The Irrawaddy river cruise guide A guide to river cruises on Burma's Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers, including itinerary suggestions taking in Mandalay and Bagan

Until recently a visit to Burma was still seen as fairly remarkable - now the country is fast becoming one of Asia's most popular river cruise destinations. Major changes to the political regime (which was under a fierce military regime for much of the 1980s and 1990s) has caught the attention of visitors, and cruise lines, many of whom are adding the destination to itineraries.

Viking Cruises (vikingrivercruises.co.uk) starts sailing along the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) in January 2015 with a second vessel launching in September. Pandaw River Expeditions, which operates 12 vessels in total, is adding two more riverboats to the six it has in Burma. The Bagan to Mandalay itineraries are topped and tailed with a night in each city, facilitating further exploration.

Also new to Burma are Amadeus by Lüftner Cruises (lueftner-cruises.com), CroisiEurope (croisieurope.travel) and Wendy Wu (wendywutours.co.uk), which has 11-day private tours that can be combined with a cruise.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/riversandcanals/11051281/The-Irrawaddy.html

My wife and I just finished the Mandalay-Bhamo cruise (6-nights) aboard the Amara-2.

With a total of 4-passengers and 13-crew the onboard experience was 5-star all the way. Too bad the scenic-panorama lacks variety along with the daily excursions otherwise it would of been a real great cruise.

Two-nights in Mandalay was more than enough to reset my appreciation for ChiangMai..... Sorry to say,but the city is a squaller shit-pile of humanity...25yrs under the isolationist Junta regime has crushed the people,culture and country....Such a tragic place.