Page 121 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

Sittwe The DelTa anD wesTern MyanMar 119
Bhaddanta Wannita Museum (750m) & Jetty (1.5km)
SITTWE

EATING NGA PAIN STREET
501 Tea & Cold Garden 4
May Yu 2
Mya Tea House 3 KIN G M IN B A R GY I ST RE ET SHWE THA STREET
River Valley 1 NGA PAIN STREET
Shwezadi U OTTAMA STREET
Sakrokeya River NGA PAIN STREET STRAND ROAD 2
Monastery
MERCHANT S TREET M A I N R O A D U OTTAMA STREET
Shwe Pyi Tan THA ZAN HAL STREET
(boat tickets)
KBZ Bank Rice Market
M ER C HAN T S TR EET Mayflower Air
N Ticket Centre HTEE DAN STREET
Old
Clocktower MERCHANT STREET
YE DWIN STREET
Cultural SHWE THA STREET
ZE GYI STREET
Museum Market
Lawkananda Pagoda (250m), Airport (2km) & Bus Station (4km) K ING M I N BA R G YI ST RE ET University U Ottama STRAND ROAD Kaladan
Mosque
Park
River
KYAUNG GYI ROAD
City
M A I N R O A D Kiss Guesthouse 1
Hall KYAUNG GYI ROAD Port
ACCOMMODATION
Clocktower Mya Guesthouse 5 2
Noble Hotel
0 200 Police SHUKHIN THA S TREET Royal Sittwe Resort 6 4
Shwe Thazin
metres Strand Hotel 3
(2.5km) View Point (3km)
has been cut off from mainstream Burmese life, and the town immediately feels less
developed and somehow a little different to many others in Myanmar.
Sittwe occupies a superb natural setting, at the point where the Kaladan River and
other inland waterways drain into the Bay of Bengal, with views of endless water
(or, at low tide, mud flats) and distant hills in every direction, while the battered traces
of old colonial architecture, thanaka-smeared Rakhine and lively market make the
town one of Myanmar’s more personable provincial capitals.
That, at least, is the surface. Less savoury is the town’s recent history as the major
flashpoint for clashes between the Rakhine and the town’s Rohingya Muslims (see
box, p.121), who once made up half the town’s population but have now been
driven out of their homes and forced into refugee camps in the surrounding
countryside – ethnic cleansing, by any other name. The character of the town has
now significantly changed, and little evidence of the Rohingya’s centuries-long
presence in Sittwe now survives, save for the beautiful old Friday Mosque (see
p.121), currently fenced off and watched over by armed police. The town wears a
largely peaceful air following the upheavals of 2012–13, although an undercurrent
of tension persists, with further riots erupting in early 2014 against locally based
Western NGOs, whom the local population saw as pro-Rohingya, and the current
troubles in the countryside north of here towards the border with Bangladesh
(which is just 100km away as the crow flies). Even in periods of calm, you will
almost certainly be confronted by locals spouting vicious racist nonsense concerning
the brutalized Rohingya minority, which leaves a very sour taste.

098-137_Myanmar_B2_Ch2.indd 119 30/06/17 2:20 pm