In September of 1995, a group of friends and I traveled to Burma to observe the September waxing moon festivities at Inle Lake.  The Paung Daw U Pagoda festival lasts almost three weeks between the September full moon, Thawthalin, and the October full moon, Thadingyut.  During this period, four of the five ancient gold buddhas from the Paung Daw U Pagoda, the main temple of Inle Lake, gradually make their way around the entire lake from monastary to monastary. The long procession of ceremonial boats that tow the barge carrying the buddhas are manned by scores of rowers that use a unique rowing technique that is only found at Inle Lake.

Our original plan was to continue further north from Inle to beyond Lashio where we would cross over into China.  Once across, in the foothills of the Himalayas, we were hoping to hop a boat on the Mekong River and float down as it follows the borders of Burma, Thailand, and Laos.  Eventually it heads toward the center of Laos and on to Louangprabang, the ancient capital.  Unfortunately, as the best laid travel plans are wont to do, they disintegrated into thin air when we found out that the Burma/China border had recently closed.  However, not to be denied, we planned our route east from Inle Lake across the high mountain ranges (contested by the government and the Shan freedom fighters) to Tachilek, where we would jump the border into Thailand in the middle of the night!   Ultimately, clearer heads prevailed (after the hangovers receded) and we returned to Rangoon, flew to Bangkok, and rode the Thai rails to Vientienne, Laos.

Postscript:  You may or may not know that there is a burning controversy with respect to travelling to and conducting trade with Burma.  There are many documented cases of human rights abuses and violations by SLORC (the State Law and Order Restoration Council).  Moreover, in 1990, SLORC refused to transition power to the legally elected representatives of the National League for Democracy.  Human rights advocates and Burmese dissident groups have called for boycotts of goods produced by companies engaged in business in Burma, as well as a boycott of all travel to the country.  The investments and business of the large multi-national companies in Burma funnel large sums of foreign exchange to the Burmese government, and boycotts can influence their continued involvement there. 

While I condemn the actions of SLORC and feel that these investments in Burma should stop, I also feel strongly that travel by budget travelers and backpackers in Burma should continue.  Most of the money spent by these travelers goes directly to independent businesses or black marketeers.  The negative effect of the small amounts of money that eventually trickle up to SLORC to finance its activities does not, in my opinion, outweigh the benefits of exposing the merchant middle class to the capitalist, democratic, and cultural ideals of many travelers.  This low spending and cultural "contamination" by the budget traveling riff-raff, which are the first to enter newly opened countries, have become issues in other countries such as Vietnam.  The effects of western culture in other third world Asian countries and the eastern bloc has been unstoppable.  In this rare situation, I would say that the more exposure, the better.  During the protests leading up to the bloody crackdown on democratization, the vast majority of the middle class stood by without a reason to support the students and intelligentsia. 

Lastly, I am convinced that the presence of budget travelers and backpackers continually nosing around where they shouldn't (which of course they always do --- that's part of the fun and appeal of this type of travel) will contribute over time to the moderation of SLORC activities.