As the plane from Bangkok circled over water-logged fields punctuated by gleaming bell-shaped temple roofs, I tried to imagine life in the country below - bleak, cut off from the world, and monitored by soldiers at every corner. How wrong I was.

Myanmar (Burma's name since 1989) has kept up with its Asian tiger neighbours and satellite dishes shower the cities with CNN and Korean soaps. It also wallows in natural resources: gold, rubies, oil, gas and timber bring in hefty revenues, and trade with China is booming. The capital's businessmen wear crisp white shirts and sarongs, and mutter into mobiles as they trip over broken pavements in their flip-flops. Leprous colonial facades stand beside characterless modern blocks. It's a strange, halfway, typically Asian world.

Then, as I tucked into breakfast at Yangon's Traders' Hotel, I saw that my fellow guests were from Italy, Spain, France, the US and the Far East - and most were tourists. Boycott? What boycott? Officially, 660,000 foreigners came to Myanmar in 2005, of whom only 3.5 per cent were British. Our historical links with Burma have encouraged most Britons to respect the tourism boycott called for by Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected leader held under house arrest by the ruling military dictatorship - and that has included me.