Irrawaddy Delta Cruise

The delta of the river is wet land 

The water is encircling islands and flooding the low-lying tracts. Numerous villages deploy on its banks, many of them large and flourishing. But a village here makes in truth but a small feature in the landscape, little more than lint between vast spaces of cloud-emblazoned sky and dun water.

Palmyras mark its presence and the tapering spires of pagodas and monasteries lift it up to some little dignity. Women clad in the one garment that does not detract from their natural beauty, come down with their pitchers to the water, and the children clad in nothing, plunge into it and swim, as happy and as much at home in the bountiful river as they are on land. 

Cruising in the delta

The colors at this season (August) vary with the rain, which comes down in purple sheets, blotting out whole tracts of the horizon, while the sunlight pours and flames on the rest of the circle. The only monotony is that of space.