Myanmar appeared more democratic that I thought it would appear. It seemed like any other country I had been except for the following that I managed to gather.
On entering the country you must change US dollars into a local equivalent called FEC – Foreign Exchange Certificate. The FEC theoretically is equivalent to the US dollar, but if you want to change FEC into kyat, the primary local currency, you get a lower rate. Locals all use kyat, and of those that do accept FECs, particularly bus companies, do so at a lower rate. Tourist industry vendors and government departments accept FECs as being equivalent to the dollar, even though the wider marketplace doesn’t. This means they will end up with less in their pocket when they exchange profits to local currency, but they can offload the FEC discount to the government when paying tax.
Speaking of money, there are two exchange rates – the official government fixed rate and a black/free market rate. When I was there the government rate was fixed at 450kyats to the US dollar, whilst the black/free market rate was hovering around 1000-1100kyats to the US dollar. At one point during my stay I was surprised to find the market rate drop about 10-15% because of temporarily enforced restrictions on the amount locals could withdraw from their bank accounts.
I saw people, including a lot of women and children, working on the roads but no idea whether it was forced or not. Quite possibly not these days. I payed a visited to the NLD (National League for Democracy) headquarters – the biggest pro-democratic opposition party headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Here I met a man who told me had been thrown in prison for being a member of parliament, elected by the people in 1990. Without an appointment I was unable to met “The Lady” herself.
I was told small towns are ruled by an unelected military officer, people have identity cards and must register their location with the military when moving home. The locals also need a license to do certain things including owning a phone, fax machines have to be registered, and you need a license to hold US dollars or have foreigners in your hotel.
Then there’s the propaganda. There are big signs in public places with phrases like “The army and the people working together to crush enemies of the union”. Everynight on TV the army generals are shown to be visiting the opening of some new facility and doing something great for the country. The newspaper consists of nothing but the most mundane articles, like this piece of pure journalistic brilliance from the front page of the national paper The New Light of Myanmar Feb 25,2003:
Keeping department offices neat and tidy coordinated
Yangon, 24 Feb - A coordination meeting to keep department offices neat and tidy was held at the meeting hall of Yangon City Development Committee at the City Hall this afternoon.
Present were Chairman of Yangon Division Peace and Development Council Commander of Yangon Command Maj-Gen Myint Swe, Chairman of YCDC Yangon Mayor U Ko Lay, the deputy ministers, Vice-Chairman .....
It goes on for a paragraph mentioning all present whilst I roll on the floor laughing out loud.
Most I met said their most present problem was economic. I think a lot of the people aren’t very political and don’t know or care what a democracy is, but everyone feels the pain of very low income.
There are travel restrictions for foreigners. You can’t go into any areas where “insurgents” exist, or otherwise not controlled by the government. Only once whilst travelling was my passport checked by the military.
The internet is virutally non-existant and censored. Email can be sent from a lot of places, and is said to be monitored. After making some enquires at a computer reseller I managed to locate some access, I was told by the owner he had a license for company use only and wasn’t allowed to let others use the internet but he let me. I also managed to convince the staff of the sole internet provider to let me check my email in Mandalay 
According to Mrs Fern of the Shan Palace, Hsipaw, the government had taken some of her relatives land, destroyed the historic building on the site and built a communications tower.
And now from the rumor department, apparently the first military leader changed the roads from left to right because it would be good for his karma. He also introduced 45 and 90 kyat notes on the advice of a numerologist.
