The first of its kind: an exploration of one of the most mysterious countries in the world, as told by one of the first outsiders to access the country in its entirety For almost fifty years Burma was ruled by a paranoid military dictatorship and isolated from the outside world. A historic 2015 election swept an Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government to power and was supposed to usher in a new golden era of democracy and progress, but Burma remains unstable and undeveloped, a little-understood country.