Pyin Oo Lwin
- Welcome
- History
- Around
- To See
- To Stay
- To Eat
Welcome to Pyin Oo Lwin (Maymyo)
Pyin Oo Lwin offers visitors cool days and nights, peaceful rural roads and tracks for walkers and cyclists, trekking in the fruit and flower producing countryside, and interesting shopping. Old times can be re-lived with coach rides, and many historical and beautiful places are within easy reach. Just over an hour's drive from Mandalay, Pyin Oo Lwin is an ideal and refreshing destination for visitors to Upper Myanmar. The National Kandawgyi Gardens annual flower show is a treat! Bigger and better than even before this year.How to get to Pyin Oo Lwin
From the Mandalay International Airport there are two choices: either hire a taxi directly to Pyin Oo Lwin (cost about $45 - negotiable); or take a taxi into Mandalay to the Unity Hotel (about $15 - fixed price). There is a roadside stop for Pyin Oo Lwin taxis here, with the cost of a seat in a shared taxi about $7 (or about $25 for 4 foreigners sharing). The first option takes about 1.5 hours, the second about 2.5 hours. Click here for taxi phones. It's also possible to get to Pyin Oo Lwin by train (5 hours), bus (2.5 hours), or Hilux pickup (3 hours). Hotels can advise on these. Train bookings and tickets can be bought only at Mandalay Railway Station. Trains run right through to Hsipaw and Lashio.A historical town
This website tries to provide a view into some of the history that is rarely mentioned in guide books, as well as drawing attention to aspects of the town which are well known to the locals, but which tour guides may skip over. Take your time and enjoy! For some historical perspectives of Pyin Oo Lwin click here, and for a map click here. Festivals and monthly flowers and zodiacs are here. A new book, 'Pyin Oo Lwin' by U Chit Swe has been published in Burmese in December 2008. Excellent background to the history of the town.Staying in Pyin Oo Lwin
Pyin Oo Lwin has hotels from top class down. Comfortable country inns with good food and service, medium range hotels, and budget hotels - all give that old-fashioned individual attention and assistance. Overall, price is a good guide to quality and comfort. Despite inflation prices have remained quite stable. Best bargains are about $6 in the lower bracket (see Grace Hotel) and $25 in the upper (Royal Park View). Budget travellers should check out Dahlia Motel, too. A Suite for two at the Kandawgyi Lodge costs around $75. Hotels are currently offering good discounts. In the off-season (after mid-April to end September) bookings aren't needed. It's worth calling in advance for rooms in the better hotels since they do fill up occasionally - on the weekends near Full Moon days, for example.
During the early 1900s the Government of Burma moved to Maymyo (the earlier name of present-day Pyin Oo Lwin) to escape the heat. Although the original Government House (left), constructed in 1903, was completely destroyed in about 1943, many houses, shops and churches from that period remain. An exact replica of Government House has now been built as a high class hotel, and there are plans for a Maymyo Museum to be housed in it. The original town plan has hardly changed, and Circular Road runs along the bottom of the ridge, once known as The Rides, a favourite colonial recreational area. In actual fact, there were a number of horse riding trails, radiating out from the town into the countryside, and these were very well used until the early 1940s. Today various unmarked traces of these rides can be found, often looking like country tracks, even in well populated areas. 
Maymyo sprouted from the campsite where the British troops rested before beginning their conquest of the Shan States. Named for a British officer, Colonel May, the town gained rapid fame among the colonialists as a pleasant refuge and desirable army posting. The Tai wondered at the choice of townsites; it was a scenic spot, washed by cool breezes and pine needle scent, but there were no paddy fields or irrigation canals. Such places were suitable only for tough mountain tribes who practiced hai farming, the most basic form of shifting hill-cultivation. But then the British didn't come as farmers, everyone knew. Throughout the Shan States they chose high, rocky places from which to rule.
Daily, trainloads of pianos, silver tea services and bulky furniture crawled up from the Mandalay plain and disgorged their contents on the railway platform, causing knots of English women to squeal at the crushing of hat boxes and the overturning of fine china. The wives of Sikh and Gurkha soldiers waited anxiously for trunkfuls of saris. Crates of Bibles and bandages were deposited at the feet of American Baptists, who operated schools and hospitals in remote valleys. Maymyo was a jumping off point for a great cultural spread engulfing the Shan States.
