With a fresh old government back in charge, Thailand is once again investing heavily in Burma, and for my part I’m eyeing the real estate. Just look at these great properties, none of which probably costs more than a few broken monks’ skulls!

This post is a political sandwich, heavy on spicy Google Earth condiments from the Land That Time Tried to Forget, and specifically from Naypyidaw, the still-spanking-new federal capital, which is going to be one giant construction site for a long time to come. More on that in a bit.

The Olympic jackbooting event in Tibet — at which the Chinese so admirably excel — has thankfully diverted the world’s attention away from Burma, giving the Thai government ample time to go in and sign some lucrative business deals.

Not that it needed a smokescreen. Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was anxious to get started on his official visit to Burma earlier this month to sign a pact protecting Thai investment there when someone must have asked him about the rest of the world’s sanctions against the junta for, you know, killing Buddhist monks.

Suddenly even the newly revamped Best Business Newspaper in Thailand, The Nation, realised it had forgotten that there was another aspect to Samak’s trip besides buying natural gas from Burma’s Yadana field and hydropower from the long-delayed Tasang Dam on the Salween River (which will flood a good chunk of Shan State, but those rebels need cooling down anyway) and giving the generals Bt800 million to build a 40-kilometre road into Thailand.

Many bricks in the wall: Official HQ of the thieving government of Myanmar

Ah, right, said Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama. Now that you mention it, Samak is going to attempt some “neighbourly engagement” to “help the junta to achieve national reconciliation and democracy”.

“The international community expects Thailand to play a significant role in breaking the political deadlock in Burma,” Noppadon said, quite correctly, before sticking his head in the muddy banks of the Salween. “But, like other Asean members, we will not interfere with the internal affairs of Burma” and no way Thailand is going to insist on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi being allowed to play politics.

However, Noppadon assured the peaceniks, Thailand would give Burma some advice on fostering democracy ahead of its constitutional referendum in May.

But seriously, Noppadon, what’s on your mind?

“Thailand disagrees with sanctions,” he said. Instead, just talking to the junta “could lead to positive developments”. As the United Nations darn well knows.

A keen judge of character, Samak came back from his one-day jaunt to Naypyidaw saying he’d seen the other side of the coin — presumably the one that the stupid BBC doesn’t show — and that Burmese Senior General Than Shwe is downright religious. Even though killings there were “normal, we have to know the facts” behind them, Samak said. “Than Shwe practises meditation. He said he prays in the morning … and the country has been peaceful and orderly,” the Thai PM said, while admitting that Burmese democracy is, like Thailand’s, “half-baked”.

So it’s one underdone democracy helping another down that ragged road to Utopia. Is Thailand really such a bastard? It’s only Burma’s third-largest foreign investor, at $1.34 billion as of last year. Britain has given the generals $1.56 billion, Singapore $1.43 billion.

One humongous sapphire or just a friendly smiley-smile for spy satellites? Filed under weird stuff in Naypyidaw.

Meanwhile Agence France-Presse reported that Thai jewellers were in Burma jostling with their Chinese rivals over the $153 million worth of jade and rubies on auction this month, despite Western governments’ attempt to ban their resale. Tiffany, Cartier and Bulgari are among the big-name foreign luxury brands that won’t handle Burmese merchandise, the agency said, and the US is no longer allowing the trade in Burmese stones cut in Thailand either.

Even generals need to unwind, some more than others: Tatmadaw-style tennis builds the strong biceps you need for clubbing people into submission.

Vichai Assarasakorn of the Thai Gem and Jewellery Traders’ Association estimated that up to $2 million worth of gems, mainly rubies, are imported into Thailand from Burma each year, though, without official records, who knows how much? Vichai trotted out the Usual Lament:

“Sanctions may not be the right answer to solve the problem,” he said. Thai traders agree with the goal of — cough! — promoting democracy, but the ban would hurt the 400,000 Burmese who depend on gem mining and trading to earn a living. “The junta might have an amount of gems for its auction sales, but a greater amount of rubies remain in the hands of ordinary people.”

Demand for Burmese rubies has not subsided, Choosak Tangkoonsombat of Petcharat Import and Export told AFP. His company exported Bt15 million worth last year to Europe, much of it rubies.

