sartoric

Kathie, great news, and I look forward to your report as well.

The wedding we're going to is in Mandalay on November 21.

At this stage the plan is to arrive Yangon evening 18th, fly Mandalay morning 20th, then head to Hsipaw on Tuesday 24th.

If any of your dates line up, I'd love to shout you a sundowner in recognition of the help you've given me via this forum.

Kathie

Alas! We are in Mandalay at the beginning of the month, Yangon later, but we fly out of Yangon on Nov 17. We won't quite be planes passing in the night...

Perhaps our paths will cross another time.

sartoric

Yes indeed, another time. Have a great river cruise...

julies

Zambezi--

Thanks for pointing me in this direction. You have some good insights that clarify some things for me. I am still a bit leery wondering if we would be bored out of our gourds by even a 7 day cruise on the part that you found most interesting--the Chindwin.

I also had to laugh when you commented on how stressful it was to have to make conversation with your new best friends (the ones you were trapped with) on the boat. I so identify. On our six week trip to southern India last winter we stayed several places where this was expected from guests, and at one point we were so glad to just be in a more anonymous setting of a larger hotel. And, this is unlike us normally since we typically prefer smaller places with lots of interaction time with hosts and other guests.

Totally off topic: I saw some of your other posts regarding fishing in Belize and Argentina. If you ever want further info, my husband is a fly fishing guy who has found some interesting places in the Yucatan.

mareeS55

We have been traveling on rivers in Indochina with Pandaw since 1990s, and every time, people do not read the fine print.

These are expedition boats, these are 3rd world locations, it is emphatically not EU or USA, the best nearest hospitals are at Singapore, KL or Darwin, not at kampong-something.

We are heading off to Laos on Thursday, fully insured, but if we get sick and die, the kids will get the benefit. That's the deal with traveling in Asia. (Also, that's the deal, travelling in Europe and UK, because of infectious diseases. Don't go to hospital in Germany, get yourself to Switzerland).

Kathie

maree frgot to mention Baumrungard in Bangkok, my choice of hospital if I were injured in Burma/Myanmar.

thursdaysd

"Also, that's the deal, travelling in Europe and UK, because of infectious diseases. Don't go to hospital in Germany, get yourself to Switzerland"

Where do you go if you get sick in the US?

From the CDC website:
"Based on a large sample of U.S. acute care hospitals, the survey found that on any given day, about 1 in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection. ... About 75,000 hospital patients with HAIs died during their hospitalizations."

That's just acute care, and don't get me started on errors.

Zambezi

I second Kathie's nomination of Baumrungard Medical Center in Bangkok. That is where I went after flying into Bangkok from Mandalay. When my taxi pulled up to the front door, there were several employees who met me and escorted me to reception. I was quickly given the "once-over" by medical staff who decided where to refer me and appointments were made, the most important one within an hour and others for the next day. Other staff consulted me about overnight accommodations (the medical center has an arrangement with a nearby hotel, but I was able to check in early at a hotel for which I had a later booking) and made telephone calls for me to my insurance company. The whole operation was a gem of efficiency and kindness.

While I concur partially with MareeS55's views and acknowledge the increased risk of traveling in some parts of the world, I don't share the rather flippant idea that "if we get sick and die, the kids will get the benefit." Dying ain't no fun. ZZ

julies

I just want to make sure I get this right since I have been looking at the possible idea of the 7 day Chinwin cruise.

A typical day on the cruise would involve 2 village excursions. I am guessing that each of these was perhaps an hour or two. Or, am I wrong? The rest of the day was taking in the scenery while cruising, eating, reading, and chatting with fellow travelers? Or, do I have this wrong? Once again, I am primarily wondering whether there would be enough activity for us.

Thanks much.

Zambezi

Julies: You have it figured out exactly. I will list here the schedule for the first full day of the 20-night Chinwin/Irrawaddy trip in September, 2014.

Friday, 5th September 2014
Day 2
6:00 Cast off from Kalewa [this is where we embarked on the Pandaw II]

6:00 Early risers' coffee and tea served on the sun deck.

7:00 - 8:30 Breakfast [Buffet: included fruit, chef-cooked eggs, bacon, pastries, cereal, and wonderful bread]

8:30 ETA Kywe Kue village: Go ashore for a walking tour in this charming and typical river community.

10:00 Return to ship and cast off from Kywe Kue

13:00 Lunch

16:30 ETA Kindat village: We take an afternoon walk to watch the local life.

18:30 Cocktail hour and briefing in the saloon bar. [The Burmese tour guide discussed the following day's itinerary, but, in my case, with a guide who did not excel in this department, it was mostly a waste of time and the free cocktails were often something you would drink one time only to be polite.]

19:30 Dinner is served in the dining room.

Moor overnight at Kindat. We covered 44 miles/70.4 km that day.

As you can see, there is a lot of free time. ZZ

julies

I so appreciate this. I am suspecting we'd feel pretty trapped and restless.

I have to commend you that you were able to do this for three weeks!

welltraveledbrit

Zambezi - I was sorry to hear of your illness but glad to see this thread topped after so much time as I'd missed it first time around.

Incidentally if anyone is interested in the Brahmaputra river trips I'd be happy to provide feedback...

We went some years ago on a seven night cruise. It was right after the Mumbai attacks so there were only four of us on an enormous river boat. It was a rather unlikely trip for us (normally we'd want something much more active) but we wanted to go somewhere and I was recovering from surgery so it seemed like a relaxing way to travel. Luckily my surgeon knows how much we travel and didn't think I was mad to head to Assam to relax five weeks after major abdominal surgery .

