Myanmar (or Burma, as it's called traditionally) is a beautiful and very rich country, shamefully impoverished by one of the most clumsy and selfish military dictatorships in the world today. Unfortunately, being a Buddhist country, the people are too nice and peaceful for an uprising revolution that would have happened a long time ago in many other parts of the world. But that's also part of the beauty of Burma: it's human asset - kind people who prefer to live in peace and place their faith on their buddhist beliefs, while working hard to survive and paying worship at the temples and shrines.
The shameless military government has been in power for too long already (more than fifty years), and is the longest military despotic government in power in the world today. For many years there was a tourism ban imposed on the country in order not to help finance the government, but that ban was lifted 2 or 3 years ago, and now it's booming with tourists. And it is a wonderful place to visit, indeed!
Most Western countries have interrupted commercial relations with the de facto government in order not to help financing it; but this has only become much more beneficial to China, who due to lack of competition, now can rip-off all the natural resources of the Myanmar for just peanuts, by negotiating directly with the military officials who keep all the money for themselves, while more than 95% of the Burmese cannot even afford a refrigerator to store their food, and thus still depend on salted dried food as in the Middle Age.
But Myanmar is one of the richest countries in the world as for natural resources: the biggest and best rubies in the world, the biggest and best sapphires in the world, silver, gold, platinum, magnesium, manganese, carbon, charcoal, gas, uranium, jade, oil, natural lacquer, ... These are just some few of the very long list of mining resources that are found in Burma. Perhaps diamonds, although now I'm not sure of that.
Myanmar is also the main producer of Teakwood, which is the most durable and water resistant wood, and one of the most expensive in the world. This wood is very hard, and grows mainly in Burma, although India has also a large production.
While I was there in February 2013 I was told that the price of a second hand middle size car (a Nissan Sentra, for example) costs about USD 80.000. A cell-phone SIM card used to cost USD 1.500 a couple of years earlier, although right then people could buy one for only USD 250! The reason for that, according to the guides (who now do not mind to speak about politics with foreigners) is because these are considered status symbols, and then the government officials want to be sure that only the people from their "clan" can show-off with them. Or the rich businessmen that are acquainted with the government officials.
The cars are imported from Japan, second-hand. Because they are second hand, they all get into the country with their driving wheel on the right side. Therefore, despite the fact that in Myanmar you drive along the left, as in most Western countries, the driving wheels are always on the right. That's pretty funny!
The income is pitifully small, as you can imagine. However, when they told me that at that time you could afford a second hand Japanese car for USD 80.000, they sounded pretty optimistic, because that was much cheaper than what it used to be. All that money, of course, goes to the same hands.
So it makes sense that the cities are crowded with bicycles and scooters. The strange thing is that yo don't see the scooters in Yangon (the capital city) any more. That is, I was told by our local guide, because the previous year a scooter had accidentally bumped against the car of a government official. I don't know how this scooter driver was punished. But as a punishment to all the scooter drivers, the government official put a ban on driving scooters in Yangon, the city where he lives.
Today, Myanmar's GDP per capita is USD 1711.
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