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.

Many new hotels, cafes and restaurants have recently opened in town during 2009, and a sign of the times are the new sets of traffic lights on the main roads!

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 and literary and biography 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 was published in Burmese in December 2008.  Excellent background to the history of the town.  He can usually be found at Sa Kan Tha Hotel on the Lashio Road.

• Photographs of social activity, 1920s

• All Saints' Church, Cemetery

• Photographs of church activity from early Maymyo

• Kandawgyi National Gardens (some new photos and history) and Landmark Gardens

• U Soe Lwin's photo blog of Mandalay

• Some war time reminiscences - Ann Dear

• List of Governors of Burma to 1948

• http://groups.google.com/group/the-trek-out-of-burma-1942

How to get to Pyin Oo Lwin

Comfortable buses are now available throughout the country, and they offer the most economical way to visit Pyin Oo Lwin from Yangon.  Travellers can save over $150 on a return journey compared to air.

Glorious in autumn (lush greenery), winter (perfect blue skies and amazingly starry nights),  spring (strawberries and cream, flowers, fresh fruit and wonderful  vegetables).  Summer starts in late April (Thingyan festival) with most rain between June and September. 

Pyin Oo Lwin Weather now

 Normal annual high: 32c;  lowest low: 1c

July: 85f(max), 70f(min) (see Calendar)

The monsoon rains were preceded in May by an unusually long cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, and with it much needed early rain.  Now, July, the monsoon rains have swept in with nightly storms and showers, cleaning the dust from the trees, and encouraging the dead leaves to fall and new leaves to sprout, leaving all green and fresh.  Generally overcast, but long views over the countryside.  Birds are busy doing their things, and gardeners busy doing theirs.  Several new good hotels and restaurants have recently opened, all with very reasonable prices.  The town is bustling with a new-found vigour (though too many motor bikes)

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 (Shwe Myanmar has a stand at the airport Arrivals Hall - $4 per person) to the roadside stop for Pyin Oo Lwin taxis.  The cost of a seat in a shared taxi is about $6-7 (or about $25 for 4 foreigners sharing). The first option takes about 1.5 hours, the second about 2.5 hours altogether.  Click here for taxi phones.

It's also possible to get from Mandalay to Pyin Oo Lwin by train (5 hours), bus (2.5 hours), or Hilux pickup (3 hours, cheap and uncomfortable).  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.

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 $8 in the lower bracket (see Grace Hotel) and $20-25 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.

Lots of places to eat, ranging from Feel (international quality and ambience) to Food Markets which are set up outside the Main market and the Shan market from about 4pm onwards.  Quality and hygiene varies, and MSG is on the wane.  See Where to Eat