Mawlamyine

Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; မတ်မလီု ; ; ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth largest city of Burma (Myanmar), 300 km south east of Yangon and 70 km south of Thaton, at the mouth of Thanlwin (Salween) River. The city is the capital and largest city of Mon State, Myanmar and is the main trading center and seaport in south eastern Burma.

Etymology and legend
The Mon name which was previously used for Mawlamyine, Moulmein (MY မတ်မလီု; ) means "damaged eye."

It is said to derive from Mot-Mua-Lum, meaning "one eye destroyed". According to legend, a Mon king had a powerful third eye in the centre of his forehead, able to see what was happening in neighbouring kingdoms. The daughter of one of the neighbouring kings was given in marriage to the three-eyed king and managed to destroy the third eye. The Burmese name "Mawlamyine" is believed to be a corruption of the Mon name.

History


Mawlamyine was the first capital of British Burma between 1826 and 1852 after the Tanintharyi (Tenassarim) coast, along with Arakan, was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Yandabo at the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War. After the first Anglo-Burmese war, the British made it their capital between 1826 and 1852, building government offices, churches and a massive prison. They started business enterprises and the country’s first newspaper.

Mawlamyine is the setting of George Orwell's famous 1936 memoir Shooting an Elephant. The essay opens with the striking words:
 * "In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me."

During colonial times, Moulmein had a substantial Anglo-Burmese population. An area of the city was known as "Little England" due to the large Anglo-Burmese community, many of them running rubber plantations. This has since dwindled to a handful of families as most have left for the UK or Australia.

It is probably best known to English speakers through the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay:
 * "By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea
 * There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me".

"The old Moulmein pagoda" - Kyaik Than Lan
The "old Moulmein pagoda" Kipling cites is thought to be the Kyaik Than Lan (also spelled Kyaikthanlan) pagoda in Mawlamyine. It stands on a ridge, giving a panoramic view of the city, and is surrounded by 34 smaller temples. Among its sacred treasures is a hair relic of Buddha, received from a hermit in Thaton, as well as a tooth relic conveyed from Sri Lanka by a delegation of monks.

Built in 875 CE during the reign of King Mutpi Raja, it was raised from its original height of 56 ft to the present 150 ft by successive kings including Anawrahta, founder of the Bagan Dynasty. (Anawrahta is also credited with the construction of the Shwedagon Pagoda in 1056 AD. )

Geography


Mawlamyine is in the Salween River delta, where the mouth of the Salween is sheltered by Bilugyun Island as it enters the Gulf of Martaban and the Andaman Sea. It is flanked by low hills dotted with ancient pagodas to the east and west.

Transport
Mawlamyine is the main gateway to south eastern Myanmar. Thanlwin Bridge, the longest road and rail bridge in Myanmar is the most prominent landmark in the area. It stretches 11000 ft over the Thanlwin River connecting the country's south eastern region with Yangon. The city is connected to Pa-an in Kayin State and Dawei and Myeik in Tanintharyi Division by road. It was the rail head to Ye, linked to Yangon by rail only from Mottama (Martaban) across the river by ferry, but today connected by the Thanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine) opened in April 2006.

Railways
Mawlamyine Railway Station, which was reportedly built to the standards of an "ASEAN railway station", is the terminus of Myanmar Railways' Bago-Mawlamyine-Dawei line from Yangon.

Airport
Mawlamyine Airport has regular flights to Yangon. In 2013, Nok Air of Thailand started its daily flight to Mawlamyine from Mae Sot, Tak Province, Thailand.

