Kalaw has for a long time been a favourite destination for international visitors in Myanmar.
The Kalaw Hotel – now the Kalaw Heritage Hotel – was Myanmar’s second ever hotel after The Strand in Yangon. An early advert for the hotel at the turn of the 20th Century reads much like any travel brochure from the last couple of decades.
Kalaw is described as ‘the queen of Burma’s beauty spots’ and a ‘tourists’ haven’. Travellers are invited to come and savour ‘the breath-takingly beautiful pine-studded blue Shan hills’ and marvel at ‘a new vista every minute’. Even the attractions on offer are the same: the Pindaya Caves, Inle’s leg rowers, the 5-day markets, and the ‘gorgeously dressed hill tribes’.
It seems, that in over a century, Kalaw has not changed very much at all.
Back in Time
In the late 19th Century the Shan States of Burma were categorized into three zones by the British: Kachin / Sagaing, Myelat, and Trans-Thanlwin. Myelat had a population of 107,500 at the turn of the 20th Century, mainly consisting of the Taungthu / Pa’O, Danu, Taungyo and Shan. Myelat was comprised of 17 smaller states and what is today Kalaw was part of the state of Hsamongkham (or ‘Thamakan’).
Whereas what remains of Hsamongkham today is a small village with crumbling pagodas, Kalaw is a regional hub, its growth boosted during colonial rule due to the construction of the railway in the 1910s.
Kalaw’s temperate climate and fertile land quickly drew interest form the British. Civil Servant Sir Hubert Thirkell White visited by horse in the 1890s and described it as ‘a perfectly lovely spot, believed by many to be the future hill capital of Burma.’ The water of Kalaw was soon being transported to be drunk in Rangoon. Visiting in 1912, P.D Patel described it a ‘a real health resort’ while an editorial in The Rangoon Times labelled it ‘the Rhodesia of Burma’.
By this time plush country houses were being built and the Kalaw Club (“the right kind of club”) was established not far from the Kalaw Hotel. By 1917, the praise had become gushing, with The Rangoon Gazette extolling the wholesome virtues of the town: “Babies are everywhere. They dot the hillsides. You meet them in prams in the roads, red-cheeked and laughing, enjoying Kalaw.”
Alas, not all were equally impressed. Perhaps the charm had faded, or perhaps it was because it was the off-season, but when colonial administrator and author Maurice Collis visited in 1937, he found the town stagnant:
“Kalaw chilled me. There was an arrest of action. […] any place where there are a number of retired people is depressing. [… ] To stop the ache of increasing age you had only make believe. […] The prison air of Kalaw was unbreathable.”
Mrs Childers & the Second World War
When the Second World War came to Burma everything changed. As the Japanese swiftly advanced up the country in early 1942 most of the foreign residents of Kalaw made their way to the airfield in Myitkyina with the hope of being evacuated to India. Those less fortunate had to make the journey to the border by foot.
After the plane she was in crashed and her niece killed, Gladys Mary Childers (often referred to as simply ‘Mrs Childers’) decided to return to Kalaw. She hid for several months with the nuns in the St Agnes Convent before being discovered by the Japanese and sent to an internment camp in Dawei.
Mrs Childers was already a widow. She and her husband Lt-Col Hugh Francis Eardley Childers had lived in an elegant house in Kalaw and were known to keep social standards high. In the evening he always wore a dinner jacket and she an evening gown with gloves. Mrs Childers returned to Kalaw after the war where she would entertain girls from the convent with cucumber sandwiches and tea from a silver spot. She couldn’t speak a word of Burmese and would insist that: ‘If you are not understood in English, you shout.’
she died, Mrs Childers left her house to her Indian driver. This was seen as a scandal and it was later confiscated. The house marked as ‘Mrs Childers’s House’ appears on most tourist maps of Kalaw.
A Tourist Haven
The British left Burma in 1948. In the 1950s the Burmese military established the Burma Army Staff College in the town. In the 1980s the 55th Light Infantry Division moved in taking over a lot of land and many of the abandoned colonial houses. It was in 1994 when Kalaw was visited by SLORC No.2 Maung Aye that the government began eyeing the town up as a tourist destination.
Almost three decades on, Kalaw is visited by travellers almost as much as Inle and Bagan, favoured for eco-tourism experiences such as the trek to Inle Lake, birdwatching tours and the Green Hill Valley Elephant Camp. In an attempt to attract Myanmar nationals and expats, Kalaw has initiated a Christmas Market as well as a marathon each year in December. Between the lockdowns in 2020, it seemed that half of Yangon had up-camped to Kalaw.
Kalaw’s popularity has seen a glut in construction, both hotels and second homes for weekenders. Some of these new buildings keep to the aesthetic character of Kalaw, others do not. There has been a spill-over of hotels into the nearby village of Myinka, while quieter destinations in Southern Shan such as Pindaya and Ywangan are growing in popularity, promoting themselves as quieter, more authentic alternatives to Kalaw.
The Kalaw Tourism Organisation (KTO) has published the Kalaw Style Book – a manifesto of ideas and aspirations to preserve the architectural integrity of Kalaw. The book sets out guidelines to ensure that the town maintains is character and that new development keeps to a set of regulations: no building to be higher than adjacent pine trees, for example, and a preference for earth tones instead of reflective materials.
It is through initiatives such as The Style Book that Kalaw hopes to retains its place as a ‘haven’ for both Myanmar and international travellers and a place to savour the pine-studded blue Shan hills.
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This article was based upon a presentation for the Britain Burma Society by Vicky Bowman (Director of Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business) and Kyel Sin Lin, an Architectural Assistant at Article 25. Along with Sampan Travel, Vicky will be co-hosting a virtual tour incorporating Kalaw in March 2021. More information here: https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/virtual-tours/
