Weirdest. Place. Ever.

This deserves its own entry.

The long, overnight bus trip from Toungoo to Inle Lake provided me with one of the most surreal travel experiences of my life. In 2005, reportedly after advice from his astrologer, Myanmar's leader Than Shwe decided that Yangon wasn't to be the capital any more and that he (or rather a lot of his worker drones) would build a brand new capital on the central plains of the country. The shiny new city of Nay Pyi Taw (hilariously meaning "Abode of the Kings") was the result, and our bus journey took us through it for a close-up look.

And what a look it was. You knew it was coming long before you saw it - the road suddenly became wide, smooth and well-lit (three things that every other road in Myanmar isn't), and a surprisingly jovial Government checkpoint took a gander at IDs (for the locals) and passports (for Jen and I) before letting us through. Once into the city proper, we were suddenly transported to the Gold Coast or Southern California, but in the middle of Myanmar. There were palm trees, grand boulevards, huge shopping malls, five star hotel villas...and no people. It was like someone had designed a suburban utopia and then forgotten to invite anyone to live there. The Government is clearly trying to impress people with its new capital, and by God they don't want any of the pesky local masses ruining it for them, so as it stands the capital city is a disturbingly grand yet largely empty ghost town, where the regime leaders, I assume, hang out in their air conditioned villas and play golf at their exclusive resorts.

Best (and by "best" I of course mean "weirdest") of all is the mighty monument in the centre of town - an exact replica of the gleaming Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, built in just a couple of years (the original took about 2,500 to reach its present status) by the Generals in order to legitimise the city. For it to stand out as such a colossal waste of money in a place where "what a waste of money" could be inscribed on the town coat-of-arms is a truly breathtaking achievement. I'd wonder about how many of Myanmar's poor, hungry and homeless could have been fed, clothed and housed for life on the budget of this new capital, but I fear if I think too hard about it I'll want to slit my wrists.

Weirdest. Place. Ever. And, in its own way, probably the most vulgar and disgusting as well. This country deserves so much better.