Background Reading

So I am off to Myanmar/Burma, depending on your colonial tastes, this'avo. It's a controversial place to travel and there have been calls to boycott travel there as a way to condemn the current regime. However, I've been doing research, starting with the easy to digest Lonely Planet's 'Should You Go?' which has helped to give me some pros and cons on independent travel to the country. And obviously I have decided that the pros out way the cons and I'll be heading there for a whistle-stop tour of only 18 days. I was also encouraged to go by a travely chum I met in India who rates it one of her highlights of South East Asia. I'm currently reading Emma Larkin's 'Finding George Orwell in Burma' which is revelatory and provides depth and insight into the Burmese character and society from her own experience and explorations of the country. I feel that I may only be allowed to see the glossy side and that the true Burma will be out of my reach, but I really hope to absorb as much as I can and take with me all that I learn there...