History
The British 'discovered' Pyin U Lwin after the capture of Mandalay at the end of the Third Burmese War. An early Englishman described it thus: "Pyin-u-lwin, a charmingly situated village of some five and twenty houses, with a market-place and a gambling ring, won our hearts. ... I inspected a curious magnetic rock in the neighbouring jungle. Some years afterwards it was described as a new discovery by a geologist of note. It has been lost again, but will doubtless be found some day." Herbert White, "A Civil Servant in Burma". The British soon established a military post there and the village was renamed Maymyo May Town after the commander of the post, Colonel May, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny. Within a few years, after it was connected to Mandalay by rail, it became the summer residence of the British Government in Burma the civil service would move, almost to the man, from Rangoon to Maymyo. A little later, it was made the headquarters of the Burma Division, a largely Gurkha and Indian division, and the remanents of that division forms the core of the 'Nepali' population of Pyin U Lwin. White goes on to describe it as "Without pretension to the picturesque, it is a place of great charm and quiet beauty, with no palm trees and few pagodas, conspicuously un-Oriental, more like a corner of Surrey than of Burma." While the Surrey analogy will seem a stretch to anyone who has visited Surrey, Pyin U Lwin still seems less like Burma than almost anywhere else in the country.
Read
Ellis, Beth, An English Girl's First Impression of Burma, Bangkok, Orchid Press, 1997. First published in 1904, Beth Ellis's book is an irreverent look at the British Empire set in the hill town of Maymyo she calls it Reymyo - Pyin U Lwin in modern times.
Theroux, Paul, The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia, Penguin Books, 1995. In his rail travel classic, Paul Theroux does the journey from Mandalay to Maymyo, meets the caretaker of Candacraig, and then stays in the lodge itself. His journey, set during a time when Burma was an impossibly closed country, is a lot easier today but is still recognisably the same. A must read!
Understand
Once the summer capital of the Raj in Burma, Pyin U Lwin retains some of the 'hill station' look that cities like Darjeeling and Simla in India used to have in the 1960s and 1970s. Because of its history as a summer capital and a military centre of the Indian Army during British times, it has both a large Indian population and strong Anglo-Burmese and Anglo-Indian communitues. As a town near the border of China, many Chinese people are also settling down in this pleasant hill town. It is also an important market centre for goods from the Shan State and Kachin territories. It is also the home of the Defence Academy of the Burmese military, and an important military base.At an elevation of 1070 metres above sea level,there is an abundance of flowers, strawberries, and coffee beans, that will make you find a curiously diverse place on your visit.