Digital Postcards from Myanmar

#1

My wife and I returned last week from a fabulous 14 night river cruise adventure along the Irrawaddy River in what used to be called Burma.

The Princess panhwar is a brand new ship, only launched on January 8th this year. Our journey, from Mandalay to Yangon (formerly Rangoon) was its fourth cruise.

We had booked one of the two suites onboard which are beautifully positioned forward on the ship...

The journey distance was 597 miles which was well balanced between excursions and river time.

The Sun Deck proved very popular and a number of parties and other functions took place there, all in the cool of the evenings...

Food was pretty good with a good bias on local cuisine. There was only the one dining room...

To assist those not particularly 'au fait' with Far Eastern cuisine there was always a display of what was on offer for each meal as passengers entered the restaurant...

With one exception all excursions and shore walks were included in the price. The one that wasn't was an early morning 'sunrise' balloon flight over the ancient Buddhist site at Bagan. For me it had to be the highlight of the trip, quietly passing over 2000 Buddhist pagodas, temples and Stupas and a steal at $380.00...

...not to mention the photographic opportunity.

I have written a full review on my blog page which has over 100 photographs. Here is the link...

http://solentrichardscruiseblog.com/201 ... -mandalay/

Do pop in and see Solent Richard modelling the Burmese Longyi.

#2

The Irrawaddy River is a river that flows from north to south through Myanmar. It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Originating from the confluence of the N'mai and Mali rivers, it flows relatively straight North-South before emptying through the Irrawaddy Delta into the Andaman Sea. Its drainage basin of about 255,081 square kilometres (98,487 sq mi) covers a large part of Burma. After Rudyard Kipling's poem, it is sometimes referred to as 'The Road to Mandalay'. As early as the sixth century the river was used for trade and transport. Having developed an extensive network of irrigation canals, the river became important to the British Empire after it had colonized Burma. The river is still as vital today, as a considerable amount of (export) goods and traffic moves by river. Rice is produced in the Irrawaddy Delta, irrigated by water from the river.

#3

Looks great Richard, did you encounter a problem with mosquito's on the river ? I will look at your blog later.

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