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MAGAN'S WORLD:‘BY BUYING this book you’re helping support the military junta,” warned the hastily scrawled note on a torn sheet of foolscap paper in the Lonely Planet guide to Myanmar (Burma) that my friend bought in the airport before we left. In 10 words it crystallised the concern on all of our minds as we boarded the flight to Rangoon (Yangon); the unsettling fact that we were holidaying in a tyrannical military dictatorship, a country of forced labour and torture.

Tourism was frowned upon by human rights groups until last year when the Daily Telegraphreported that Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy had dropped their opposition to tourism to Burma, saying that visitors might help draw attention to the oppression of the people. The authenticity of this statement has since been questioned by Tourism Concern, muddying the water yet again.