The Pandaw Cruise Mekong River

Pandaw is a fleet of 6 luxury River Cruises which is exploring five countries. Pandaw is among the largest luxury river cruises in Asia.

Whilst Pandaw offers a real adventure experience, travellers are cushioned with incredible comfort, fine dining, great cocktails and choice wines, not to mention extraordinary levels of service.

Pandaw’s six ships were built new and designed and finished as replicas of colonial river steamers. These small ships have the highest space to passenger ratio of any ships afloat - our much loved staterooms are 170 square feet and finished in teak and brass.

In 1995, Pandaw cruise was the first 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.

These small ships can penetrate remote and otherwise inaccessible areas. Whilst Pandaw offer a real adventure experience, travellers are cushioned with incredible comfort, fine dining, great cocktails and choice wines, not to mention extraordinary levels of service.

Pandaws four boutique ships Pandaw built new and designed and finished as replicas of colonial river steamers. These small ships have the highest passenger to space ratio of any ships afloat.

Dining is single sitting with dress smart casual. Pandaw 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 river 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 Pandaw 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 Pandaw have been specially designed to cope with constantly changing river conditions.

Our river cruises connect Saigon (Ho Chi Minh 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 Or Pandaw ll 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 Pandaw's former passengers. Today Pandaw continue to carry celebrities and royalty, but pride on treating every passenger the same regardless of fame or rank.