On the boat to Mandalay the same thoughts kept turning in my mind. The red orb of a full moon appeared, casting streaks of gold across the placid water of the Irrawaddy River but even this beauty failed to displace the questions that haunted our two-week stay earlier this month. Why were we in Burma? Was our trip giving comfort to the country's military dictatorship, by common consent one of the world's worst regimes?
Burma never has been a popular destination and after the bloody suppression of the monks' protests in September 2007 and the government's delay in helping hundreds of thousands who lost everything in Cyclone Nargis the following May, the tourist trickle almost dried up.
So was our party of visitors wrong to buck the trend? Not if you go by the number of people who eagerly approached us to practise their English and, after a tentative start, wanted to say what they thought of their rulers. "They're mad," a driver told us.
He had trained as a computer engineer before serving in a Burmese embassy in a western country. "Life is not improving here," he said. "We have no democracy."
Another driver began making political comments within five minutes of our hiring him from Rangoon airport into town. Asked if it was our first trip to Burma, I said yes, and added: "I see you call it Burma." "Burma good name, Myanmar new name," he replied mischievously.
Ray of hope
The one good thing about the regime was that it had allowed English to be taught again in primary schools. "For a time they stopped it. The army doesn't like English but it's OK again."
In contrast to Thailand, where linguistic communication is a struggle and faces in public transport are blank and unwelcoming, Burmese friendliness is a delight.
Of course, some friendliness is commercially driven. Smiling vendors with the chat-up line "Where are you from?" can turn into leeches at some sites. But genuine curiosity is common.
The regime itself uses English for a few publications. Who buys them is hard to say, except perhaps the diplomatic community. They offer a dreary diet of ministerial visits to hydel projects, with the benefit of reminding you that Burma is the last country in the world ruled by a military junta.
The junta wants to shed its anachronistic image. Elections announced for this year are intended to give the regime a civilian face, of a sort anyway.
While people's willingness to give foreigners their opinions was the biggest surprise of our trip, the amount of access people have to dissenting views also ran counter to our preconceived picture.
To resist this, the regime makes the feeblest of propaganda efforts. For a flavour, take the instructions that appear under the bizarre headline "The People's Desire" in newspapers and on occasional roadside hoardings: 1. Oppose those relying on External Elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views; 2. Oppose those trying to jeopardise the stability of the state and national progress; 3. Oppose foreign nations interfering in the internal affairs of the state; 4. Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy.
The fourth of these points encapsulates the junta's preferred strategy for handling criticism — repression. The country has around 2,100 political prisoners, including many of the monks who led the 2007 street protests from Rangoon's majestic Shwedagon Pagoda. Dozens were shot and killed during those protests and public assembly is still severely restricted. The authorities are so determined to prevent crowds gathering that they have even fenced off a corner of the vast concourse.
And thanks to an international boycott, Burma receives less help than any other country in the world. This is one reason for the catastrophic rates of infant mortality and child malnutrition. But in recent months, foreign donors are stepping up development aid on top of the emergency grants supplied after Cyclone Nargis.
A kind gesture
As tourists, we were allowed to spend a day in Twante, a cyclone-affected area about 20 miles out of Rangoon.
A driver whom we found independently invited us home to lunch where his wife and other relatives were feeding two dozen monks, a gesture the family makes about twice a year, he said.
The temples played a key role in collecting clothes, food and money for cyclone victims. Private companies funded the rebuilding of many houses and schools.
After the disaster, Burmese students and other young people poured into the area to help. Some were so moved that they later set up aid projects and small NGOs without government obstruction. As a result, according to a Western aid worker who travels regularly to Burma, Cyclone Nargis has resulted in a broadening of independent civil society activity.
Back, then, to the nagging question: Should we have toured a country with so bad a regime and such little prospect of improvement? This young man had no doubt. "Bring in tourists who can spread the word from the outside world and tell people in their own countries about Burma," he said.
The big decision is whether to go at all. No one should imagine tourism is automatically going to make Burma a better place. But can anyone argue the tourism boycott has made it better either?
