When Rudyard Kipling wrote about the road to Mandalay, he conjured up an exotic land of pagodas and temple wind chimes.
Today, a more surreal sight greets visitors. In a desolate landscape of parched farm land, under the intense Burmese sun, stands a gleaming, state-of-the- art airport that puts terminals in the developed world to shame.
Mandalay International Airport has encountered a few unforeseen hiccups, however: a bumpy runway, few passengers and no foreign flights.
This great white elephant of an airport is the latest vanity project undertaken by Burma's ruling military junta. The unelected government - international pariahs because of their appalling human rights record and refusal to recognise the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi - have sunk £110 million into building the airport.
The only trouble is that the airport is a no-go zone for large aircraft such as Boeing 747s, which are used for many long-haul flights, because the runway is not smooth enough for the jumbo jets to land safely.
And even if it were, it's doubtful whether tourists would be queuing up to go to Burma anyway. Conscientious travellers have voted with their feet not to visit the beautiful "Golden Land".
Unwilling to contribute to the junta's coffers by providing them with hard currency - all visitors have to change a mandatory US$200 into special Burmese "tourist money", known as Foreign Exchange Certificates, on arrival - they have stayed away. Last year, just 240,000 tourists visited Burma, a drop of 14 per cent on 1999.
This boycott poses a problem for Mandalay International Airport. More than an hour's drive from the historic northern city, it is standing empty, unused apart from three or so internal flights each day.
It has everything an international airport requires: a sweeping car park, landscaped grounds, clocks showing time zones across the world and stacks of luggage trolleys.
Dodgy runway apart, the level of engineering used to build this startlingly modern airport is quite something. Built around a central glass atrium, the airport is light, airy and architecturally appealing.
Its designers have avoided the blandness that afflicts many airports by building the roof in the style of Burmese pagoda.
Leading up to this airport in the middle of nowhere is a brand new but deserted two-lane highway. Newly tarmacked, it stretches for miles and rarely sees traffic, let alone jams.
Anthony Davis, a regional analyst who has spent 20 years writing on Asia for publications such as Jane's Intelligence Review, says: "Burma's junta is still hoping that jumbo jets full of big-spending tourists and businessmen are going to be winging their way into Mandalay airport from Europe and Japan.
"The only thing to say about this is, 'dream on, generals', because it ain't going to happen."
The junta's desperate attempts to attract more foreign visitors with crazy megaprojects such as Mandalay airport are due in part to their mismanagement of the country's economy. Burma is facing its biggest financial crisis in recent years, with inflation rising sharply and some consumer goods doubling in price.
A British colony until 1948, resource-rich Burma was once among the most developed countries in the region.
Following the assassination of the independence leader General Aung San (father of Suu Kyi) in 1947, however, the country has effectively been ruled by the unelected military junta.