Outside the station, horse drawn Gharries – covered taxis imported from India – waited under the clock tower for the new arrivals. They departed one by one down Station Road with a clatter of hooves on cobblestones, toward the tall pines that ringed the town and shaded its country mansions. There were a few especially large buildings hidden in the suburban forest, including Candacraig, the bachelors' chummery for the Bombay Burmah Trading Company, which held the teak forestry concession.
St Joseph's convent school was bigger than Candacraig but there was a homey, cottage-like feel to the place. Its buildings were clad in sun-warmed rosy-coloured bricks. Extracts from Wanderings in Burma – George W Bird, 1897
May-Myo is the head-quarters of the Pyin-u-lwin Subdivision of the Mandalay District. It is a military cantonment, and a civil and military police-station.
The principal public buildings are the barracks and officers' quarters, the court-house, military and civil police posts, the Public Works Department and Forest Department rest-house bungalows, and the postal and telegraph offices. There is also an inland trade customs station where returns are kept of the traffic from and to the Shan States.
Climate (in 1897): Total 50.30 inches (rainfall)
To the Burmans of the plains, the climate is unsuited, but natives of Northern India, Gourkhas, and Europeans, who pay adequate attention to dress and dwelling houses enjoy excellent health.
History. Of the history of the place little is known. It appears to have been alternately subject, either to the King of Ava, or the Sawbwa of Thonzé.
Alaung-pya settled some thousands of his Siamese and Shan captives in the neighbourhood of Pyinulwin.
The captives were originally kept in and around Ava, and many were allotted as slaves to the King's Ministers. ….
In the neighbourhood of the town are the remains of an old fort, said to have been built by the Chinese, during one of their incursions into Burma.
Mindon Min started works here for the formation of a large lake to supply his capital with water, but it was never completed.
Now that the Shan Hills Railway has been sanctioned, which will pass through May-Myo, it will no doubt, in the near future, become the hill resort of large numbers of people from Mandalay, and even from Rangoon and other parts of Burma. Although the site has neither the elevation nor the scenery of many of the Indian hill stations, it is the nearest approach to be got at present, and as such will doubtless be a popular resort.
Itinerary. The best way to get expeditiously to May-Myo from Mandalay is to ride. With two ponies, and a bullock-cart for servants and kit, the journey up can be comfortably made in two days…..The return journey can be made in one day, by sending off your cart and servants to Nyaungbau the day before, with your spare pony. Extract from Golden Earth – Norman Lewis, 1951
But if unadventurous and simple by French colonial standards, life in Maymyo was full of solid comfort. It was quite extraordinary to experience the sensations so often associated with fatigues and discomforts of remote places in these well ordered surroundings, to lie at dawn between well laundered sheets, watching the flocks of green parakeets in the tree tops, and listening to the early jabbering of exotic birds. Fifty yards from my window, beyond the show of sweet peas, the jungle was kept in check behind an iron railing. The jungle was not particularly exuberant, and had been made to look rather like a gentleman's sporting estate in the Home Counties, by the cutting through it of numerous walks and avenues. In the early hours there was a great scratching of fowls down by the fence, and as it seemed unlikely that the Consul, a dashing figure, should keep chickens, I went down to inspect them. I was amazed to find that they were actually jungle-fowl, a cock, with mane and rump of copper and glinting blue thighs, with his numerous harem. As no one had ever bothered them you could get within a few yards and watch their bright, busy foraging among the leaves. Duffy, the Consul, said that they were there every day as he had resisted the servants' implorings to shoot them; he knew that as soon as the first shot had been fired, this decorative adjunct to his demesne would vanish for ever.
Extracts from Land of the Crested Lion – Ethel Mannin, 1955
"You will like Maymyo," everyone said. "It is like England!"….More welcome was the assurance that it was 'cool'. Actually at mid-day it was 85°f…..But the wind was cool, and when the body has been wet, day and night, for weeks, it is astonishing and very pleasant suddenly to realize that one's skin is dry.
But Maymyo is not really 'English'; it is much more like 'French Riviera', with its avenues of eucalyptus trees and its bougainvillea-covered walls and arbours. In what Burmese call 'The English Time' it was a very popular hill-station, as indicated by the street names – The Mall, Downing Street, Church Road, Club Road. The houses are red brick, with vaguely pseudo-Tudor effects in the shape of nailed on timber. The residential area is mostly pine woods, with English-style half-timbered houses standing back in large gardens.
