Burmese Daze

THE Prime Minister is under house arrest. The army is in charge. Spies are everywhere, and if you question the government there's a good chance you'll end up in jail. This is Burma in the mid-2000s and Alison Winward is there. But even in such tough times, she finds, there is more to Burma than misery. There's the people, of course - resourceful, resilient, resistant. And then there are the 'sights' - the explosive popcorn factory, a monastery's "jumping cats" and ways of donating to the pagoda that can probably best be described as poetry in motion, to name just a few. Burma has changed in recent years. This book offers a glimpse of how the country was when those changes were little more than a distant dream.