A day in Mawlamyine, the first capital of British Burma

After the Golden Rock, a major pilgrimage site for Buddhists, a completely different atmosphere awaited us at our next stop. Mawlamyine, still known as Moulmein, was the first capital of British Burma, between 1827 and 1852. It remains today a capital, that of the Mon state.

A place known and frequented by literary greats since Rudyard Kipling made a short stay there while George Orwell even lived there for several years as a police officer!

For the record (thanks my friend Wikipedia), the name means "lost eye", because a Mon king lost one of his eyes there (well it's not specified, but I imagine it was during a battle...)

Kinpun – Mawlamyine route

It was once again by bus that we made the journey between these 2 stages. Count 7 kyats per person and about 4 hours for the journey, via a short stop at Thaton (not to be confused with Thaton in northern Thailand of course).

It seemed to have its charm, but no stopping for us, we continued our route to Mawlamyine.

When you arrive, it's the usual broom of touts who want to take you straight to your hotel. I think to myself that sometimes it's tiring. The simple fact that they want to leave so quickly even though I haven't yet collected my luggage from the hold exasperates me a little.

In addition, we want, even if we are at the bus station, to buy our ticket directly for the next day, heading for Hpa An, our last stop on this 2014 trip to Burma.

Choosing your hotel in Mawlamyine

Once we had our ticket in our pocket, we were ready to head to our hotel... now all that was left was to find it... or rather choose it...

In our travel habits, we often leave ourselves "gaps" where we do not book a hotel, in case our initial plan changes, but also because there is sometimes more choice on site than via booking sites. In short.

Despite this, we were initially going to one of the hotels recommended by the LP and which we had heard another tourist, on the same bus as us, was going to.

And our tuk tuk of the moment takes us to Cinderella Hotel. Warm welcome with a small glass of orange juice, pink house and rather chic atmosphere.

Unfortunately full… but that's where we see that some people really have a notion of service. Even if we weren't going to sleep there, the little girls at the reception offered to call other guesthouses in the area for us, depending on our budget.

We finally booked one with space and went there, warmly thanking the staff of the Cinderella Hotel for their welcome, however brief it was!

Well, here, a change of scenery. Arriving in front of the facade of the Aurora GH, I go up to scout the room. Very basic, overlooking the street with just a fan. For those who might be interested, we later saw in a street not far from there, the Pann Su Wai Guesthouse, which looked newer and better than ours.

As we are only staying one night and this one is $12 I won't ask myself the question for too long. That will do.

Visit Mawlamyine in less than 24 hours

In all, we remained on site less than a day, because we wanted to spend a little more time in Hpa An. At the end of the afternoon, we just scouted out the surroundings, going in particular towards the edge of the river, enjoying the sunset as we passed.

There is a large square with street restaurants in the evening. Before finding a restaurant, we first went to a temple not far from there, in order to make a donation.

We met there a talkative old monk. Jitima is not used to their style, in the sense that while in Thailand contact between a monk and a woman is forbidden, here, he asked to have his photo taken, with her, then me too.

For a moment we thought he was inviting us to follow him to the neighborhoods where he sleeps... but no, not really.

After that, we went back to the riverside where we had spotted a restaurant that looked good, and with air conditioning too… (yes, sometimes it does feel good), so we had dinner at Yokko restaurant.

Discovering Mawlamyine on foot

The next day we launched into the city ​​tour on foot, recommended in the guide. Tour which will take us just under 2 hours.

Kyaik Than Lan Pagoda

But just before that, we were going to visit one of the main temples of the city, Kyaik Than Lan Pagoda, located on a hill, it offers a view of almost all of Mawlamyine.

From there you can see the river, the old colonial prison, the bridge that is the pride of the city, and the city itself, in almost 360 degrees, which you can see is lost in the green tuft that surrounds it.

Although many hotels seemed full (well, apparently there weren't that many either), we hardly encountered any tourists during our entire stay in Mawlamyine.

The old buildings and architecture of Mawlamyine

Back at the hotel to check out, we set off again straight away for the walk. We will pass in turn in front of a municipal park, the Arab quarter, a group of small streets with facades of old colorful houses, in front of a mosque, not far from a church.

Of course, we come across several colonial-style buildings and houses. As it was already time to eat, we were looking for a restaurant in the area. Luckily, there is one not far away, renowned, located on the edge of the river and opposite the old cinema/theater.

So we had lunch at the restaurant soberly called "Grand-père et Grand-mère", which looked a little old-fashioned, but the food was still good and part of the income was donated to an association which takes care of elderly people abandoned by their families.

In the absence of grandparents, it is a young boy begging with his young sister, who we will help, ordering an extra meal at the restaurant, which we will give him on the way out, enough to bring out that little shy smile in the photo.

After the restaurant we walked back to the main street we were walking on. It's a pretty commercial street, not much really interesting apart from a mosque, some old buildings from the colonial era.

Around the Mawlamyine market

Further on, it was towards the market, which also runs along the river, that we continued the walk. We had at that point seen the essential part of this walking tour and by the same token, considered that we had seen Mawlamyine's essentials (rightly or wrongly, take your pick!)

Museum of Mon Culture

Looking at the guide to find out how to spend the rest of this half day before taking the bus to Hpa An, we see that there is a Mon Culture Museum, the ethnic group that makes up 75% of the population of the state where Mawlamyine is located.

The Entrance to the Mon Cultural Museum was 2 kyat. each. It is quite basic inside, exhibiting Mon craft products, instruments, many Buddha statues from different eras, some objects that belonged to the local royal families etc.

It's not a must-have, I think, but hey, considering the price, it made the time pass.

Even after that we still had almost 4 hours to kill… So we said to ourselves that we just had to return to Yokko restaurant, enjoy the wifi and air conditioning to relax, have a drink and have lunch. After all, it's good to rest a little.

I know that not far from Mawlamyine, there is a huge Buddha lying on a whole part of a hill, it was even one of the reasons for our passage here, but paradoxically, we did not have enough time since in fact it is a few kilometers from there, out of the way, and once again, priority was given to Hpa An…

If you have already been to Mawlamyine, have I really missed anything?