Destination: Myanmar
Population: 53 million people
GDP per capita: 5.772 USD

It was nearly nine o’clock and the sun was fiercer every minute.

The heat throbbed down on one’s head with a steady, rhythmic thumping, like blows from an enormous bolster. The lower jungle paths turned into morasses, and the paddy-fields were wastes of stagnant water with a stale, mousy smell. Books and boots were mildewed. Through July and August, there was hardly a pause in the rain. Then one night, high overhead, one heard a squawking of invisible birds. The snipe were flying southward from Central Asia. The rains tailed off, ending in October. The fields dried up, the paddy ripened, the Burmese children played hop-scotch with gonyin seeds and flew kites in the cool winds.

Excerpt from Burmese Days by George Orwell

Every year from February to May the sun glared in the sky like an angry god, then suddenly the monsoon blew westward, first in sharp squalls, then in a heavy ceaseless downpour that drenched everything until neither one’s clothes, one’s bed nor even one’s food ever seemed to be dry. It was still hot, with a stuffy, vaporous heat. The lower jungle paths turned into morasses, and the paddy-fields were wastes of stagnant water with a stale, mousy smell. Books and boots were mildewed. Naked Burmans in yard-wide hats of palm-leaf ploughed the paddy-fields, driving their buffaloes through knee-deep water. Later, the women and children planted the green seedlings of paddy, dabbing each plant into the mud with little three-pronged forks. Through July and August there was hardly a pause in the rain. Then one night, high overhead, one heard a squawking of invisible birds. The snipe were flying southward from Central Asia. The rains tailed off, ending in October. The fields dried up, the paddy ripened, the Burmese children played hop-scotch with gonyin seeds and flew kites in the cool winds.

Excerpt from Burmese Days by George Orwell

And then there is Naypyidaw.

Myanmar’s capital since 2005 is more than 7.000 square kilometers in size, which is more than four times the size of London. Coming from the vast countryside, the city appears to be a Fata Morgana. Magnificent buildings, a 22-lane highway with no cars and most significantly: no people.

It’s a ghost town.