Amongst the men without shoes, the monks clad in red robes and women dressed in long traditional skirts, there are more than a few hunched over one of the icons of the modern age — the cellphone.
Looking out the dirty bus window it’s also hard to miss the cranes and workers busily building a new addition to Yangon’s climbing skyline, while ads for internet and cellphone companies adorn billboards all along the city streets.
Just a few years ago, none of this would have been possible. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was closed off from the rest of the world with little to no foreign investment, no internet access and no freedom of speech for its more than 50 million largely impoverished citizens.
After decades of being closed off from the rest of the world, Myanmar began a process of reforms in November of 2010, when the government moved from strict military rule to a military-backed civilian government.
Then in 2011, the government freed thousands of political prisoners, began to loosen censorship rules and even allowed internet access for the first time.