Built in 1906, and resembling an old English country mansion with its porches, gables and trimmed ivy trellis, the Candacraig is a welcome refuge from the impersonal concrete tourist hotels found all over rural upper Burma.
Dark, strong tea is served by waiters in black jackets and starched white shirts who hover attentively in the corner of the hotel restaurant. Large, glass-panelled doors open on to the well-manicured flowerbeds and lawns.
Each dining table includes bottles of HP and Tabasco sauce, unheard of elsewhere in Burma. And to complete its English claims, the limited menu still offers roast beef and roast chicken for about US$2.50 (HK$20).
Captivated by travel writer Paul Theroux's description of the hotel and town in his book The Great Railway Bazaar, I'd been determined to see if the magic still remained. The town was named Maymyo when Theroux visited, after British Colonel May of the Bengal Infantry, who was based at the hill station during the 1880s.
But Burma's military junta have decreed maps now identify the town by its pre-colonial name, Pyin U Lwin.
Even the Candacraig is now officially known as the Thiri Myaing Hotel - but it's a name seemingly ignored by locals and visitors alike.