Thanbyuzayat Burma

The lively little commercial centre and transport hub of Thanbyuzayat lies around 60 kilometres south of the capital Mawlamyine, and a roughly equivalent distance north of the state’s second town, Ye.

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Although at present no tourist-licensed accommodation is offered, several sights of interest lie in and around town. The market and tea shops of Thanbyuzayat centre — bustling to the point of hectic — are also worth a stop in their own right. Originally this was an old tin-mining centre (Thanbyuzayat apparently means tin shelter) and you can still see an old Victorian bandstand-style building in the town centre by the clocktower roundabout. In later times, Thanbyuzayat was the terminus of the Japanese railway line from Kanchanaburi, which formed a supply route from Bangkok to Imperial troops in Burma. The railway was notoriously built using forced Allied POW labour.

The Death Railway Museum. Photo taken in or around Thanbyuzayat, Mawlamyine, Burma_myanmar by Mark Ord.

The Death Railway Museum. Photo: Mark Ord

In town, aside the lively market and plentiful tea shops, you can visit the sobering Allied war cemetery and the newly opened Death Railway Museum. The cemetery is aside the road from Mawlamyine as you enter town and the museum is aside the Ye road as it leaves the centre.

Between Mawlamyine and Thanbyuzayat are several points of interest, including the giant reclining Buddha of Win Sein Taw Ya and the picturesque Kyauktalon Taung Pagoda, both close to the small ... please log in to read the rest of this story.