When it comes to comix, twenty bucks had better go a long way. Well, Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles goes a long way indeed. For some of us, this lovingly-made hardcover might be the closest we ever get to taking a trip to Burma (notoriously a.k.a. Myanmar).

Delisle has written and illustrated two previous graphic accounts of trips to Asia: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, and Shenzhen: A Travelogue in China. In Burma Chronicles we see Delisle’s drawing and storytelling get even more refined, and at the same time, more personal. Even after all the coverage that washed over our PCs and TV screens with the recent surges of the Saffron Revolution, a more intimate sense of what life is like in Burma has somehow been missing. Thankfully, Delisle depicts so much with his simple panels: the near-unbearable heat and the intensity of “the rainy season”; the homes, so many of which look like “they were carved up by a mad architect”; the near omnipresence of government guards and the deeply-seated censorship that are part of Burmese life.

Delisle is an outsider, visiting with his family in support of wife Nadege’s work with Doctors Without Borders. Often left behind, Delisle does his best to be part of the strange new country he and baby son Louis find themselves in. In so doing, regular guy and great dad Delisle broadens his world: learning how to shop in village markets, teaching animation to a ragtag group of Burmese cartoonists, becoming fascinated with the life and story of National League for Democracy prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose home-turned-prison is just a stroller-walk away. Also nearby is a Theravadan meditation center. “Good grief,” reflects Delisle. “Reaching Nirvana must be something else. I better get started one of these days.”

Finally, near the end of the Chronicles, Delisle’s day comes, and he visits a vipassana temple for a three-day retreat. Though he’s an Westerner in Burma, his is a pretty typical first-retreat experience: he’s hesitant, he’s full of doubt, and then, slowly, the beauty and the weight of the experience settle in. By the times he leaves, there’s a change: “…if I’d known, I would have come here from the start of my stay and not waited till the end… After 42 hours of meditation in 3 days, I feel more peaceful than ever before, but also very alert.”

At that point, only a few more pages of Burma Chronicles remain, as the Delisle family packs to leave the country.

Where will they go next? It almost doesn’t matter. If Burma Chronicles is any indication, it’ll be worth the wait and, for sure, another twenty bucks.

You can get Burma Chronicles directly from publisher Drawn & Quarterly, here.