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Comment by mhh__ | Hacker News Reader

I think this is also the road featured in Top Gear a while back.

I know nothing about Myanman politics so I won't wax poetic about anything

I haven't even seen that Top Gear episode but I'm sure it's the same one. This, the main highway in Naypyitaw, is very famous for its incredible width and underutilization. Trip Advisor rates it the #2 best place to visit in the capital city: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g2036450-d1213...

I've been there. It is awesome. Myanmar, I mean.

If you want to feel like someone in the movie Passengers Naypyitaw on a national holiday is an awesome place to do it. There is this vast swaths of infrastructure working and rarely a soul to see. Build for 20 million with barely one living there.

Amazing place, amazing people (when you get to find them) and amazing food.

The video appears to be taken from this spot, facing roughly due west:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/19%C2%B046'33.0%22N+96%C2%...

After the vehicles pass through the roadblock, they can be seen to turn left, heading towards the Presidential Palace.

I think the point of these super wide and straight underutilized roads is to be usable as landing strips. I think the swiss have some highway stretches like that too, but not in the middle of the capital.

The city itself is pretty sparse.

> Myanman

Is there an adjectival form of Myanmar? I've been assuming we were stuck with "Burmese" regardless of whether we called it "Burma".

Yes: it's Myanma, so it's the Myanma government.

That's the official adjectival form according to the Myanmar government. However, in practice I've never seen it used (even in Myanmar). People tend to either say Burmese or simply use Myanmar as both noun and adjective, as in, "the Burmese language" or "the Myanmar language".

Tediously complicated explanation:

Burmese is tonal, and has both the noun "Myanma" and the related but not identical adjective "Myanma". The noun has a low tone and a long "a", which reflecting British pronunciation was spelled "Myanmar". The adjectival form uses the creaky tone with a short "a", hence it's supposed to be spelled "Myanma" without the r.

In practice, though, nobody cares and everybody says "Myanmar" for both, even the official English translation of the constitution, which says "Myanmar language".

"Myanman" or "Myanmarese" are both wrong though.

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