What a sensational, sunny morning for a motor-scooter ride, I thought to myself, as every mile proved more interesting than the previous one. I was following a two-lane "highway," a rural Burmese road that became increasingly narrower and potholed as I journeyed past endless rice fields, villages filled with waving children, and a row of towering mountains on the right that paralleled my track. Soon our entourage turned towards those mountains to follow a winding, upward path—a former road carved into the mountains during World War II, deep into a region that no Westerner had seen in six decades. I felt adrenalized.