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Specialty Cruise Collection

Pandaw River Cruises and the Irrawaddy Flotilla
River Cruises. Deluxe cruises to Southeast Asia (Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam).

With four luxury ships ranging in capacity from 48 to 68 passengers, Pandaw is the largest river cruise company in Southeast Asia. In 1995 Pandaw was the first line to pioneer and explore the region’s great rivers and their tributaries: the Irrawaddy and Chindwin in Burma, the Mekong  and Tonle Rivers in Cambodia and the backwaters of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

Their small ships can penetrate remote and otherwise inaccessible areas. While the vessels offer a real adventure experience, travelers are pampered with incredible comfort, fine dining, great cocktails and choice wines, along with extraordinary levels of service.

The line’s four boutique ships were built, designed and finished as replicas of colonial river steamers. These small ships have the highest passenger to space ratio of any ships afloat.

 

Cruise itineraries are offered with tour options to enhance the sailings. The cruises include an eight-day sailing from Saigon to Angkor via Kampong Cham; a 13-day sailing from Kalewa to Homalin to Pagan; a 13-day sailing from Pagan to Bhamo; and a 13-day sailing from Prome to Mandalay. Short cruises offered include two-night itineraries from Pagan to Mandalay and Mandalay to Pagan as well as a one-night downstream itinerary from Mandalay to Pagan.

 

 

Dining is single sitting with dress smart casual. We also have the highest staff guest ratio of any ship in the world to ensure an incredible level of care.  It is more like being on a 1920s private yacht party than a cruise ship.

The much loved Pandaw staterooms are spacious at 15 square meters and, whilst finished in traditional marine brass and teak, have all necessary modcons. All cabins on main and upper decks open onto promenade decks with their own seating.

A feature of all cruises is the once or twice daily shore excursions led by expert local guides to explore Buddhist temples, historical sites, markets and handicraft workshops.

The Pandaws have an ultra shallow draft enabling them to moor where other  larger ships could not stop. Inland water navigation in these regions is challenging and the Pandaws have been specially designed to cope with constantly changing river conditions.

Our river cruises connect Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) with Angkor Wat via Phnom Penh and cover over 1500 miles of Burmese waterways from Rangoon (Yangon) to Pagan (Bagan) and Mandalay to Bhamo close to the China border.

Rudyard Kipling based his great poem ‘Road to Mandalay’ on the clunking paddles of Irrawaddy Flotilla Company paddle steamers. Over the past 150 years other poets and writers such as Somerset Maugham and George Orwell have celebrated the company and the river.

Successive Viceroys of India, the Crown Prince of Siam and King Edward VIII as Prince of Wales, are but a few of our former passengers. Today we continue to carry celebrities and royalty, but pride ourselves on treating every passenger the same regardless of fame or rank.