The Chindwin: 12 nights between Homalin and Bagan

Deck Plan - Pandaw II

Select a stateroom using the deck plan below. Click once to select a stateroom for two people, again for single occupancy and once more to clear your selection. Your choice will be reflected in the pricing table below the deck plan:

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Prices (per cabin)

Cruise prices per cabin are displayed below, along with the selection you have made from the deck plan above.

Rangoon (with 4 star Chatrium Hotel)

Price includes one night at the Chatrium Hotel including breakfast, service and taxes; transfers to / from airport and a guide-led excursion to Shwedagon Pagoda; transfer by coach to ship. Price excludes lunch and dinner which are at your own arrangement in the hotel or in one of the many nearby restaurants.

24 August 2009:

Transfer to hotel in Rangoon. Afternoon excursion to Shwedagon Pagoda .

25 August 2009:

Breakfast

From Pagan to Homalin to Kalewa

25 August 2009: Rangoon

Arrive Yangon International Airport and stay overnight at Chatrium (or equivalent 4 star); sunset visit to the Shwedagon Pagoda

26 August 2009: Rangoon to Pagan

Early morning flight up followed by a coach tour of the main monuments. Ship will depart from Pagan at 1700.

27 August 2009: Lower Chindwin

Cruise all day through the great Lower Chindwin plain...

28 August 2009: to Monywa

Arriving in the busy port town of Monywa will be a bit of a shock after the peace and remoteness of the Chindwin. We will explore the town and time permitting make a quick trip to the Thanbodi Temple with its million Buddha images - a sort of Buddhist Disneyland!

Beyond Monywa we enter the Upper Chindwin. The river narrows and the forested hills fall away to farmland we pass a number of attractive villages like Kin or Kanee where we can stretch our legs.

29 August 2009: Mingkin

Mingkin was rediscovered by Paul Strachan in 1987 and described in some detail in his book Mandalay: Travels from the Golden City. It remains for Paul the most art historically interesting site in Myanmar (more so than the now spoilt Pagan) with its Konbaung court style teak monasteries sumptuously decorated. Mingkin may be described as the Luang Prabang of the Chindwin.

30 August 2009: Mawlaik

Mawlaik replaced Kindat as the administrative capital but ironically the Myanma refused to move there from upstream Kindat. It was mainly settled with the company houses of the by the Scottish owned and run Bombay Myanmarh Trading Corporation in the 1920s and 1930s. There are many splendid ‘Dak Bungalows’ set around a verdant golf course. Mawlaik and the other towns of the Upper Chindwin can only be reached by boat so cars are few. There is a dreamy otherworldly quality to such places and truly one feels that one has travelled there in the Pandaw time machine!

31 August 2009: Paungbyin to Sitthaung

Pantha was an important oil refinery belonging to the Indo-Myanmar Petroleum Co (Steel Brothers). We pass the mouth of the Yu River which drains the Kubu valley that provided the route for a Lieutenant Grant to march to the relief of the Manipur garrison when the chief commissioner of Assam was massacred in a local rebellion. Sitthaung was the final resting place of a number of IFC steamers scuppered there in 1942 in an ‘act of denial’ from the advancing Japanese who were a matter of hours behind. We hope to find remains of these ships as we have in the past at Katha on the Irrawaddy. It was from here that the survivors of the Japanese invasion marched out to Tamu on the India border.

1 September 2009: Sithaung to Toungdoot

Toungdoot or Hsawng-hsup in Tai, is an ancient Shan enclave which in British times still had a ruling sawbwa complete with palace and court. It will be interesting to see what has become of the royal family and their home and to see these Shan people so far from their Tai-Shan homelands.

2 September 2009: Toungdoot to Homalin

We pass the Uyu River worked by gold washers on the way to Homalin, the furthest navigable point on the Chindwin for vessels of our size. Alister McCrae wrote of his visit there 1935 ‘I loved the atmosphere of quiet and peaceful living there. At night I could hear greylag geese as they came in to the flooded land around us from far away north’. Bird in 1897 says little other than that Homalin is the headquarters of a township, but has very little trade’. Until we get there and explore the place there is not much we can say!

3 September 2009: Homalin and return downstream

4 September 2009: Return downstream to Kalewa

5 September 2009: Kalemyo to Rangoon

Travel 20 miles from Kalewa to Kalemyo the gateway to the Chin State and fly by private air charter to Yangon. Overnight Chatrium Hotel. Time permitting there is a tour to the Downtown area and Scott Market.

6 September 2009: International Departures

If time permits we can arrange a visit to the War Graves at Htaukchan

Rangoon (with 4 star Chatrium Hotel) 

Price includes one night at the Chatrium Hotel including breakfast, service and taxes; transfers to / from airport and a guide-led excursion to Downtown; one domestic flight from Mandalay and transfers from ship.
Price excludes lunch and dinner which are at your own arrangement in the hotel or in one of the many nearby restaurants.

6 September 2009:

Transfer from the jetty to the airport. Flight to Rangoon. Welcome by our representative and transfer to the hotel followed by excursion to explore the colonial 'Downtown' area if time permits.

7 September 2009:

After breakfast, excursion to Downtown if there was no time on Day One. Transfer to airport for onward flights.