Day 1 Rangoon
Arrive Yangon International Airport and stay overnight at
Kandawgyi Hotel (or equivalent 4 star); sunset visit to the
Shwedagon Pagoda
Day 2 Rangoon to Pagan
Early morning flight up followed by a coach tour of the main
monuments. Ship will depart from Pagan at 1700.
Day 3 Lower Chindwin
Cruise all day through the great Lower Chindwin plain...
Day 4 to Monywa
Arriving in the busy port town of Monywa will be a bit of a shock
after the peace and remoteness of the Chindwin. We will explore
the town and time permitting make a quick trip to the Thanbodi
Temple with its million Buddha images - a sort of Buddhist
Disneyland! Beyond Monywa we enter the Upper Chindwin. The river
narrows and the forested hills fall away to farmland we pass a
number of attractive villages like Kin or Kanee where we can
stretch our legs.
Day 5 Mingkin
Mingkin was rediscovered by Paul Strachan in 1987 and described in
some detail in his book Mandalay: Travels from the Golden City. It
remains for Paul the most art historically interesting site in
Myanmar (more so than the now spoilt Pagan) with its Konbaung
court style teak monasteries sumptuously decorated. Mingkin may be
described as the Luang Prabang of the Chindwin.
Day 6 Mawlaik
Mawlaik replaced Kindat as the administrative capital but
ironically the Myanma refused to move there from upstream Kindat.
It was mainly settled with the company houses of the by the
Scottish owned and run Bombay Myanmarh Trading Corporation in the
1920s and 1930s. There are many splendid ‘Dak Bungalows’ set
around a verdant golf course. Mawlaik and the other towns of the
Upper Chindwin can only be reached by boat so cars are few. There
is a dreamy otherworldly quality to such places and truly one
feels that one has travelled there in the Pandaw time machine!
Day 7 Paungbyin to Sitthaung
Pantha was an important oil refinery belonging to the Indo-Myanmar
Petroleum Co (Steel Brothers). We pass the mouth of the Yu River
which drains the Kubu valley that provided the route for a
Lieutenant Grant to march to the relief of the Manipur garrison
when the chief commissioner of Assam was massacred in a local
rebellion. Sitthaung was the final resting place of a number of
IFC steamers scuppered there in 1942 in an ‘act of denial’ from
the advancing Japanese who were a matter of hours behind. We hope
to find remains of these ships as we have in the past at Katha on
the Irrawaddy. It was from here that the survivors of the Japanese
invasion marched out to Tamu on the India border.
Day 8 Sithaung to Toungdoot
Toungdoot or Hsawng-hsup in Tai, is an ancient Shan enclave which
in British times still had a ruling sawbwa complete with palace
and court. It will be interesting to see what has become of the
royal family and their home and to see these Shan people so far
from their Tai-Shan homelands.
Day 9 Toungdoot to Homalin
We
pass the Uyu River worked by gold washers on the way to Homalin,
the furthest navigable point on the Chindwin for vessels of our
size. Alister McCrae wrote of his visit there 1935 ‘I loved the
atmosphere of quiet and peaceful living there. At night I could
hear greylag geese as they came in to the flooded land around us
from far away north’. Bird in 1897 says little other than that
Homalin is the headquarters of a township, but has very little
trade’. Until we get there and explore the place there is not much
we can say!
Day 10 Homalin and
return downstream
Day 11 Return
downstream to Kalewa
Day 12 Kalemyo to Rangoon
Travel 20 miles from Kalewa to Kalemyo the gateway to the Chin
State and fly by private air charter to Yangon. Overnight Dusit
Inya Lake Hotel. Time permitting there is a tour to the Downtown
area and Scott Market.
Day 13 International Departures
If
time permits we can arrange a visit to the War Graves at Htaukchan |
