The people-less capital city

The 90-minute journey from Naypyidaw airport to the hotel was a truly amazing experience.

The roads are weirdly broad, ranging from eight to 16 lanes in width. By comparison, Malaysia's highways are only four to six lanes wide.

What kind of city requires such wide boulevards? One that would allow wide-bodied jets to make emergency landings and takeoffs?

We don't see such roads in Beijing, nor New York, but they are all here in Naypyidaw, Burma's new capital city.

The pencil-straight thoroughfares that extend indefinitely from the Naypyidaw plains are nevertheless bumpy, probably due to the deplorable construction and maintenance standards. The street lamps flanking the roads are only partially funtioning. You need to travel quite some distance before you come across an antiquated motorcycle or truck coming the other way.

It's like a deserted city that has lost most of its residents. But this is not during the wee hours of the morning but the early hours of dusk, around 7pm local time.

The second morning, with the sun hanging right above us, we could see the same disengaged city, but with a few more sporadic bicycles and some buildings that had been obscured by the night. Very few residential units, or have they been scattered all across the wide expanse of the terrain? In the downtown area there are a few large stores and hotels, but hardly any pedestrian activity. Military policemen can be seen on duty at regular intervals. On top of that, there are a handful of gardeners trimming the roadside plants as they strive to keep up the city's look under the merciless, scorching sun.

Sure enough, Naypyidaw is the country's administrative-cum-military hub, but it is not a commercial centre. So we shouldn't look at it the way we do other cities.

That said, there must be some really good reasons to erect a city in the middle of nowhere. In Burma, they have their own reasoning. I asked the question of some locals, and most of them told me it was the design of the military junta, who worried that the Americans would invade the country and overthrow their regime.

Rangoon,used to be the capital of Burma for centuries. Facing the Adnaman Sea and the Indian Ocean, that metropolis is Burma's primary sea port and gateway. After the military took over the country, the openness of Rangoon became a threat to the regime, especially with the US Seventh Fleet patrolling the Indian Ocean and the Fifth Fleet in the Arabian Sea.

In the face of this "menace" and a deep-rooted sense of insecurity, junta leader General Than Shwe resolved to move the capital much further inland.

Other than the US invasion factor, it has been rumoured that Than Shwe also took the advice of a soothsayer, E Thi, to move the capital to Naypyidaw. This E Thi - or ET as she is affectionately known, owing to her small build, hunchback, deafness, dumbness and general resemblance to the well-known character in Steven Spielberg's movie - is most definitely not an extra-terrestrial. She is the most celebrated fortune-teller in Burma. E Thi is a legendary figure herself, and stories about her could be easily compiled into a bestseller. To put things in perspective, she is the celebrity soothsayer whom Than Shwe trusts without reservation. Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is another big fan of hers. We can say that what E Thi told Than Shwe and Thaksin has had some bearing on the fates of these two Southeast Asian neighbours.

I visited the government quarter in Naypyidaw as well as its Big Buddha and imposing Parliament House. This capital city could be a far-fetched vision of the Burmese government, or just the work of some supernatural inspiration.

Anyway, this is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. What I want to say is that this capital city is way too outlandish, too mysterious, and light years away from the common folk of Burma.