Tavoy

Tavoy, or Dawei, lies beside a river on the Tenasserim coast, between the Andaman Sea and the mountains of the peninsula. Its history is preserved in a series of older walled settlements, including Thagara to the north and Mokti to the south. Buddhist images and monuments reflect the meeting of Burmese, Mon and Siamese traditions in a region long contested by its neighbours.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries control of Tavoy shifted between Burmese rulers and Ayutthaya. Siam's King Naresuan attacked the town in 1593. During the turmoil of the eighteenth century a local ruler founded the later walled town in 1754, and Alaungpaya took Tavoy in 1760 as he prepared to invade Siam. The Treaty of Yandabo ended the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826 and placed the Tenasserim coast under British rule.