Passenger Feedback

Dear Paul Strachan,

My wife and I went on the Mekong cruise (RV Mekong Pandaw) 1-8 September 2018. It was indeed a very good experience. In the spring we sailed with Nour El Nil's Meroe boat (dahabiya) from Luxor to Aswan - same price as the Pandaw cruise, one day less, but the food, accommodation and the staff were nowhere near what we experienced on Mekong Pandaw. (We were only 14 passengers on Mekong Pandaw which obviously gave more 'room' to be alone - or come to know fellow passengers).

While the staff all were excellent, we would like to recommend Srey Leak Sieng, Dining Supervisor.

Thanks for the cruise
Best wishes
Dr Michael Vinding
Minister Counsellor (ret)

What a trip!

The Pandaw was fabulous, and the journey was exceptional. Thank you so very much for allowing me this wonderful experience.

I hope you can pass on to the Pandaw team my personal thanks, and allow me to single out some extraordinary people. Bee, our guide, was quite simply the best guide I've ever been fortunate to have. He was knowledgable, funny and always prepared to go the extra mile. Bo, who looked after my cabin, was friendly, thorough and efficient. The waiting staff - Noong, Khantee and Say - were brilliant. Always friendly, always ready to anticipate orders. And the food was simply outstanding.

The captains were brilliant, and all the rest of the crew was endlessly helpful and efficient.

I can't be more complimentary.

Again, my sincere thanks.

Best regards
Gary

We have recently returned home from another trip with Pandaw. I don’t know how each trip with your company becomes our favorite.

From start to finish the service was outstanding. All of the ship’s staff went far beyond there duties to make sure we were happy 24 hours each day. Our purser, Aung Aung Oo, was always available to answer questions and assist us. Our guide, Ko San Lin Tun, was so wonderful. He is a very intelligent young man and his love for Myanmar is plainly shown. Through his insight I believe we saw the true side of a beautiful country and met so many wonderful people. The smiles and greetings from the local people warmed our hearts!

I am attaching several of my favorite photos. It is difficult to choose only a few!

Now, thankfully, I am getting ready to plan my next Pandaw adventure!

Arlene Wilbers

Sending a review so you will make $25 donation!

My friend and I made the trip to Saigon then boarded the cruise up Mekong to Siem Reap (via Kratié) . I believe we took off on November 3. I really enjoyed all the hotels and tours you booked before and after the Cruise as well as the cruise itself. It was a nice mix of cultural things as well as learning about the everyday life of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people. Our guides were very good you could tell that they were interested to share their culture and history. I have to say the war museum and the genocide museum were quite difficult to see.

Though the cruise was very well structured if you wanted to rest you could skip one of the activities, since for the most past there were two a day. The boat was comfortable and the meals were very healthy. It was great to meet a cross section of other travelers.

I hope this information is of value to you!

Candice W

Luxus auf dem Strom

Ein unvergessliches Erlebnis! Das Boot Mekong Pandaw bietet jeden Komfort, den man sich auf einem Boot wünscht. Die Sonnenuntergänge mit dem für jeden Abend neu kreierten Cocktail auf dem Sun Deck waren schon beinahe unwirklich schön! Ich vermisse sie sehr. Die Fahrt als solche bis Phnom Pen, wo wir das Boot wegen anderer Programmpunkte verlassen mussten, war entspannend und dank eines tollen Rahmenprogramms ereignisreich zugleich. Leider verging die Zeit wie im Flug. Service und Verpflegung waren erstklassig. So etwas zu erleben, das ist schon ein Traum!

Translation by Google from German to English

Luxury on the stream

An unforgettable experience! The boat Mekong Pandaw offers all the comfort you would want on a boat. The sunsets with the newly created cocktail for each evening on the Sun Deck were almost unreal beautiful! I miss her a lot. The trip as such to Phnom Pen, where we had to leave the boat because of other program points, was relaxing and thanks to a great supporting program eventful at the same time. Unfortunately, time flew by. Service and food were first class. To experience something like that is already a dream!

