As I stood at the rail of the RV Pandaw IV looking towards Katha in Burma, I wondered how George Orwell must have felt as he arrived at this remote Upper Irrawaddy river port, which has changed very little. We had been on the Pandaw IV for several days, and I was looking forward to seeing the home in which George Orwell had lived in 1926-27.

Not even being forced to temporarily abandon ship the first night of a cruise up Burma’s normally placid Irrawaddy River was sufficient to thwart photo-journalist John Mitchell’s vacation. Here he tells the story of how the Pandaw IV’s courageous crew overcame a freak occurrence when 150kph wind hit the vessel – the first time it had happened in the company’s 15-year history of cruising in Burma.

Dusk in Assam at the border of India and Bhutan is like being halfway to heaven. On once side of the majestic Manas River is the lush national park which takes its name from the river, and on the other are the misty Himalayan foothills, which turn golden at sunset.

Cruising the mighty Brahmaputra River in the remote north eastern Indian state of Assam is like taking a step back in time. Sitting on the cruise vessel’s panoramic sundeck at dawn, as the sun shows as an almost scarlet orb and the mist lifts to expose the remote landscape, one could be forgiven for imagining one’s travelling companions are Mahatma Gandhi or Rudyard Kipling.

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