SPECIAL UPPER RIVER EXPLORATORY CRUISE, 10-22 April 2008

Starting from Dikhou Mukh/Neamati (Dibrugarh airport), finishing at Silghat (Guwahati airport)

Regular Brahmaputra cruises travel upstream as far as Neamati, around 400 miles east of the Bangladesh frontier, the highest point we can be sure of sufficient depth of water all year. However in April, with the first of the snow melt coming down from the Himalayas, friends on the government survey launch tell that one should be able to go much higher upriver, we reckon to Guijan, some 125 miles further on. Here we shall be some 90 miles from Tibet to the north, and 40 miles from Burma to the south.

Assam Bengal are therefore offering a special 12-night exploratory cruise from 10 to 22 April 2008, at very attractive prices, to recce this section. There is no firm itinerary since there are too many imponderables, but one can hope to make it as far as the Dibru Saikhowa National Park with the help of country boat, the first time this park will have been visited from the river. This little known reserve has excellent birding and is famous both for its wild buffalo and its population of feral horse.

Other attractions one can hope to see before returning downstream to a finishing point at Silghat could include a side trip to the coal mines at Tipong with their working steam locomotives, to Digboi, with its war cemetery and world’s oldest working oilfield, to a bamboo mask-making workshop on Majuli Island, and to the pyramidal burial mounds of the Ahom kings at Charaidew. Another pause would be to visit the archaeological site of Deopahar, a hilltop temple dating from the 11^th century with a superb newly discovered frieze of sculptured heads.

UPPER RIVER EXPLORATORY CRUISE, 12 nights

Price per person sharing twin-bedded cabin US$2000 + 3.09% tax.

Single cabin supplement US$1190 + 3.09% tax.