Lonely Planet Myanmar (Burma) or Publish and be Damned

So, what's with the LP Myanmar guide book anyway. Very comprehensive in its listings but full of moralistic platitudes about whether one should visit or not. Perhaps it should be titled 'how to not let your money get into the sweaty hands of the Tatmadaw'. LP refuses to list government owned hotels (often naming them so that you don't end up there by mistake) and by including an extensive chapter on the history of the military and on its dubious nature.

Let's forget about the implicit assumption that underlies the "should you go" section in the guide. That the average LP reader is unaware of the sad record of the Burmese military junta and is too lazy to do the spadework himself or herself. Focus instead on the weakness of the listing government owned hotel to not let your money get into the hands of the junta. The reality on the ground is very different. Every business in Burma that touches a tourist has some connection with the government. The nature of the connection may vary from bribes to low level functionaries to get and keep licenses to the cohabitative behavior of the multi-millionaires who run large businesses. Simply stated, a dollar revenue business cannot exist in Burma without some kickback to the Tatmadaw. One hotel owner explained the financial structure of his business, license fees, bribes to officials, etc. and his contention was that, in the best of times, 60% of his dollar revenue goes to the government. It is next to impossible, and possibly dangerous, to hide any of this revenue. At the higher end, hotels like Traders and airlines like Air Bagan are owned by drug lords (often ex rebels now in cahoots with the government). Millions of dollars flow from these "private" businesses to the military; directly and indirectly keeping the junta in power. Why it is ok to list Traders but not the Thiripyitsaya Sakura Hotel in Bagan is not at all clear. Is it somehow better to split your money between the government and a drug baron than to give all of it to the government? What about all the government run ferries? LP recommends the Mandalay Bagan ferry, the Myitkyina-Bhamo-Mandalay ferry, the Pathein ferry, all demanding high dollar amounts from tourists. (In an interesting twist, the junta privatized the Mandalay-Bagan express ferry and the price went up from $16 to $25. My guess is that the government probably gets a little more than it got before and some other baddie gets the rest of your money. You, poor tourist, are more out of pocket than before.)

Sadly, it would seem that LP is trying to have its cake and eat it too by publishing a guidebook for Burma and then hedging about the morality of going or not going. All you get as a result is a trivilization of history, a bunch of platitudes, an incomplete guidebook, and more revenue for LP. A truly principled publisher would either:

1. Not publish a guidebook at all.

2. Publish a comprehensive guidebook with full listings and no moralistic claptrap. Full listings would include reviews of government run hotels.

3. Publish a guidebook that restricts itself to describing the historical and cultural background of the sights but has no business listings whatsoever. This would probably be the best of the three alternatives.

For a good review of the weaknesses of the LP approach, see Publish and Be Damned from the Irrawaddy Times.