THE GOLDEN LAND REVIEW

GRAHAM MCCRAE

Hello Paul,

Back in Aus after a really great trip to Burma and Singapore.

As far as Orient Pandaw and her crew are concerned - they were all terrific and very attentive. Cannot fault the service. The food was excellent and plentiful - most travellers vowing diets on return to Australia! You have done a great job to create such a loyal crew. Our tour guide for the 8 days was "Tom". He was excellent. Loved the ship and it really created the atmosphere of the old days on the Irrawaddy. The shore excursions were very well organised and they certainly kept us on the go. Must admit that I am not sure that I want to see another Pagoda for a while!

Myanmar has a lot of work to do on infrastructure. In general the cities seem to work Ok although the traffic in Rangoon was something else. Some of the riverside villages still do not have water pumped from the Irrawaddy. The rubbish alongside the roads and on the river banks was not pleasant to see - apparently no local administration to organise (and pay for) rubbish collection and disposal. But it does detract from the overall impression of Myanmar. Some thoughts for you:

The 6 hour bus trip from Rangoon to Prome to join the Orient Pandaw was excruciatingly long. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a flying boat from Rangoon harbour to the river at Prome!

As the river was quite low it was a bit off putting to see all the rubbish on the banks as we made our way to embark on Orient Pandaw. Would it be feasible to have this area cleaned up prior to embarkation?

Mandalay Airport. A huge structure where nothing works - they really have to do something about it. I doubt if an airline like Singapore Airlines would want to put Mandalay on their schedule with the state of the facilities there.

Whilst on the cruise, we were shown the film that you made entitled "The Forgotten Fleet" I would love to get a copy of this - can you let me know where that could be obtained?

We now have at the back of our minds that in the future a cruise from Mandalay to Bhamo at the end of the wet season (river full) say end August/early September sounds a good idea - perhaps in a couple of years or so.

Best wishes

Graham