The town itself is nothing much. There is a main street of open fronted shops, but no wandering cows and comparatively few pariah dogs……
Extract from The Forgotten Land – Gordon Hunt, 1967
Maymyo in those days was perhaps one of the loveliest hill stations in the whole Far East. It was only an hour's drive from Mandalay. True, the drive was a tortuous one as one climbed from the dreary plain of the Irrawaddy into a land of rich red soil, rolling hills covered in oaks, gracious houses with gardens rich in colour the year around. Government House, Flagstaff House. A paradise for the privileged, a place where sick men convalesced if they were lucky enough to belong to the right firm. Tourists had never been heard of. Who, anyway, had heard of Maymyo?..... Its centre was the club. It sprawled and stretched overlooking polo grounds and fairways of a golf course maintained to international standards. But all this display of opulence, this Victorian extravaganza, was nought compared with what the Forestry Department had done. Like a complicated necklace of interlaced jewels they had encircled the station with a hundred miles of well-kept rides. There was Ladies' Mile, Five Mile Bottom, Rotten Row, a whole maze of pathways for a man or woman on a horse, every yard beautifully kept, even hurdles for those who wished to jump. Nowhere in the world have I seen anything to equal it.
Extract from Video Night in Katmandu – Pico Lyer, 1988
The scent of elegy was most haunting amidst the pine-scented country lanes of Maymyo. The Motor Association Head Office was crumbling now, but it still took its place proudly on the main street beside the Golf Club Repairing Shop and Diamond Confectionery. Down Charing Cross Road and through Downing Street stepped horse drawn victories redolent of a gas-lit London. And all around the hills were snug little half-timbered cottages with names like All in All, and Fernside, tidy with flawless Cotswold gardens. The queen of them all, of course, was Candacraig (formerly the 'chummery' of the Bombay-Burmah Trading Company), the boarding house where roast beef and vegetables were served at seven sharp every evening, and coffee was taken by the fireplace. I could hear the central town clock tolling with the same chime as Big Ben.
Extract from I Lived in Burma - ECV Foucar, 1956
In Maymyo the war was resolutely thrust aside (March 1942). The Club was crowded each evening, one of the great attractions being whisky, then almost unobtainable in the shops. This was rationed, a glass barrel being filled each night to limit the supply. Early arrivals flocked to the bar for their share; late comers found the barrel empty. To those who came up from the front it must have been strange to encounter the seeming inconsequence of life in the hills. In the plains men fought continuously against a superior and pitiless foe; contended, too, with sun, fever and a lack of water; made do with inadequate equipment and weapons. Yet Maymyo enjoyed dancing at the club, strawberries and cream for tea, and all material comforts.
Thingyan - Extract from Myanmar Traditional Monthly Festivals - Dr Khin Maung Nunt, 2005
Usually the date of Thingyan festival falls in mid April. Normally it lasts three days but in certain years four days. The day before the festival begins is called "Akyo Ney" which means the even day of Thingyan. The first day of the festival is called "Akya Ney" which means the day Thagyar Min descends to earth. On this day when the exact time of his descent is announced either by beating the big drum (in old days) or sounding the siren or by the report of the cannon, people perform the Thingyan rite of pouring lustral water out of the Atar pot. A new earthen pot of about four to six inches in diameter especially made for Thingyan festival is known in Myanmar as "Atar Oh". It is filled with clear cool scented water, and is placed in the front of the house. Sprigs of seven kinds of flora representing seven days of the week, such as Ohn Let (coconut palm leaf) to represent Sunday, Gantgaw (Iron wood) of Khayey (Star flower tree) for Monday, Sein Pan (gold mohur tree) for Tuesday, Ywet Hla (Croton) for Wednesday, Myey Zar (Couch grass), Thursday, Thi (Wood apple tree) or Than, Friday, and Dan (Henna) for Saturday. are arranged in order in the Atar pot. Sprigs of Thabyey (Eugenia) are also added because Thabyey, like Laurel, is the symbol of victory for the Myanmar people.
When the report of the Thingyan cannon signals the descent of Thagyar Min, the Atar pot is raised up above the head to welcome him, and then the water is poured out to symbolically cleanse and purify the world and its peoples. The sprigs are then made into a bouquet to be placed at the entrance of the house to usher in the New Year.
