Yangon, Myanmar-For 15 years, Aung San Suu Kyi waited in her lakeside villa, confined to the small plot of land under house arrest, dreaming of her return to the world.

On Monday, the world, or a big piece of it, came calling on her.

The gates, topped with barbed wire, swung open and a black presidential limousine pulled into the driveway. Out stepped President Barack Obama, pressing his hands together and bowing ever so slightly-a gesture the Burmese democracy leader, dressed in a green scarf, peach blouse and black sarong, returned.

They shook hands, and then another figure rushed forth and hugged her in a long, emotional embrace. It was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and outside the gates, a crowd had gathered and could be heard chanting: "Obama! Freedom!"

The leaders of the free world had come with a message of hope for 60 million Burmese, but it was this bow and this hug, with this one resident, that symbolized the most-a scene almost unimaginable just two years ago when Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, was still a prisoner in her own home and Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by a repressive military junta.

Released in 2010, she is now a member of parliament, and she visited Obama at the White House in September.

"I'm proud to be the first American president to visit this spectacular country, and I am very pleased that one of my first stops is to visit with an icon of democracy who has inspired so many people, not just in this country but all around the world," Obama told reporters in a brief appearance with Suu Kyi after they met privately.

He added: "Here, through so many difficult years, is where she displayed such unbreakable courage and determination. It's here where she showed that human freedom and dignity cannot be denied."

And it was here that Obama sought to show that the United States is serious about helping Myanmar emerge from five decades of repressive military rule and move down the path toward democracy. The people, or at least many of those in the old capital city, seemed ready for it.

The president's stop here was the first of two that made history Monday as he continued his trip through Asia, the region he believes holds the most promise for American economic growth and security in the coming decades.

Obama has been trying to reorient American foreign policy from the greater Middle East, where more than a decade of war has dominated the country's diplomatic and military resources, to the growing powers of Asia. As Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, said before the trip, "Our pivot to Asia will be a critical part of the president's second term and ultimately his foreign policy legacy."

After meeting with President Thein Sein, the civilian leader who took control of the country from the junta, Obama for the first time referred to the country as "Myanmar," the name used by the nation's own leaders.

In 1989, a year after brutally crushing pro-democracy demonstrations, the junta changed the name of the country in English from the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma to the Union of Myanmar.

Those student-inspired protests spread across much of Myanmar, and eventually led to a military crackdown that killed thousands of citizens. Suu Kyi emerged as a leading opposition figure, and a year later, her pro-democracy party won a parliamentary majority, although the military junta refused to give up power.

More recently, a group of monks led the so-called Saffron Revolution in 2007 amid public unrest over spiking fuel prices. Suu Kyi's villa again became a focal point of the movement, put down violently by the military.

In the afternoon, Obama arrived at Yangon University, a center of pro-democracy demonstrations nearly 25 years ago, to deliver a speech about the country's future.

"I came here because of America's belief in human dignity," the president told hundreds of students in the lecture hall, as Clinton, Suu Kyi and U.S. Ambassador Derek Mitchell sat in the front row. "Over the last several decades, our two countries became strangers. But today, I can tell you that we always remained hopeful about you-the people of this country."

He cautioned that the country must not become complacent, adding that the "flickers of progress . . . must become a shining North Star for all this nation's people."