On Saturday at dawn a bus will arrive in the bustling port city of Rangoon after an 18-hour journey from a small town high in the mist-wreathed, forested hills on Burma's border with China.
Moments later Cho Cho Win, 48, and Min Zeyon, 54, will be reunited.
Neither expected to see each other so soon. Four years ago, Min Zeyon was given a 65-year sentence for his part in demonstrations against the repressive regime which has ruled the south-east Asian nation for decades. Just last week, Cho Cho Win told the Guardian she had "little hope".
On Friday morning Cho Cho Win learned she had been wrong to despair. Her husband was among around 600 political prisoners released by Burmese authorities in a mass amnesty.
"I am very happy he has been released," she said. "He called me this morning after he was freed. He is now travelling on an air-conditioned bus all the way home to me. He will arrive at 5am."
The first signs of the scale of the amnesty – which surprised observers already struggling to keep up with the pace of change in the isolated and repressive country – came on Thursday evening with an announcement by state TV that 600 prisoners would be freed in the interests of national reconciliation.
But no one knew exactly what this meant. A "clemency order" 10 days ago, the fourth since a civilian government took power in March 2010, saw only a meagre 12 political prisoners released. Around 600 remained behind bars.
On Friday, however, small groups of detainees were released from different prisons around the country until it became clear that almost every major political prisoner had walked out of the filthy, overcrowded jails in which they had been held, sometimes for decades.
They were greeted by scenes of jubilation. Top political activists, leaders of repressed ethnic minority groups, journalists and relatives of senior officials who had fallen out of favour were all allowed to walk free.
The move is the latest in a series of increasingly radical reforms over recent months which have consistently surprised observers.
Authorities in Burma, ruled since 1962 by a secretive military clique though under a nominally civilian government for the past 22 months, appear to be making a major effort to end their long isolation through meeting international demands for democratic reform and the protection of basic human rights.
There is much ground to make up. Last week former prisoners described their time in Burmese jails to the Guardian and the repression that led to their incarceration.
San San Tin, 64, was arrested for hiding five activists, including her own daughter and niece, following protests in the summer of 2007. These were sparked by price rises but quickly grew into a demonstration against the regime.
She described how during four years of solitary confinement in a foul cell in a prison near the northern city of Mandalay she shouted and sang to hear the sound of her own voice.
Other prisoners, held on criminal charges, were beaten for talking to her, she said. The conditions were horrific with insects, lice, disease and poor food.
Dozens of relatives of jailed activists interviewed by the Guardian in Rangoon all told similar stories. Many of those released were detained after the wave of protests in 2007. Footage of police firing teargas and live rounds at monks protesting on the streets ensured global attention but only for a short period. The crackdowns went on for months.
Detainees were usually arrested late at night by teams from the police or feared military intelligence. They were then transferred to prison where they were held dozens to a cell. Trials were held in their place of detention, with one lawyer supposedly representing dozens of accused.
Than Naing Oo, who was one of the few detainees released earlier this month, described 110 prisoners crammed into a 16-metre-by-10-metre room before and after trial.
"There were lots of insects, no cleaning, no disinfectant, mosquitoes. Tuberculosis sufferers were in there too with everyone else," he said.
To get more space, medical treatment or better food – standard rations consisted of lentil soup and rice with bad meat twice a week – inmates needed to bribe prison guards. Others described lice, cockroaches and endemic gastric or respiratory problems.
Prisoners were held far from their homes. Relatives told of travelling for days by bus and boat to reach prisons where they were able to see their loved ones for less than half an hour.
Authorities know such journeys strain family budgets, particularly when the primary wage earner is incarcerated. Thad Zaw, 65, needed to travel from Rangoon to Sheibu prison, hundreds of miles to the north to see his only son, a veteran activist who spent 14 of the last 22 years behind bars but was released on Friday.
For 55-year-old Su Su Kyi activism is a family affair. Her sister, son, daughter and even a neighbour have all been imprisoned in recent years. One niece was released three months ago after serving a four-year sentence. Su Su Kyi saw her daughter, held in Mying Chan prison near Mandalay, once a month and received rare letters.
She told the Guardian that she had taught her daughter's three children how to reply to taunts about their jailed parents, who had both received sentences of 65 years.
"I told them to be proud of their mum and dad. They are not criminals, even if they were in prison. Everything they have done, they have done for the good of the people of this country," she said.
In the evenings, when the grandchildren are back from school, she prepares dinner. Pictures of the jailed members of the family line shelves next to images of the Nobel prize winning democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi as well as her father, Aung San, who is seen as the founder of independent Burma.
"My father was a freedom fighter and fought with Aung San against the British and the Japanese. My parents were always telling us about politics and about rights," Su Su Kyi said.
Another niece, released in a recent amnesty after four years of an 11-year sentence, sat on the floor of the apartment talking to a 29-year-old neighbour, a medical student forced to abandon his studies after being jailed as an organiser of a youth protest group called Generation Wave loyal to Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy. They recounted prison without emotion.
"As an activist, I was psychologically prepared. I knew I could be arrested," she said.
Su Su Kyi's daughter, Thet Thet Aung, was released on Friday after more than four years of detention. She was due to arrive at her aunt's small flat in a run-down working-class neighbourhood in the centre of Rangoon on Friday night. Her husband, released only recently, had travelled to the bus stop to greet her.
"Today I am so happy because my wife and comrades are free for us to work together for democratisation," he told the Guardian.
Most relatives of political prisoners were keen to show that they had borne the separation from their loved ones with fortitude. Wa Wa Win married a student leader, Pyonecho, when they were both at university.
Since their wedding in 1988, he has been free for only two years. The couple have no children – "there has been no time" she says – and see each other once every two or three months. Win used to travel for three days but recently has received help from the Red Cross to get a plane to Kaunt Thang prison where Pyonecho is being held.
"I would love my husband to be released but I am not hoping for anything. We were students when we married and I too was an activist. Being married to him, I still am," Win said last week. It was still unclear on Friday night if Pyonecho was free.
But others admitted suffering terribly. Cho Cho Win remembered being devastated when her husband was arrested. "They came in the night and took him," she said. On Saturday morning, shortly after the moment when the overnight bus from the north-east arrives at the packed terminus, he will return home.
Those released in the latest Burmese amnesty
Min Ko Naing, 49
A student activist at Rangoon university, he became a leader of the pro-democracy uprising in 1988. He has spent most of the last 23 years in prison, often in solitary confinement. He was most recently jailed in 2007 for his campaigns in support of political prisoners and to encourage freedom of expression.
Nilar Thein, 39
Jailed first for her involvement in the 1988 unrest, Thein was detained several times subsequently and was serving a 65-year sentence for "illegal use of electronic media and "illegal organisation" when she was released yesterday. "I'm healthy and happy to be released and happy to see my baby," she told the BBC. Thein's daughter was born four months before her most recent imprisonment. Authorities restricted her access to the child.
Ashin Gambira, 33
A monk who was serving a 63-year sentence for his prominent role in the September 2007 "Saffron revolution". He told the Democratic Voice of Burma website on his release that the authorities "still have characteristics of the dictatorship". He added: "What kind of democracy is this? They had to wait until today to release us."
Khun Htun Oo, 68
An activist, politician and democracy campaigner from Burma's Shan ethnic minority, he was serving a 93-year sentence for treason in the remote Putao prison near the Chinese border. "I feel no emotion about this because I didn't deserve to be arrested in the first place," he said on his release.