[Myanmar] Morning in Pyin Oo Lwin

8 min readJan 30, 2017

Historical Bit:

Formerly referred to as Maymyo, Pyin Oo Lwin is a hill town in Mandalay Division, in the Shan Highland, at an altitude of 1,070m (slightly lower than the Grouse Mountain Peak Chalet).
The town was a military outpost and the summer capital of British Burma because of its climate (too hot/humid in Rangoon –currently Yangon).
In Burmese, Maymyo literally means “May’s Town,” which was named after Colonel May, a veteran who served in India/Bengal region, when he was stationed at the town in 1887. The military government of Burma renamed it Pyin Oo Lwin.
George Orwell (the author of “1984” and “Animal Farm”) was posted here for a short time before he moved back to Mawlamyine with his grandmother. He wrote a few short stories about Burma from his experience.
The people in Pyin Oo Lwin are not necessarily ethnically Burmese, as they are mostly descendants of those who were brought to Burma by the British to build railways and colonial buildings, including the Indians and the Gurkhas. During the Japanese occupation, the Anglo-Burmese population was incarcerated because the Japanese feared their loyalty to the British. Today, Pyin Oo Lwin consists mostly of Anglo-Burmese and Anglo-Indians. There is also a diverse mix of Chinese, Chin, Kachin, Karen, and Shan communities.
-Wikipedia

With our objective to ride a train over the Gokteik Viaduct, sadly we didn’t plan on spending too much time in Pyin Oo Lwin for this trip. Myanmar is not a small country and with bus services as the main transportation, we had to cut down on a fair number of cities and towns for our month-long stay (I die a little inside every time I do this). Margaret prioritized the destinations that we had to visit, and I calculated the travel time/route as I drew a map. We were to set out for Mandalay at noon so we only had a morning to spend at Pyin Oo Lwin. From the options of Maymyo Botanical Garden and Anisakan Falls, we chose to look at some flowers. In the end, we are from Vancouver, we all have been to Butchart Garden at some point, and we all love trees ;)

We talked to the reception lady to get a share-taxi to Mandalay and she set up an appointment for us. She recommended taking a tuk-tuk to the garden to save time and riding a horse-and-cart on the way back. She also told us which gate usually has horse-and-carts waiting and told us that if we don’t get back by certain time, she will assume there are no transportation and send a tuk-tuk to another gate (Burmese people certainly arrange everything for you). When we got on the tuk-tuk, the whole reception team came out to wave us good-bye. They seem to do this every time people leave, which makes me feel like I’m going on some great adventure.

Maymyo Botanical Garden (National Kandawgyi Park)

6000 kyat (5 USD) –entrance fee including camera fee, 8am-6pm

It was first established in 1915 by Alex Roger, a Forest Officer, modelled after the Kew Gardens (one of the Royal Gardens in London). In 2000, the garden was renamed “Kandawgyi National Gardens” to promote extensive ecotourism in Myanmar.

There weren’t many people when we arrived around 8:30am. There were several small family outings, flowers getting watered, some interesting-looking birds. We set a general route to see the garden and walked around.

The Botanical Garden has a lot of indigenous and foreign trees and flowers (and other plants). They also have birds, as well as endangered wild animals, like takins. Takins are a type of goat-antelopes, sometimes called “bee-stung moose” because of their face. I only spotted 2 of them.

As the morning started to heat up, more and more people came in, including kids on field trips.

We couldn’t miss the walk-in aviary. They had quite a variety of birds.

The moment the male peacock spread his feathers, the female ones instantly started walking towards him. Cool sight.

After visiting the aviary, we headed to the Butterfly Museum. The Botanical Gardens has 3 museums: the Fossils Museum (fossils of animals), the Petrified Wood Museum (fossils of plants), and the Butterfly Museum.

Right outside the Butterfly Museum is the orchid portion of the garden, which is in collaboration with the UK based Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) to conserve the indigenous orchids.

Already 2 hours have passed, so we began walking towards the exit. More locals were coming in for picnic, as well as the swans in the lake, as people were feeding them bread crumbs.

There were so many fish here that the swans were just standing on them and picking up food from their heads.

Thankfully, there were quite a few horse-and-carts at the gate. And pleasantly enough, the horses had nice hair, with some decorated with flowers on their manes.

It took about 5 minutes to the garden by tuk-tuk, and 10 minutes back to the guest house by horse-and-cart. After we got off, the coachman stroked his horse and went back alongside it.

Sweater knitting, flower and vegetable gardens, strawberry and pineapple orchards, coffee plantations, and cow rearing are the main local businesses of Pyin Oo Lwin, which prompted me to try coffee before departing. Not far from the guest house was Barista-Khine Coffee Shop. We tried cream strawberry and coffee, which were both VERY good. I wanted to buy coffee from here but they only sold coffee harvested from Yangon. I managed to find coffee grown from Pyin Oo Lwin when I got to Kalaw after more than week.

We slowly walked to the guest house for the time of shared taxi.

Aung San Suu Kyi calendar! She is greatly loved.

The shared taxi picked us up at 11:50am and drove on for 2 hours to Mandalay. Shared taxis are cheaper and faster option for transportation between the cities. We call them to reserve our spots, they give us time, and they pick up and drop off passengers anywhere between the initial and the final locations. There are small extra fees for air-conditioned taxis.