ABSTRACT
Syed Islam, 1 a young Muslim in his mid-twenties, likes to boast about his epic journey from Myanmar (formerly Burma) 2 to Ruili, a bustling Chinese market town located in southern Yunnan, right at the Burmese border. Born and raised in Myanmar’s western Rakhine (formerly Arakan) State, he left his hometown a couple of years ago, and illegally crossed into Bangladesh. There, he bought a flight ticket and flew from Dhaka to Bangkok. Once in Thailand, local friends helped him travel by bus to Mae Sot, on the Thai-yanmar border, where he sneaked back into Myanmar, and made it to Yangon. From the former Burmese capital, which he could not directly reach from his native Rakhine State because of government travel restrictions, he made the journey northwards to the cities of Mandalay and Lashio, and then entered Yunnan a few days later.
