Travel Day 1154 – Mandalay to Pyin Oo Lwin, MYANMAR
Visiting Shwebo had been a very special experience, but arriving in the British colonial hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin simply felt outlandish and surreal…
British built Red-Brick Croxton Hotel in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar
After my extremely nice lunch invitation yesterday in Shwebo, I had left town on the last bus departing for Mandalay. While Shwebo and Mandalay were technically very close to each other, the bus ride took quite a long time, mainly due to the fact that we had to detour a bit to catch the bridge across the Ayeyarwady River. On the other hand, this little detour gave me the chance to have a brief look at all the many temples and stupas of Mingun and Sagaing, leading me to think that I would definitely have to come back at some point…
With the knowledge that the Mandalay area had enough to offer even for future trips, I was off today in a quite adventurous pick-up ride to the once British colonial hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin. Since the only train from Mandalay was departing at 4am and it took some 4 ½ hours, using the pick-ups seemed the better solution especially as they were leaving frequently and supposedly doing the tour in half the time. Well, we could have done the tour in half the time, but since we dropped-off and picked-up goods or people everywhere, I had to hang on to the overloaded pick-up for quite a bit longer than initially expected…
British All Saint’s Church in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar
But once we arrived in surreal looking Pyin Oo Lwin, I was in for a pleasant surprise: The weather was much more comfortable. This was especially surprising as the former British summer retreat was admittedly considered a hill station, but it was actually situated in a pretty flat countryside. Either way, the British apparently knew very well already where to find a comfortable location for a European visitor and so I immediately felt more alive and full of energy, which I obviously used for some on-foot explorations…
Pyin Oo Lwin itself had been founded as a military outpost by the British under the name of May-town in 1896 and later it was obviously used as a cool summer retreat for the wealthy colonial masters at that time. Today Pyin Oo Lwin felt strangely out-of-place somehow with all its European looking red brick houses, but this surreal town was also feeling quite relaxed, low-key and clean. It seemed in fact as if it was still a summer retreat, but probably nowadays rather for the wealthy local people…
Former British Club in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar
The other reason why Pyin Oo Lwin felt very different from any other place in Myanmar I had been to was due to its high population of Indian and Nepali people who settled in the area during times of the British rule. For me it was one more reason to feel right at home and I decided to spend at least two days here to see as much as possible of this nice small town with its colonial architecture. This was especially the case because all the colonial red brick and timber structures seemed to be in remarkably good condition and still in full use…
Some of the most noteworthy buildings that I passed on my walk today were the tall All Saint’s Church, the former Croxton Hotel and the Candacraig Hotel which once used to the British Club. All these colonial edifices were a great testimony of what a homey European feel Pyin Oo Lwin must have had in its heyday and the leftover horse buggies of that time even added to the flair of this quite surreal feeling hill station in the middle of Myanmar…
Find all Pyin Oo Lwin Photos here.
Leave a Reply