So who cares, right? And anyway, Naypyidaw looks absolutely terrific on Google Earth and just begging for investment. The name means “abode of kings”, it’s 320 kilometres from those crazy monks in Rangoon (a nine-hour train ride) and even further from the pipeline-clogged ocean. Talk about peace and quiet: your phone won’t even work! (”We use walkie-talkies here,” a senior military official told AFP.) No cell-phone coverage! Anyone who wants to bug you here has to call you on a government phone!

And it’s new, new, new! Naypyidaw only sprouted up in November 2005 (on the 6th at 6.37am, just like the astrologers told it to). The folks in the little logging village of Pyinmana just to the east, seen in the picture below, didn’t know what hit them. They hadn’t seen anything this exciting since World War II, when the Burma Independence Army set up shop, caved into the Japanese, and then caved into the Allies just in time to win the fight.

In 2005 the government moved here so fast that it forgot to build schools, so all the ministry staff had to leave their kids in Rangoon. That wasn’t so bad, though, because they could buy their own condos. Just try affording that in Rangoon. And the electricity stays on all day.

Foreign diplomats posted to Naypyidaw have been a little leery about the phone business, but the embassies have each been offered five acres to replant. That’s a better offer than the first one they got: Stay in Rangoon — you can always fax the government in Naypyidaw if you need anything.

For you tourists, there’s a terrific “Hotel Zone”. It’s on the outskirts, but it will be downtown soon enough, and meanwhile there are shuttle buses. Sometimes. The proprietors of the Flying Dutchman blog were there last June and were told that that was the only place foreigners could stay. They found “five or six extravagant resorts spread along three kilometers of deserted freeway”, and nearby a mall under construction that had a tiny computer shop selling nothing but DVDs.

Nice!

The hotels, assuming that’s what these are, look like crabs. That’s to remind guests that they’re pretty much stuck there unless someone official comes to pick them up.

You can play golf. Maybe. This looks like a great place to tee off, though who can tell? Fortunately there are people in the Google Earth Community who actually come from Burma, and one says the spot pictured below is the Yebya Golf Course. TaungMoe has identified a series of sprawling government ministries and university facilities, all involved in agriculture or forestry, and Ko Thant Zaw has indicated Chaung Ma Gyi Dam.

The above photo and the next two come from the aforementioned Flying Dutchman blog, where the authors were at a loss as to whether the workers were slave labourers or not. Either way, they have a long-term job here. As well as the houses, apartment blocks and hotels, the area is haemorrhaging military barracks, factories and longhouses for … the construction workers.

Uh, what is the capital of Burma doing here anyway?

Simple: Crowded Rangoon has no more room, and this is a government with bigger and better things in mind.

Or: The junta wanted to be closer to those colourful Shan, Chin and Karen ethnic people, just in case there’s any trouble and they need help, or if they forget that they’re Burmese.

Or: The junta is fed up with foreigners screaming at them and wanted some peace and quiet way up in the hills.

Or: If those insane Americans started firing rockets from the Bay of Bengal, the generals have more time to hide in the warren of underground tunnels they built here before the luxury hotels and the mall were put in place over top.

Or, and this is, like, totally cool: The best kings Burma ever had would move the capital every once in a while because a fortune-teller told them they ought to. The seat of government migrated from Amarapura to Mandalay to Rangoon, among other places, and now at least it’s back in “Mandalay Division”, the generals having also heard the word. This would explain the massive monument they’ve built in Naypyidaw, starring the great Mon rulers Anawrahta, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya U Aung Zeya. Those huge statues are in the little oval in the inset.

And this is the parade ground next to the statues. The Burmese military, the Tatmadaw, is vast. Every young boy is dying to be recruited.

There are religious structures in the area, as seen in the image above right, though these clearly predate the government’s move here. What the other thing is I have no idea.

These are military administration buildings alongside the Yezin Dam.

This is evidently the one where Than Shwe makes his daily decisions, eg, “defence or offence?” Some wag on Wikimapia has labelled it, “Insert cruise missile here.”

The property salesperson’s piece de resistence, but sorry, folks, it’s for drooling purposes only: Than Shwe’s residence, as “confirmed” by Maungde on YouTube and by Wikimapia.

Common real-estate purchasers will have to settle for the downmarket zones.

And, as a gratuity to travellers, a handy guide to an insane place.