Pyin Oo Lwin and Kandawgyi Gardens

February 2016

Our main reason for going to Pyin Oo Lwin was to see the Kandawgyi Gardens.  It's a 430 acre site that includes not only beautiful, interesting and exotic trees, shrubs and flowers, but also a fossil museum with incredible million-year-old elephant and other fossils and very large pieces (8 foot tree trunks) of petrified wood; a butterfly museum; an orchid garden; a swamp board walk; and an elevated canopy walk.  There was also a compound containing some strange yeti-like beasts called ‘takins’.  But the piece de resistance, at least for us, was the walk-in aviary, a huge forested expanse with an elevated boardwalk and many species of birds walking and flying about – colourful hornbills, exotic-looking pheasants and preening peacocks.  

It was by far the most beautiful, well kept and enjoyable garden we've ever been to - and we make a point of going to them when we travel.  I wore my camera battery out snapping photos.  Here they are:

Me in front of the colourful Pyin Oo Lwin sign

Masses of flowers, some of which we recognized, but many of which we did not

The wonderful elevated canopy walk.  It was great to be able to walk through the tree tops.

We saw monks everywhere we went

Massive stands of huge bamboo - and Doug, in there for 'size'

On the forest canopy walk, aerial vines spiralling out of control!

Women tending the many orchids grown at the garden

One my my favourite orchids - such lovely soft pinks

So delicate, so lovely

A peacock display in the aviary

The peacock's back as he walked under the slightly elevated walkway

An oriental pied hornbill - they are big birds

 

Wreathed hornbill

Oriental pied hornbills sharing a breakfast of fruit

An oriental hornbill and a crane facing off over the breakfast of fruit

A couple of monkeys in a tree near the aviary, hoping for handouts

A takin - or 'gnu goat' - as large as a buffalo, and endemic to the eastern Himalayas

The takin is actually thought to be related to sheep

For more information on Kandawgyi Gardens go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kandawgyi_Botanical_Gardens

For more information on takins go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takin