Pyin Oo Lwin

Pyin Oo Lwin is an old British Colonial Hill Station, and home to Myanmar’s national botanical gardens. As such there are heaps of old colonial buildings in various stages of decay – fun for the Victorian architecture fans that we are,,,

 

There are cars, bikes, trucks and motorbikes, but tourists and locals alike seem to make use of crazy Victorian style horse and carriages, dragged around by half starved, half lame ponies. The pink plastic floral pony tribute was rather fun though!

 

The town centre had a bit of a wild west feeling to it…

The beautiful town Mosque and “Purcell Tower” – a not very attractive British legacy.

 

Tasty street food and weather that is cold enough for there to be shops that only sell jumpers. What more could one want????

 

The Botanical Gardens were beautiful beautiful. Although public spaces and gardens in Myanmar are usually very well kept these were particularly stunning, and the fact that there was no rubbish anywhere at all in sight made us think we had been transported to Australia, or somewhere else tropical and manicured… until we reached the area with the massive stage and karaoke/ band music blaring out for everyone to… enjoy???