My Grandparents’ House

I’ve skipped a couple of days, which I will catch up in due course, as I wanted to write about my visit to the summer house in Kalaw while it’s still completely fresh. In many ways it’s become the focus of the whole trip.

To recap briefly, my grandfather had this house built as a summer house to escape the heat of the summer. When the Japanese invaded Burma during the war they had to flee the country (to Bangalore, in India) and managed to sell the house to the sawbah (local Shan prince) in 1949.

Fast forward to 2008 and a local hotel group purchased and refurbished the house, turning it into a Royal Kalaw Hills Resort with cabins/villas in the garden. The original building still exists, of course, and contains four top-quality bedrooms as well as various living rooms, all tastefully redecorated. The house has come back to life.

We (Sheila, Carol and I) arrived there mid-afternoon after a mostly uneventual flight from Pagan/Bagan followed by an efficient 1½-hour car journey to the hotel.

It’s difficult to describe my emotions as I got out of the car. Part of me was saying it was just another hotel, although with a special historical and personal connection; but as I approached the place, and thought of my grandparents, both of whom died the year I was born, and my mother, who may have spent time here as a child, along with her brothers and sisters, I did feel a strong association with the place and shed a tear in their memory.

I must have bored or (hopefully) intrigued many members of staff, and our guide, with my photographs of my grandparents and the story of the house. It was surprisingly difficult not to tell everybody I met about it.

They treated us to a guided tour of the old house, and thanks to the sensitive restoration I could envisage my grandparents and their children (8 at the maximum) having happy times there. You can see the photographs I took in the Kalaw House gallery.

Interestingly, our guide told me that the family house in Rangoon/Yangon, at Kha Ye Bin Road, has also been converted into an up-market hotel, called The Governor’s Residence. I hope to investigate further when I’m back in Rangoon/Yangon. Apparently it’s a seriously top-of-the-range hotel. For our guide in Kalaw to know about it, some 370-odd miles away, it must be well-known.

Later in the day we visited an elephant sanctuary for retired working elephants, of which more later. While there I planted a teak tree in memory of all my family and those with connections to Burma in partiicular. I hope it will grow and flourish for many years as an active and living memorial to my journey here.

Of course, it has long been an ambition of mine to visit Burma, and this house in particular. For my family members it has strong associations, and it certainly is an excellent building with much history in its stones.

At times I felt a bit as if I were “building up the part”, having had no special association  with the Burmese side of the family my grandparents left behind when they fled.

But there is no denying that there is a special link, be it fanciful or concrete; and I’m left with a strong feeling that somehow, something of personal significance took place today.