Coming to Mawlamyine was one of the best decisions we made on our trip. We arrived here on a bus from Bago and we walked into the Lonely Planet’s favoured Breeze guesthouse. We decided however we didn’t want to spend our 5 nights in town in one of their ‘boat cabins’ and so we ended up checking-in in Aurora guesthouse on the Lower Main Road. Our plan was simple. Rent a motorbike, drive around the sights in and around the city and wait for our travel buddies we met in Mongolia – Angel and Jeff – to climb with the less famous and less touristy sister of the Golden Rock north of the city.
Mawlamyine is a nice town with many run down colonial style buildings which gives it lots of charm. There are a few interesting pagodas, a colonial prison, a few hindu temples, some mosques and surprisingly quite a few churches. The city has also some other gems that we discovered. For example the Cover Girl beauty parlour, where they have the best hair wash ever as well as a good foot spa. The restaurant at the riverbank called Grandpa’s and Grandma’s, profits of which go to a house for seniors.
