The effectiveness of tourism boycotts is debatable: do they succeed in delivering a message to the oppressive regimes they are usually aimed at, or do they rather destroy the livelihoods of ordinary citizens, trying to make a buck as souvenir sellers or restaurant waiters? While cold-shouldering rulers, how far should we isolate their people?

Tourism sanctions against the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) were highlighted once again last month, when the world marked the 60th birthday of the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Because of her advocacy of passive resistance to its brutal repression, the ruling junta has placed her under house arrest for most of the past 17 years.

A brief attempt at democracy in 1990 resulted in her National League for Democracy (NLD) winning a massive 82 percent of the vote in a general election, but all came to naught when the regime refused to relinquish power.

I flew into Yangon - previously Rangoon - the day after birthday celebrations for "the Lady" as she is referred to.

Four hundred Burmese had gathered at NLD headquarters to pray for their icon, releasing doves of peace and balloons as they were filmed by the security forces that far outnumbered them. Contrary to expectations, I found many Burmese quite open to discussing their political situation, even admitting that they'd celebrated in their own way on the quiet.

Ba Sein* shepherded me around the hot and steamy capital, quite unlike most other Asian cities I've visited.

Designed by the British,who colonised the country for 100 years, it's filled with parks and man-made lakes, and a ban on motorbikes forestalls the urban chaos one finds in Taipei, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City.

One of the most bitter opponents of Myanmar's current rulers, Ba Sein is ambivalent about the boycott. He agrees with sanctions, but is mindful that without his job as a tour guide he'd run out of financial resources within a year.

This university graduate has lost faith in passive resistance.

"It's got us nowhere in 17 years," he states. He shows his hostility to the regime by refusing to use the country's new place names and ignoring as many signs of officialdom - security checks and roadblocks - as he can get away with.

In the spectacular ancient city of Pagan, where thousands of red-brick, bell-shaped pagodas rise out of the scrublike vegetation, a popular tourist activity is taking a pony-cart ride from temple to monastery to ordination hall.

Back in the Eighties, Maung Hla*, then a cart driver, was cited by the Lonely Planet guide for his knowledge of English. That acknowledgement put him on the road to professional tour guiding and the company he works for now considers him one of the best.

He's against the tourist boycott, having just built a two-roomed brick house with airconditioning.

Exposure to tourists, he points out, has broadened his view of the world, enabling him to defeat the isolation his country's pariah status imposes on its citizens.

"It's important for us to have interaction with tourists so we can also let them know how we feel," he says.

Maung Hla now mentors another pony-cart driver, Ba Pe*, who spends his spare hours studying Pagan's archaeology and bettering his English. Ba Pe charges 9000 kyat (R61 at the unofficial exchange rate) to ride for an hour or so - a vast improvement on the basic government salary of 8 000 kyat a month!

In a country where cart drivers can do far better than state-employed teachers and doctors, corruption is understandably rife.

Maung Hla takes me to visit a farming village on the outskirts of Pagan, where an elderly grandmother spins cotton as she tries to lull her granddaughter to sleep.

"Where are the tourists this year?" she asks.

"It's the politics," answers Maung Hla.

"The tourists stay away."

"It's not fair," she responds.

In dusty, dry and rubbish-strewn Mandalay, Lai Lai sips on a cappuccino in one of the city's new generation of European-style eateries.

"The tourism boycott means nothing to our leaders," she opines. "Instead it affects the people it hopes to assist."

Myanmar has been through worse, she adds, and it will get through this period as it did British colonialism and the Japanese occupation during World War 2. She blames the situation on "our bad karma from another life".

Indeed such a note of forbearance sounds strongly throughout this deeply devout Buddhist nation, which is said to have more than a million monks in a population of some 50 million.

In the early morning, queues of them in earth-coloured robes snake around temples and city streets. Some of the monastery schools, such as Mahagandayone on the outskirts of Mandalay, let visitors observe their students (who live as novices until they graduate) as they queue for their daily meal, alms bowls in wait.

Topping the list of tourist attractions are the country's pagodas, the largest and most sacred of which is the glittering Shwe-dagon, which dominates the Yangon landscape.

Like a giant golden top towering 98 metres tall, it is encrusted with some 5 000 diamonds and said to contain more gold than the Bank of England's vaults.

Mandalay's most sacred spot is Maha Muni Pagoda, where a huge Buddha image is believed to represent the closest likeness anywhere to the Gautama Buddha. It's almost obscured by the gold leaf that worshippers eagerly attach to it.

While I was there, a family arrived to celebrate the initiation of their young sons as novice monks - a rite of passage for all Burmese boys, one usually undergone for a few months some time between their ninth and 12th birthdays.

The youngsters were dressed in sparkling white silk with extravagant headdresses, their faces heavily made up. These princely garments represent the life the boys must renounce.

It is Pagan, though, that leaves the strongest impression and deserves ranking alongside Cambodia's Angkor Wat or Jordan's Petra. A powerful capital city from the 11th century until the 14th, it was founded on the banks of the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) River, and housed 13 000 religious structures in its glory days.

Today 2 000 remain, having withstood the destruction of a harsh climate, Mongol conquest and earthquakes, the most recent tremor occurring in 1975. The military rulers have declared the area an architectural zone, and some time ago forcibly removed its residents to a location it called New Pagan.

You may feel a little "templed out" after a day or two of alcoves and courtyards, steep stupas, larger-than-life sitting Buddha images and very persistent postcard sellers, but you'll feel better for breathing in the air of serenity that permeates Pagan.

  Names have been changed to protect sources.

Fact box

The decision to visit Myanmar is not one to be taken lightly. Those who consider it should avoid the baking hot summer months when the middle hours of the day must be spent in airconditioned hotel rooms.

I was tempted to forgo western clothes and go local with a longyi - the long skirt worn by both sexes, patterned for ladies and always checked for men. I wasted no time in ditching my sandals for the rubber thongs that are part of traditional dress.

If you do go, the country is best reached via Thailand or Singapore, and South Africans will require a visa. Visitors should also bear in mind that foreign cellphones don't operate and many websites are blocked.

Credit cards and traveller's cheques are not accepted - US dollars in cash being the best option. Bottled water is readily available.