There was a local flight from Delhi and getting to Assam was less of a hassle than it seemed before we went. The itinerary works well in combination with Calcutta which we loved. The cruise was fairly varied in terms of the sites and activities and we very much enjoyed the game park where we were on elephant back to see the rhino. We stayed in a lovely lodge near the game park overnight because the boat hit a sandbar but I'm not sure this is normally on the itinerary which means you'll spend a huge of time getting to and from the game park and the boat in a single day. Given the fact that I was still recuperating it all worked very well for us and it was unforgettable to have the boat for four people. I liked that the trip got us to that part of India The guide was good and it would be hard to see the same things as well if you weren't cruising. However, having done this cruise I must admit I'm not particularly keen to try a cruise in Burma or elsewhere in SEA, though we loved our recent trip on a dahabiya in Egypt .

I didn't write a trip report at the time as Dogster had written one the previously. Frankly it was so fabulous that I couldn't even begin to write about the same thing. Plus we met some of the same people and lets just say he used a bit of artistic license as all great writers do!

sartoric

To julies, if I can just add, we've been on two Pandaw trips, there were various activities scheduled while on board.
We had a tying the longyi demonstration presented by two gay guys (hilarious), a fruit carving lesson, Burmese language lesson and a talk on the political history which had me in tears. There were others I can't think of right now.

julies

wtb--We are big India fans (spent about 4 months there total), and I have taken an online look at that cruise on the Brahmaputra so I know exactly what you are talking about. Off to see the rhinos on elephant back sounds very similar to the experience we had at Chitwan Nat. Park in Nepal.

sartoric--good to know that it isn't all just chatting with shipmates and reading and looking at the scenery.

Everyone who has responded to my questions has really helped me with getting the information I would need to see if something like this really would be for us. As we all know, we are all very different types of travelers. Thanks much.

I hate to sound jaded, but I am also starting to wonder if some of these experiences with river cruises and small out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere boat trips do become somewhat similar. We've spent a week at a lodge in the remote reaches of a tributary of the Amazon in Peru where all transportation was by boat, and we had village stops. Our bicycle trip in Vietnam (waaay off the beaten path in the Mekong area where our guide told us many people had never seen a white person before) included ferry crossings and riding through small villages.

thursdaysd

"Plus we met some of the same people and lets just say he used a bit of artistic license as all great writers do!'

wtb - lol. I had the same reaction at the Courtyard Hotel in Kathmandu.

welltraveledbrit

<I hate to sound jaded, but I am also starting to wonder if some of these experiences with river cruises and small out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere boat trips do become somewhat similar.>

I entirely agree they have a very strong similarities and there is a clear formula which is probably why I wouldn't repeat the experience However sometimes extraordinary things happen, and it seems to be when you are some of the only (or few) people on the trip because they can take the time...

On the Brahmaputra we (two of us, driver and guide) stopped at a small farm to see the people threshing the crops. While we were talking to the family we could see the mother was holding her arm at an odd angle and it turned out she was in enormous pain and had fallen the day before. It was clear this was something serious though she said nothing and had welcomed us into their farm.

This wasn't a scheduled stop I'd just seen their work and asked a question about it so the guide stopped. So, we put her in the jeep and headed to the local clinic. Because we were with her she went straight in to see the doctor who said it looked like she had broken her arm, the X-ray machine was broken. The company helped us arrange to have her brought to a hospital in a nearby town and we heard several days later that she was safely back at home having been treated.

In Egypt we had the most fascinating conversation with an incredibly well informed teacher in a small village. He follows world and US political news very closely and asked insightful questions about what the US is doing in the Middle East why, how and when they have and haven't intervened in Egypt and what his take was on the Muslim brotherhood. Much of the conversation was translated by the guide but it was one of the most interesting times we had in Egypt.

I'm sure others have these types of stories too. However, I think being on our own in both cases made all the difference.

Thursday - too funny!

julies

Kathy--I think some of those people were still at the Courtyard Hotel when we were there about two years ago!

wtb--You have hit on exactly why we do not do group tours. Those serendipitous encounters (ever been invited to lunch at a family's apartment on May Day in Romania while trying to figure out the insurance ramifications after they had hit our car in a parking lot?) do not happen with groups on tour.

thursdaysd

"do not happen with groups on tour."

Well, sometimes they do if the group is small enough and flexible enough. I remember an unscheduled stop for a village celebration on Lombok with Intrepid, for instance.

welltraveledbrit

Julie, I get your point and in many ways I agree but the examples above were when technically we had signed up for a group. And as Thursday suggests some groups are pretty flexible. The issue is however there's no guarantee, just as you don't know if you'll like the people which is always a concern.

The only other group trip we did was to Mali and without the group we would never have been able to visit the places we saw. To me I'll consider a group when it gets me somewhere I couldn't possibly get on my own, which I would imagine is why many people of on these cruises.

Zambezi

To welltraveledbrit: You are exactly right about joining a group going someplace where it is not feasible or possible to go alone. I'm glad that you made it to Mali. My sister and I have had to cancel plans twice, most recently this past March when the travel agency knocked Timbuktu off the itinerary because it couldn't guarantee safety. Both times, we had booked rooms at the Radisson Bleu in Bamako. ZZ