soon.