Irrawaddy River Cruise

A Ayeyarwady ride along Pagodas and Temples. This cruise at Bagan is one of the best trips around, to handle this take a guide. Without a tourist guide is almost like not visiting the place at all. Because only they know the right places, the right time, the right people.  Maybe getting the key to open the doors of a temple for a great view. He or she will handle this and other stuff, it cost almost nothing and your money move directly to local people. It's an incredible experience when floating on the mighty Irrawaddy watching the people performing their daily live.  The best time to start sailing is early afternoon.  There are the women doing their laundry, the kids are playing at the riverbank, some guys repairing boats, other cleaning their livestock including pigs etc. Buddhist novices from the monasteries jump in the brown water, swim around and have fun, see the video. Its like being pulled back by a time machine for at least 200 years, is difficult to find elsewhere.

Although the river brings life to Bagan little of the water is used for irrigation. This is the “dry zone” of the country, receiving only some torrential rains during monsoon and the other time of the year it’s dry and dusty but the river brings the water from the north 24/7.

A cruise tells virtual stories about Buddhism and the deep devotion plus the creative people who ruled this area since more than thousand years, it’s a natural wonder created over years. 

A life giving stream.

It comes from the icy glaciers of the high mountains in Kachin state which are offshoots of the Tibetan Himalayas.

There are actually 3 main river sources.

This are the Mai Kha and Mali Kha streams which are joined by the waters of the Chindwin River near Mandalay. Naturally myriads of other streams empty in along the journey to the Andaman Sea, a part  of the Indian Ocean.

The first people who tried to find the real sources where English botanists who made some expedition into the wilderness during colonial times, the most prominent was Mr. Kingdon Ward who made several expeditions around 1945.

Most popular cruises are between Bagan and Mandalay on swimming hotels, the best known is the "Road to Mandalay" a former River Rhine cruiser which was transferred to Myanmar (Burma) by the owner which is the Orient Express Company which runs the well known trains in Europe and one from Bangkok to Singapore.

Irrawaddy cruises. Are also available with bigger river vessels, there are several tour operators one is Pandaw operating an old steamer from colonial times. Two other more modern ships are run by the Orient Express Company, this is the "Road to Mandalay" formerly it was used at the Rhine in Germany, they renovated it and carried it to Myanmar.  I wonder how the have done this to get it from Europe to the Andaman Sea (this is , the real task is how to get it up the river to Mandalay since after the British left shifting sand banks blocked the waterway at many spots. Even today there is regular traffic between Yangon and Mandalay using a bigger vessel because of this. The busiest river journey destination is the Irrawaddy at Bagan.

Here are some more Irrawaddy and Bagan Pagodas.

The mighty waterway is a great destination by itself. 

The combined panorama of both is incredible in particular when climbing on one of the pagodas and watching the sunset. Come early since you wont be alone is a absolute visual highlight at this place.

One of the most spectacular events in the pagoda city.

• That is to climb up the Mingalazedi pagoda and enjoy the sunset over the plains to the west. Striking memories often are attached to some visual experiences with the river. 

The waterway is a picture journey by itself and great shot can be made using it as a fore or background for sure a great photo opportunity. Today most is focused at the sector between Bagan and Mandalay and the delta. 

Although cruising the mighty river on a stylish “western” level can quickly drain your wallet there are some interesting alternatives when you are on location already. How to do that? Just head to the Bupaya Pagoda jetty and try to grab one of the smaller boats and tell the driver to move one hour upwards and coming back. 

That shows you almost all relevant scenes available and gives you a great visual impression what’s going on here. The river meanders through the whole country, mountains, plains, hills, farmlands, cliffs and whatever. Some irrigation canal network are around but only minimally used that’s the reason why this is called the dry zone, if some Israeli would dwell here this would be a fertile zone having everything in abundance, people are lazy, that’s the problem. Although the stream runs about 2,xxx kilometers through they never managed to use the water efficiently.