One of the “Great Rivers” of the East, the Irrawaddy has a timeless, somnolent quality that’s hard to find in an increasingly managed world. On its banks sit a lot of the Myanmar’s most famous sights and cities and so it’s no surprise that a luxury cruise is such a popular holiday option.

Cruise In Comfort & Style

Bisecting Burma, it rises amongst Himalayan glaciers and flows freely for over 1,300 miles across a wide alluvial plain before slowing down and branching out through delta into the Indian Ocean. Like many great rivers it feels like a constant companion as you travel across the country and can be explored by day cruiser or extended stay on a luxury river boat.

The most popular route is to follow it all or part of the way from Yangon to Mandalay via Bagan, but perhaps the most exciting opportunities lie further north as it takes you into parts of the country that are much harder to reach and so all the more fascinating for those who make it.

Whichever way you choose to enjoy the Irrawaddy and her sister rivers, there can be few better ways to watch local riverbank life play out as it’s done for centuries past. Tiered golden pagodas, rambling teak monasteries, thatched stilted villages, families in dugouts, local ferries heavily laden with passengers and cargo and fishing canoes that bob between ridged sand banks all form part of the rich back drop from your perfect moving viewing platform.