Travel Guide Mawlamyine

Mawlamyine is an ideal starting point for exploring lower Burma. First Moulmein, the British capital between 1827 and 1852 was renamed Mawlamyine. The port, which was once used to transport teak, is still active but overtaken by that of Yangon and Pathein for international traffic. It is an airy city, shaded by palm trees, facing the bay of Martaban. Separated from the town of Mottama by the Salouen river, it is accessible by boat and by a gigantic bridge joining Mottama, having definitively put an end to the wild charm of the bay and the pleasures of its early morning crossing by motor pirogue. Its 300,000 inhabitants, Môn, but also Karen, Burmese, Chinese and Indians, live from the exploitation of rubber and cotton, whose cultures are visible throughout the region. The only town in the country that Rudyard Kipling actually visited seems to have a hint of colonial nostalgia in the air