rulers for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery.
Home to some 375,000 people in the capital and nearby urban areas, it has a thin scattering of entertainments for those living there, including a couple of large malls, a bustling market area and a zoo.
Unconstrained by conventional notions of space, the city feels like an out-of-season theme park, with lonely multi-lane highways linking the colossal parliament complex to other attractions including a vast hotel zone, a glittering pagoda and a collection of white elephants.
While Suu Kyi is afforded her own two-storey home among those of city businessmen, the rest of the NLD’s MPs are housed with other opposition party members in guesthouses costing a government-subsidised 2,000 kyats a day.
The network of squat blocks sitting under the shadow of parliament are served by a row of identical minivans that ferry people to and from the legislature while a sentry box guards the entrance.
Win Htein, the NLD’s spokesman in Naypyidaw, described the housing as a “barracks”.
“The kind they put cadets in — military accommodation — although it’s not a boot camp,” said the 74-year-old as a constant stream of visitors crowded his living quarters.
But he acknowledges the camaraderie of living close together, as a group of party colleagues outside used the last of the evening light to kick around a traditional “chinlone” rattan ball, while some senior NLD figures chatted over tea at a small restaurant nearby.
But they did not linger long — in December local authorities banned political discussions in the compound and it is thought to be a favourite spot for special branch agents.
Military MPs, who make up a quarter of the legislature, are equally unimpressed with their housing.
“We do not even have a shop in our compound and have to drive more than 30 minutes to have a cup of tea with friends,” one army MP told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
Across town, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) MPs have a much better deal, cloistered within the walls of their enormous party headquarters.
“USDP housing is better than others. There is air-conditioning, fibre optic Internet and big spacious rooms. And it’s free,” said Shwe Maung, a lawmaker from the party.
The 331 USDP MPs currently dwarf the NLD’s contingent of 45 lawmakers, who mostly entered the legislature after 2012 by-elections which saw Suu Kyi elected for the first time.
But those numbers look set for a dramatic reversal with the November 8 polls, which are likely to send a wave of new NLD MPs into parliament.
As Myanmar’s political landscape prepares for its biggest upheaval in decades the government is also mulling new plans to construct dedicated housing for its lawmakers.
Veteran politicians Ohn Kyaing and Win Htein hope their housing troubles will soon become a distant memory as they ready to leave their humble digs, and seats, and hand the baton over to a new generation of MPs.