OUR SHIPS

We have seventeen beautifully crafted Pandaw ships in operation that we built ourselves. Each ship, hand-finished in brass and teak by traditional craftsmen, is itself an object of great beauty.

The secret of our success is that, whilst luxury and comfort are ever-present, on our ships it is the colonial-era character and friendly atmosphere that predominate. All our Pandaws have ultra-shallow drafts and can travel to remote areas, which are unreachable by other passenger-carrying vessels, let alone overland.

K Class

The K-class dated back to the 1880s and were comprised of stern wheelers designed to reduce draft, their boilers placed in the bow to improve trim. Smaller than the great line steamers of the age, the K-class ships were used on the Chindwin and upper reaches of the Irrawaddy. Where possible we have reused the old IFC names and many of these original K-class ships had fascinating histories, through times of war and peace.

RV Angkor Pandaw

RV Champa Pandaw

RV Kalaw Pandaw

RV Kalay Pandaw

RV Kanee Pandaw

RV Katha Pandaw

RV Kha Byoo Pandaw

RV Kindat Pandaw

RV Laos Pandaw

RV Sabaidee Pandaw

RV Zawgyi Pandaw

P Class

The original P-class ships were built by Yarrows of Glasgow in the late 1940s to replace the ships of the old Irrawaddy Flotilla Company lost in the war. The design was based on earlier 1930s designs with side paddles and the addition of a flying bridge. All the ships had a name beginning with a P and one of these was the original Pandaw that we acquired in 1998 and lovingly restored. The P-class ships with their broad beam and shallow draft were all deployed on the Bhamo to Mandalay routing.