Cityscape
Around the city
 * H.R.H. Princess Ashin Hteik Suhpaya 's tomb: The fourth daughter of the last King of Burma Thibaw Min (The King in Exile), H.R.H. Princess Ashin Hteik Suhpaya (aka Princess Mayat Phaya Galay) died in Mawlamyine in 1936. Her tomb is located near Kyaik Than Lan Pagoda. The remains of her son, Prince Terrance (aka Taw Phaya Nge) and her daughter, Princess Margret (aka Hteik Su Phaya Htwe) were also buried in the tomb in the later years.
 * Mon State Cultural Museum (Mon Ethnic Cultural Museum)
 * Santawshin Pagoda: Santawshin Pagoda is located on Taung Paw (Taung Yoe Tan) Road, Mawlamyine. It is a good place for sunset viewers.
 * Kyaik Than Lan Pagoda: The pagoda is the city's largest stupa and located on Taung Paw (Taung Yoe Tan) Road, Mawlamyine. The pagoda commands the stunning view of the city, nearby islands, Gulf of Martaban, surrounding rivers and the limestone mountains of Kayin State in the east. Rudyard is believed to have written his famous "Lookin' lazy at the sea" line at this pagoda.
 * St Matthew's Church: It was built in 1887.
 * First Baptist Church: It was initially built in 1827 by Adoniram Judson, a 19th-century American missionary who compiled the first Burmese-English dictionary.
 * Bilu Island (Belu-kyun): The local meaning of the island's name is Orge Island. It is located just opposite to the west of Mawlamyine. The island is famous for handicraft and Mon traditional culture.
 * Mottama (formerly Martaban): A small town located opposite to the north bank of Mawlamyine was the first capital of the Hanthawaddy Kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries after the collapse of Pagan (Bagan) Empire in 1287.
 * Pa-Auk Forest Monastery: The original Pa-Auk Forest Monastery is located in a forest along the Taung Nyo Mountain range 15 kilometers southeast of Mawlamyine.
 * Win Sein reclining Buddha: 29 km south of Mawlamyine is the world's largest reclining Buddha at Mudon. It is approached by a roadway with 500 life size statues of Arahant disciples of Buddha and a hall whose chamber walls display scenes of Buddha's lifetime, and the underworld.
 * Thanbyuzayat War Memorial - 64 kilometers south of Mawlamyine is POW cemetery and the death railway connected with the Bridge over the River Kwai.

Economy
Mawlamyine is famous for its tropical fruits and for its cuisine as indicated in the popular Burmese expression, "Mandalay for the speaking, Yangon for the bragging, and Mawlamyine for the eating."

Mawlamyine had several sawmills and rice mills as teak and rice are transported down the Salween. It was once a busy shipbuilding center and remains an important port. The city had a solar-powered plant for extracting salt from seawater and a diesel electric plant.

On the night of 1 December 2008, a fire that started from a floating restaurant destroyed the larger of city's two markets called the lower bazaar.

On 27 May 2009, three bomb explosions in Mawlamyine were blamed on terrorists by the authorities. No casualties were reported.

Culture
Mawlamyine is key to communications in Tanintharyi and, being a busy seaport and transport center, it provides a multicultural dimension despite a Buddhist Mon majority. Buddhist cultural dominance is as old as Mawlamyine, but the British annexation in the 19th century introduced Christianity. St Patrick's School, Mawlamyine (now BEHS-5, Mawlamyine) was opened by the De La Salle Brothers in 1860. Moreover, expansion of trade and commerce in the early 20th century established in Mawlamyine a Hindu culture of India (so-called Galakhar).

The First Baptist Church in Mawlamyine was constructed in 1827 by the legendary Adoniram Judson, an American missionary who spent nearly 40 years in Myanmar (Burma) in the early 19th century. The building is a masterful blend of Western and local elements, with the materials and building technology speaking directly to Mon cultural traditions and crafts expertise. In 2015, the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar announced that it gave an award of $125,000 to World Monuments Fund (WMF) to restore the historic First Baptist Church in Mawlamyine through the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. Nearby stands the St. Mathew’s Anglican church, erected in 1887 and still in use, although like many of the city’s heritage buildings in a state of picturesque decay.

Today, the Mon State Cultural Museum is in the city.

Education
Mawlamyine has 13 public high schools, three universities, an institute and a college. The University of Mawlamyine, which was established in 1953 is the major university for the south eastern region and offers both bachelor's and master's degree programs in liberal arts and sciences. The University of Mawlamyine is the third oldest Arts and Science university in the country after Yangon University (est 1878) and Mandalay University (est 1925). Mawlamyaing University is one of few universities in Myanmar, offering a degree in Marine Science. Its Marine Science Laboratory in Setse, a coastal town about 83 km south of Mawlamyaing was the first of its kind in Myanmar. Technological University (Mawlamyine) offers technological and engineering courses. The Computer University (Mawlamyine), which is affiliated with UCSY is located in outskirts of the city. Mawlamyaing Education College and Mawlamyaing Institute of Education are also located in the city.

The St. Patrick's School (now B.E.H.S No.5) founded in 1860 and Shin Maha Buddhaghosa National School founded in 1899 are popular public high schools in the city.

The first international student of Bucknell University, Class of 1864, Maung Shaw Loo—born in 1839 in Moulmein—was the first Myanmar medical doctor and native Burmese who studied Western Medicine and was graduated in the United States.

Sports
The 10,000-seat Yamanya Stadium is one of the main venues for popular local and regional football tournaments. The stadium is also a home for Southern Myanmar FC, a Myanmar National League (MNL) football club.

Sister cities
Mawlamyine established a Friendship City agreement with 🇺🇸 Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA in 2016.