BACK IN THE DAYS of the British Raj, Burma was considered such a hardship post—so hot, so remote, so difficult, and so lawless—that Rudyard Kipling called it "unlike any land you know about." Even George Orwell, who spent five years here as a colonial policeman in the 1920s, found it tough enough for his liking. Some intellectuals here see their crazy government prophesied in Orwell's later books, Animal Farm and 1984. But his 1934 novel, Burmese Days, offers a more direct portrait—a deeply superstitious society in which the strong prey on the weak, and conspiracies are made with witchcraft, magic amulets, and knives in the back.

Astrology is Burma, Ma Thanegi told me. People look for a shortcut, a way to predict their Buddhist karma before it comes back to them. "It's cheaper than a shrink or a marriage counselor," she said. "We don't have any neurotic people thanks to astrologers. If you are failing in your profession or your life, it's not your fault. It's because of your stars."

The generals have taken this national obsession to new heights. U Ne Win, the dictator who completely isolated the country from 1962 to 1988, issued currency in unusual denominations—45 and 90—that added up to his lucky number. In 1970, the story goes, an astrologer said he would be killed from the right, so he decreed an overnight shift from left-hand to right-hand driving on Burmese roads. Than Shwe has continued this prudence, dispatching whole caravans of bureaucrats, and even hundreds of animals from Rangoon's zoo, to the new capital at auspicious moments. One convoy of 11 battalions and 11 ministries, I was told, left for Naypyidaw in 1,100 trucks at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

I wondered how my own karma was going to play out. My visa application specifically threatened "legal measures" for snoops who "interfere in the internal affairs" of the country. In addition to Naypyidaw and Pakokku, my dicey agenda included jumping the fence to see Aung San Suu Kyi—something I figured I'd do on my last day in Burma, just before beating a hasty retreat out of the country. So one muggy morning I joined a queue of upper-class Rangoon women outside the office of San-Zarni Bo, said to be one of the best fortune tellers in the land. As his sign read:

MODERN PROGNOSTICATOR SAN-ZARNI BO
B.SC (CHEM)
1ST. DEGREE (SORBONNE PARIS)

He proved to be a brown, bald, and commanding man, with a milky right eye hinting at second sight. As soon as I handed over $30, an assistant inked my hands and pressed them onto gray paper. San-Zarni Bo spent several minutes in a frenzied silence, applying a tape measure, compass, and ruler to the palm prints, making rapid calculations, and filling out charts. Finally, he looked up and delivered a 30-minute monologue in English that boiled down to this: My lucky dates are 1, 3, 9, 10, 17, 19, 21, 27, and 30, and my auspicious letters are A, M, S, T, and J. Any day of the month in that list is auspicious for me; any placename beginning with those letters is good, too. The past five months, he told me, had been full of "annoyances and disturbances." In two years, I would get married.

"Any questions?" he said.

A few. I was already married, and I had a nine-month-old baby boy at home; you don't get a better five months than that. But I told him only that I was planning something for my last day here. Something dangerous. Was May 1 an auspicious day? "Yes," he said. "The first is a good day for you. Go ahead."

Blessings secured, I set about plotting my immediate itinerary. During the hottest part of the afternoon, I went to the Savoy Hotel, an outrageously expensive relic of British rule, where I ran into another Western diplomat. He suggested the rosé ("made by two Germans up in Shan state"), and I asked about a rumor that all embassies would be moved up to Naypyidaw, far from the bars and markets of Rangoon. He didn't believe it. "Isn't that why they built the place?" he asked. "To get away from foreigners and monks?"

When it was first sprung on the world, Naypyidaw was closed to outsiders. In 2006, American biologist Alan Rabinowitz became one of the first foreigners to visit, on a Wildlife Conservation Society mission to coordinate a tiger reserve in Hukawng Valley. (The generals love tigers more than they dislike foreigners.) Rabinowitz told me I'd never get on the plane to Naypyidaw without special permission, but that the capital did have a "hotel zone." Meanwhile, I'd heard vague reports of vast golf courses, and read a blog by a Canadian who'd made it in by bus, although he'd been followed and made to stay in the hotel zone. In 2007, foreign press had been flown to Naypyidaw for Armed Forces Day celebrations, always closely minded, but few other journalists had ever gone. Now the diplomat was suggesting I could just get on a plane and go. "You'll never get into the civil-admin part, or the military part, though," he predicted.

The locals were dismissive of the place. The generals had moved to Naypyidaw "because of the stars," a Rangoon gem trader told me with a wry smile. "They spend all our money on this new capital. It is very nice. So nice."

He was being sarcastic. Naypyidaw was a barren place, he said. "Worst place in Burma. Terrible weather. They can change everything there but the weather."