The cruise, WOW. Our rooms were great, comfortable beds, always stocked with at least 6 large bottles of drinking water and lovely linen and towels. Food and drinks on the cruise were great and we looked forward to each day's cocktail or perhaps several. The cruise had 30 people and we were divided into two groups with a guide to look after each group. We had Swiss, American, English and other Australians in our group, the ages varied from 30s to 70s. Our guide was very entertaining, knowledgeable and considerate. The daily excursions (always one sometimes two) were varied (walking, buses, horse carts, tuk tuk etc) and enjoyable showing us a wide variety of aspects of Myanmar life. Just sitting on the top deck watching river life was incredibly enjoyable. When we visited the teak bridge by boat at sunset we were all surprised when the ship's crew appeared in their own boat with cocktails for us all. A mean feat in such an area!! Dallas turned 70 while we were aboard the river cruise and the staff had discovered this from his passport. They organised a special celebration with the entire crew singing, dancing , a beautiful cake and a special gift. They also organised a romantic dinner for a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary on another night.

I have not copied my photos from my camera to the computer as yet but will send you some when I do. Stephen has some great photos at his wordpress site https://stunnimage.com.

Many thanks for organising the trip for us. I can not think of anyway that the trip could have been improved upon except perhaps more time to spend in such a wonderful country. I think if we venture back to Asia we will look at Southern India or Laos in the future.

I just wanted to write to say a big thank you. I have just returned from a Pandaw cruise ( Saigon - Siem reap) organised in conjunction with Audley travel. The boat was superb It had a real colonial feel to it. There were only 38 passengers who were all delightful. Some have become friends for life. The experiences we were able to enjoy due to the size of the ship and the knowledge of the local guides (Yang in Vietnam and An in Cambodia) were unbelievable, we didn't see any other tourists apart from in Phnom Penh. We felt privileged to be able to interact with local people in a way that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. The variety of excursions and the passion of Yang and An made for incredible holiday memories and photos.

The food was off the scale there wasn't a single plate in the whole week that wasn't first class. But wonderful as the boat,cabin and food were the real stars were the staff. From Paris, whose daily briefings were a triumph, Songhout, the wonderful barman, the lovely staff in the restaurant to all the people who made the trip go smoothly they are a credit to the company and your greatest asset. There was a real family feel to the whole thing.

I can never recommend highly enough the standard of your cruise experience and the friends we made aboard are planning a trip with you on the Ganges next year.

Please, please keep doing this in exactly the same way, it really was a life affirming experience and we did consider refusing to leave the boat.

Kind regards
Two very happy Pandaw converts
Tracey & Lesley

Hi Paul

We went on your 7 day Pandaw cruise down the Mekong River 13 -27 November 2018, which was a wonderful experience and the highlight of our 24 day holiday. Excellent just does not fully explain our experience. The boat is wonderful, each and every one of your crew were amazing, always smiling and so helpful, the food was absolutely delicious, all our excursions, which were varied,interesting, informative and enjoyable, were amazing and everything ran like clockwork including our transfers. Special thanks to our amazing guides Giang in Vietnam and An in Cambodia. An certainly went the extra mile by keeping us entertained on our 5 hours coach transfer to Siem Reap with the various uses for his scarf !! When we arrived in Siem Reap regrettably are prearranged transport to our hotel hadn't arrived after 30 minutes so Andre made phone calls then arranged for a tuk tuk to take us to our hotel - He was a true ambassador of customer service and a credit to your company.

We have wonderful amazing memories of our 7 days on the Mekong River and thank "all your staff" for making our time on your Pandow Cruise such an excellent experience.

Kind regards
Pauline & Nigel Hawkins

We have just returned from a trip with your company from Mandalay to Bagan on the RV INDOCHINA. The cruise exceeded our expectations in so many ways.

Your crew were so attentive, polite, helpful, kind and fun. We had a wonderful time and were very sad to only have 10 passengers out of a possible 56 probably because of the adverse publicity in the news at the moment. We would thoroughly recommend your company and Myanmar to all our friends - it was a wonderful time and we saw so many interesting places and people.

My Mother was born in Rangoon in 1913 which is why we wanted to visit Burma in the first place. She returned to the UK in 1916 and always spoke fondly of her time there.

Our guide for the week was Yan and he just kept us all informed, safe and comfortable throughout the trip. His sense of humour was infectious and together with the crew our time could not have been better. We paid extra for a front cabin on the upper deck which was very well positioned however as there were only 10 of us we had plenty of space everywhere. Our only comment is that the lighting in 302 does not allow being able to read in bed !!!

We will return to Pandaw another year and thank you for a unique experience.

Regards
Jan and Tony Hembling