Pandaw founder launches ‘The Pandaw Story’ to celebrate 20 years’ river cruising in Asia

In 1995 Paul Strachan invited an unlikely assortment of eccentrics and adventurers to join him in an untried new boat that would venture up the Irrawaddy River, the first time foreign tourists had ventured up the mighty Burmese thoroughfare since the Second World War. 

Against all odds, the trip was a huge success, word quickly spread and before Strachan knew it he was running a business in one of the world’s least business-friendly environments. He named it the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in honour of the Glasgow-based company that ran Burma’s river transport when the country was an outpost of the British Raj. The company now trades under the name Pandaw, after the Clyde-built paddle steamer it restored in Burma.


 

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