The second day of Thingyan is called "Akyat Ney" which means the day Thagyar Min goes round inspecting the moral behaviour of human beings. Usually the inspection day is one day. But, according to the calculations of the astrologers, there can be two inspections in certain years. Next comes the "Atet Ney" which means the day Thagyar Min ascends to his Celestial Kingdom. The exact time of the ascent is announced by a signal such as beating drum or cannon report. Thingyan Sa (a bulletin predicting the time of transition into the New Year and climatic and crop predictions to be expected in that year) is issued by a board of eminent astrologers. Sometimes the future situation of the world is foretold in it.
Goodwill, loving kindness and cheerful heart vibrate the spirit of Thingyan. People go out to perform religious and social works such as keeping sabbath, meditating, visiting pagodas and monasteries for worshipping or alms offering, paying homage to the monks, parents, elders, superiors and teachers, bathing and shampooing the aged, cleaning up one's home and surroundings, and throwing cool scented water at passers-by to cleanse them. Thingyan is a Myanmar national festival held on a grand scale, in which all Myanmar nationalities, regardless of age, race, class and religion participate and revel in water pouring.
Thingyan - Extract from an account of Thingyan by Major Michael Symes, in An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1795
On the 12th April, the last day of the Birman year, we were invited by the Maywoon to bear a part ourselves in a sport that is universally practised throughout the Birman dominions on the concluding day of their annual cycle. To wash away the impurities of the past, and commence the new year free from stain, women on this day are accustomed to throw water on every man they meet, which the men have the privilege of retorting. This licence gives rise to a great deal of harmless merriment, particularly the younger women, who, armed with large syringes and flaggons, endeavour to wet every man that goes along the street, and, in their turn, receive a wetting with perfect good humour. Nor is the smallest indecency ever manifested in this or any other of their sports. Dirty water is never cast; a man is not allowed to lay hold of a woman, but may fling as much water over her as he pleases - provided she has been the aggressor. But if a woman warns a man that she does not mean to join in the diversion, it is considered as an avowal of pregnancy, and she passes without molestation.
About an hour before sunset we went to the Maywoon's and found that his lady had provided plentifully to give us a wet reception. In the hall were placed three large china jars, full of water, with bowls and ladles to fling it. Each of us, on entering, had a bottle of rose-water presented to him, a little of which we in turn poured into the palm of the Maywoon's hand, who sprinkled it over his own vest of fine flowered muslin. The lady then made her appearance at the door and gave us to understand that she did not mean to join in the sport herself, but made her eldest daughter, a pretty child, in the nurse's arms, pour from a golden cup some rose-water mixed with sandal-wood, first over her father, and then over each of the English gentlemen. This was a signal for the sport to begin. We were prepared, being dressed in linen waistcoats. From ten to twenty women, young and middle-aged, rushed into the hall from the inner apartments, and surrounded and deluged without mercy four men ill able to maintain so unequal a contest. The Maywoon was soon driven from the field; but Mr Wood, having got possession of one of the jars, we were able to preserve our ground till the water was exhausted. It seemed to afford them great diversion, especially if we appeared at all distressed by the quantity of water flung in our faces. All parties being tired, and completely drenched, we went home to change our clothes and in the way met many damsels who would willingly have renewed the sport. They, however, were afraid to begin without receiving encouragement from us, not knowing how it might be taken by strangers; but they assailed Baba-sheen and his Birman attendants with little ceremony. No inconvenient consequences were to be apprehended from the wetting; the weather was favourable, and we ran no risk of taking cold. Having put on my dry clothes, we returned to the Maywoon's and were entertained with a dance and puppet show that lasted till eleven.
Usually the date of Thingyan festival falls in mid April. Normally it lasts three days but in certain years four days. The day before the festival begins is called "Akyo Ney" which means the even day of Thingyan. The first day of the festival is called "Akya Ney" which means the day Thagyar Min descends to earth. On this day when the exact time of his descent is announced either by beating the big drum (in old days) or sounding the siren or by the report of the cannon, people perform the Thingyan rite of pouring lustral water out of the Atar pot. A new earthen pot of about four to six inches in diameter especially made for Thingyan festival is known in Myanmar as "Atar Oh". It is filled with clear cool scented water, and is placed in the front of the house. Sprigs of seven kinds of flora representing seven days of the week, such as Ohn Let (coconut palm leaf) to represent Sunday, Gantgaw (Iron wood) of Khayey (Star flower tree) for Monday, Sein Pan (gold mohur tree) for Tuesday, Ywet Hla (Croton) for Wednesday, Myey Zar (Couch grass), Thursday, Thi (Wood apple tree) or Than, Friday, and Dan (Henna) for Saturday. are arranged in order in the Atar pot. Sprigs of Thabyey (Eugenia) are also added because Thabyey, like Laurel, is the symbol of victory for the Myanmar people.
