In Myanmar, the scene of bold public protests and a brutal crackdown in recent weeks, there is now talk of more demonstrations. From the educated elite to the struggling rickshaw drivers, all speak with conviction that it will happen in the next three months. Eminent Myanmese literary figure, 92-year-old Ludu Daw Ahmar, who is admired for her outspoken anti-government views, said: 'This is the beginning, we must face them. We are struggling, but victory is with us.'
But victory seems a long way off for those in the streets of the northern city of Mandalay, where the wheelchair-bound Ahmar lives, and even more remote in the country's heavily policed former capital Yangon.
In both cities, martial law remains in place between 10pm and 4am. Razor wire and road blocks are stationed outside Buddhist monasteries, Buddhist universities and the holy Sule and Shwedagon pagodas. Soldiers wearing flip-flops guard these sites with semi-automatic machine guns and wooden crates of bullets.
Myanmar's revered monks captured the world's attention last month when they joined civilians in the biggest anti-government protests in two decades. But today few monks can be seen anywhere in either Yangon or Mandalay. They are not on the streets collecting alms or in their monasteries.
The South China Morning Post visited more than a dozen monasteries and Buddhist universities in both cities in the past week, and few monks were in residence. Many had returned to their villages, while others remain detained by the military which used batons, tear gas and guns to stop the protests last month.
A Myanmese business journalist, who could not reveal his name, said the protests would come in waves. 'It is like the sea. This was the first wave and it will be followed by another wave soon, maybe in November or December. People will rise up. They are angry, but they will protest peacefully again,' he said. 'They [the military] will fire and people will be killed like before. People know this.'