Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SunandMoon
MainRd(nophone).
Fallback optionrightinthemiddle oftown,withdilap-
idate
d an
d not particularly clean rooms with attached cold-water bathrooms, but not much
else.
$15
View Point Guesthouse
Strand Rd 043 23689.
Filthy, mosquito-plagued cubicle-style
“rooms” (with private bathro
om
for $5 extra, and free cockroaches). No breakfast. Strictly
for use in an emergency only.
$15
EATING
501 Tea & Cold Garden
Main Rd.
Attractive local garden restaurant - and a quieter altern-
ative to the nearby River Valley, with friendly service and well-prepared versions of all the
usual Chinese and seafood dishes (mains K1500-4000). Nice place for a beer, even if you
don't eat.
Daily 8am-10pm.
May Yu
Strand Rd, opposite the new port.
Pleasant seafront restaurant (although the new
port construction opposite blocks out the waves) in a cheery wooden building painted yellow
and blue outside and pink within, and with a nice terrace in front. Food includes a smallish
selection of local seafood plus all the usual Chinese staples (mains K1500-4000), compet-
ently if unexceptionally prepared.
Daily 8am-10pm.
Mya Tea House
Next to the Mya Guesthouse.
Cheery garden tea shop, dishing up simple,
inexpensive meals including big bowls of nourishing
mohinga
(K500).
Daily 6am-7pm.
River Valley
5 Main Rd 043 23234.
Convivial, foreigner-friendly restaurant with seating
in a pleasant garden illuminated with fairy lights after dark and a long list of mainstream but
well-prepared Chinese dishes (mains K3500-4000). There's a second branch on the seafront
nearby with an identical menu and attracting more of a local crowd.
Daily 7.30am-10pm.
DIRECTORY
Banks
There's an ATM and moneychangers at the big branch of KBZ on Main Rd (but not
at the smaller KBZ on Strand Rd).
Internet
Sittwe was seriously offline at the time of writing, with no internet or wi-fi access
anywhere in the town centre apart from wi-fi at the
Kiss Guesthouse
.
Mrauk U and around
Hidden upriver amid the watery labyrinths of the Kaladan River, the remote and decidedly
rustic town of
MRAUK U
was once the last and greatest capital of the kingdom of
Arakan
,
its 49 kings ruling for 350 years over an empire stretching, at its apogee, from the Ayeyar-
wady to the Ganges and controlling large areas of what is now Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Mrauk U also served as a unique medieval melting pot of foreign influences. Its Buddhist
rulersadoptedIslamictitlesandcustomsinfluencedbythenearbySultanateofBengal,while
