Pwin U Lwin: Riding the stagecoach!
February 13, 2007
We flew from Heho to Mandalay this morning, on an Air Mandalay flight was that eventless…if you choose to forget that the pilot did something of a high-speed slalom down the runway on takeoff that rattled passengers and crew alike. However, he got the plane in the air and then managed to hit the runway in Mandalay, so all’s well.
We hired a car to take us on the 3-hour drive up from Mandalay up here to Pwin U Lwin. This is a little town that has something I believe to be unique: A “taxi” here is a horse-drawn carriage that bears remarkable resemblance to stagecoaches of the old American West!
Taking the stagecoaches around town is absolute blast. I can’t say that they’re terribly comfortable, and they certainly weren’t designed for someone of my size. However, as far as I know this is only place in the world that has what I consider to be working stagecoaches, so I make the most of it, and anxiously look around to catch a stage coach no matter how close the next destination is. By the way, the stagecoaches are not some creation for tourists; they’re how the locals get around if they can afford it.
Other than the stagecoaches, perhaps the main attraction in town is the local market. Hundreds of stalls, ladies carrying in big loads of vegetables on their heads, and good-natured bargaining going on all around. And the monks! Every Buddhist male in Myanmar must spend some amount of time serving as a monk as a boy– some will do it for a few weeks, some will end up doing it for life. Each morning the monks collect alms, which can be either food or money, so you’ll see them all around town and at the market, making the rounds. They don’t tend to hit-up foreigners, though I always keep some small change for the odd ones who do.
At the market I got a few sweets for the hotel staff, and I also got them another treat. We were walking around the market and a guy wheeled by a colorful cart with paper tickets hanging from it. With the help of a few passerby we eventually came to understand that he was selling lottery tickets! I bought a dollar’s worth of tickets, and gave them to a nice Indian lady who works the front desk at our hotel. She was beaming when I gave them to her and seemed to get quite a thrill from it. The winning ticket gets about $1M US dollars, which in Myanmar is a sum beyond comprehension. I asked only that she email me if she wins, though I suppose I’d also expect her to name her next baby after me, etc.
While at the hotel we noticed that one of the guests was an older British gentleman. He was an absolutely classic Colonial Brit, something of a living caricature. I made a point of chatting with him, and it came out that he had retired in England, was unenthused about the style in which he could afford to live, and discovered that he could instead come to Myanmar and like a king…and enjoying a tropical climate to boot. We eventually had this exchange:
“I’ll fancy seeing what happens with your next election,” he said. “Your conservatives look like they’ll have a bad go, so I assume you’ll elect a liberal, don’t you think.”
“There’s a long ways to go,” I said, thinking it’s often best to be non-commital about politics when talking with strangers.
“Yes, well, if it’s a liberal then your next President will either be The Lady, or that little brown chap; what’s his name? Looks like one of these rickshaw drivers.”
I didn’t know whether to answer his question, tell him off, or burst out laughing.
“I think you’re referring to Barack Obama,” I said. I remained civil while we chatted a few minutes longer, and then made my exit. If Obama gets elected, then I’m guessing that not a day will go by that I don’t think of the Brit who said he looked like a rickshaw driver….
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Maymyo was a British Hill Station in the Colonial Days, which if nothing else means that the Brits would come up here from Mandalay to get away from the summer heat. As such, Pwin U Lwin has several interesting old hotels that have been around for a long time. The best known of these was formerly called Candicraig by the British (it’s now called the Thiri Myaing), and it looks more like a Swiss chalet than a hotel in upper Myanmar. We had stayed at Candicraig on previous trips here, and while I was game to try it again, Michelle didn’t share my enthusiasm. However, when we arrived in town and took a look at the room we had booked at the Royal Parkview, neither of us were overwhelmed, so we went out to look at other places to stay.
Candicraig was first on the list, and though it still looked the same from the outside, it seemed to literally be deserted. No guests, no front desk clerk, no gardening crew, nobody. The doors were open and we wandered around inside, but it wasn’t clear whether it was open. As we walked out, we encountered the first human that we’d seen on the grounds, a Russian lady working with the Myanmar military (which has a big presence in Pwin U Lwin). She had come to play tennis on Candicraig’s court. What was she doing in Myanmar? Her answer was evasive, so we assumed it was something juicy like “I’m the chief spy.” Anyway, she assured us the hotel was open, and volunteered to help root-around to find someone, but by then we’d decided to look elsewhere.
The reason for the decline of Candicraig is that it’s a government-run hotel, and in addition to an assumed lack of hospitality skills of government employees, travelers generally go to great pains to avoid places run the by government. The military government is repressive and incompetent, and has been on the International bad-list as they (a) killed a few thousand of their own people to put down a democratic uprising in the late 1980s, and (b) held open elections in 1990, lost badly to Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, then chose to ignore the results and throw Suu Kyi in jail. Some people avoid coming to Myanmar all together as a show of protest against the government, and pretty much anyone who does come goes to some lengths to avoid spending money in places directly run by the government.
Bob’s Ratings (1=terrible, 5=ok, 10=fantastic):
- Pyin U Lwin in general: 6
- Royal Parkview Hotel: 5
- Pyin U Lwin market: 6
Next: Sagaing - I can still make babies cry and women scream!