Understand
Thanlyin and Kyauktan Syriam was once an important city on the Irrawaddy Delta but is today a forgotten suburb of Yangon. The city, an important seventeenth-century port, was destroyed by King Alaungpaya and is best known for the Portuguese adventurer and short-time self-proclaimed King Philip de Brito, a one-time Portuguese mercenary who became the de-facto ruler of Syriam until, in 1613, he was defeated by the Bamar and impaled.