When the report of the Thingyan cannon signals the descent of Thagyar Min, the Atar pot is raised up above the head to welcome him, and then the water is poured out to symbolically cleanse and purify the world and its peoples. The sprigs are then made into a bouquet to be placed at the entrance of the house to usher in the New Year.
The second day of Thingyan is called "Akyat Ney" which means the day Thagyar Min goes round inspecting the moral behaviour of human beings. Usually the inspection day is one day. But, according to the calculations of the astrologers, there can be two inspections in certain years. Next comes the "Atet Ney" which means the day Thagyar Min ascends to his Celestial Kingdom. The exact time of the ascent is announced by a signal such as beating drum or cannon report. Thingyan Sa (a bulletin predicting the time of transition into the New Year and climatic and crop predictions to be expected in that year) is issued by a board of eminent astrologers. Sometimes the future situation of the world is foretold in it.
Goodwill, loving kindness and cheerful heart vibrate the spirit of Thingyan. People go out to perform religious and social works such as keeping sabbath, meditating, visiting pagodas and monasteries for worshipping or alms offering, paying homage to the monks, parents, elders, superiors and teachers, bathing and shampooing the aged, cleaning up one's home and surroundings, and throwing cool scented water at passers-by to cleanse them. Thingyan is a Myanmar national festival held on a grand scale, in which all Myanmar nationalities, regardless of age, race, class and religion participate and revel in water pouring.
Thingyan - Extract from an account of Thingyan by Major Michael Symes, in An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, 1795
On the 12th April, the last day of the Birman year, we were invited by the Maywoon to bear a part ourselves in a sport that is universally practised throughout the Birman dominions on the concluding day of their annual cycle. To wash away the impurities of the past, and commence the new year free from stain, women on this day are accustomed to throw water on every man they meet, which the men have the privilege of retorting. This licence gives rise to a great deal of harmless merriment, particularly the younger women, who, armed with large syringes and flaggons, endeavour to wet every man that goes along the street, and, in their turn, receive a wetting with perfect good humour. Nor is the smallest indecency ever manifested in this or any other of their sports. Dirty water is never cast; a man is not allowed to lay hold of a woman, but may fling as much water over her as he pleases - provided she has been the aggressor. But if a woman warns a man that she does not mean to join in the diversion, it is considered as an avowal of pregnancy, and she passes without molestation.
About an hour before sunset we went to the Maywoon's and found that his lady had provided plentifully to give us a wet reception. In the hall were placed three large china jars, full of water, with bowls and ladles to fling it. Each of us, on entering, had a bottle of rose-water presented to him, a little of which we in turn poured into the palm of the Maywoon's hand, who sprinkled it over his own vest of fine flowered muslin. The lady then made her appearance at the door and gave us to understand that she did not mean to join in the sport herself, but made her eldest daughter, a pretty child, in the nurse's arms, pour from a golden cup some rose-water mixed with sandal-wood, first over her father, and then over each of the English gentlemen. This was a signal for the sport to begin. We were prepared, being dressed in linen waistcoats. From ten to twenty women, young and middle-aged, rushed into the hall from the inner apartments, and surrounded and deluged without mercy four men ill able to maintain so unequal a contest. The Maywoon was soon driven from the field; but Mr Wood, having got possession of one of the jars, we were able to preserve our ground till the water was exhausted. It seemed to afford them great diversion, especially if we appeared at all distressed by the quantity of water flung in our faces. All parties being tired, and completely drenched, we went home to change our clothes and in the way met many damsels who would willingly have renewed the sport. They, however, were afraid to begin without receiving encouragement from us, not knowing how it might be taken by strangers; but they assailed Baba-sheen and his Birman attendants with little ceremony. No inconvenient consequences were to be apprehended from the wetting; the weather was favourable, and we ran no risk of taking cold. Having put on my dry clothes, we returned to the Maywoon's and were entertained with a dance and puppet show that lasted till eleven.