This country's new capital is virtually empty

World Blog

Pool / Reuters

A policeman drives down Yazahdani Road on the way to the President's Office before a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Myanmar's President Thein Sein in Naypyitaw on Thursday.

By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be forgiven for believing she's visiting two different countries – one called Naypyitaw, the other Myanmar.

Naypyitaw is the new capital of Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. It’s been built from scratch in the middle of nowhere. It's still a work in progress, it was only designated as the administrative capital in 2005, and until recently was largely off-limits to foreigners.

It’s a sprawling, surreal place with so few people that its eight-lane highways are almost deserted – a somewhat shocking site in this congested part of the world.

For several miles down one stretch, I saw just three motorcycles and a truck transporting a group of workers who had been tending the landscaped gardens on either side of the road.

Despite the apparent lack of people, Naypyitaw does have plenty of monstrous government buildings and villas, and several hotels and an international airport are under construction.

"Where's downtown?" I asked a Myanmar journalist. "I keep asking them that," he replied, “But nobody seems to know."

For many, Naypyitaw is a symbol of military ego, a metaphor for the former junta's isolation from the world – and its own people.

Pool / Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Myanmar's President Thein Sein at the President's Office in Naypyitaw Thursday.

Myanmar's new president, Thein Sein, a former army officer, is reportedly a modest man. But there's little modesty about his sprawling palace, where he and other officials from the new and nominally civilian government received Clinton in an ornate reception room. It was so new you could almost smell the paint. More >>