Obama calls for more Myanmar reform

President Barack Obama has called on Mynmar's leaders to step up their startling political reform drive.

Barack Obama is set to make history as the first sitting US president to visit Myanmar. Source: AAP

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has flexed US power in Asia on a regional tour that will make history when he lands in Myanmar (Burma), calling on its leaders to step up their startling political reform drive.

Obama touched down in Air Force One in Bangkok on Sunday, sending a message that relationships like the six-decades-old treaty alliance with Thailand will form the bedrock of US diplomacy as the region warily eyes a rising China.

On Monday Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit formerly isolated Myanmar. He will praise President Thein Sein for ending a dark era of junta rule, but also prod him to go much further towards genuine democracy.

Then, in a stark illustration of how far Myanmar has come, the US leader will stand side-by-side with democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi at the lakeside villa where his fellow Nobel laureate languished for years under house arrest.

Speaking in Thailand on the eve of the visit, Obama praised Myanmar's reforms but urged the regime to do more.

"President Thein Sein is taking steps that move us in a better direction," he told a press conference. "But I don't think anybody's under any illusion that Burma's arrived."

"The country has a long way to go. I'm not somebody who thinks that the United States should stand on the sidelines and not want to get its hands dirty when there's an opportunity for us to encourage the better impulses inside a country."

After a 19-hour journey from Washington, Obama first paid homage to Thailand's ancient history with a private tour of the Wat Pho temple, which is famed for a huge, golden statue of a reclining Buddha.

"What a peaceful place," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the president, who remarked that they were having a "treat" because the normally crowded tourist attraction had been cleared for their visit.

Then Obama called at Siriraj hospital in Bangkok for an audience with revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, seen as a symbol of continuity for a kingdom with a turbulent political past.

Obama and Clinton greeted and shook hands with the frail monarch, who turns 85 next month.

He also held talks with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra focusing on trade, regional politics, counter-narcotics issues and terrorism.

On Monday Obama will fly to Cambodia, and a likely tense encounter over human rights with Prime Minister Hun Sen, ahead of the East Asia Summit, the main institutional focus of his pivot of US foreign policy to the region.

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