A pioneering Scot who has dedicated his life to Burma

Published on Friday 5 September 2008 23:00

PAUL Strachan has been fascinated with South East Asia all his life.

He first visited Burma in 1981 and has been living and working in the country on and off ever since.

Mr Strachan, who was born in Glasgow but is now based in Edinburgh, stayed in Burma for 18 months during his first visit.

That was primarily a research trip to learn about Burmese culture and history for his first book, Pagan: Art and Architecture of Old Burma.

As a Burmese historian, Mr Strachan has spent most of his life living in the country and he produced two more books.

One, Mandalay: Travels from the Golden City, describes his adventures in Upper Burma and includes chapters on pioneering river journeys.

These journeys were the first by a foreigner since the Second World War, and inspired the re-establishment of the Irrawaddy Flotilla.

Mr Strachan went on to resurrect the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in 1995, some 130 years after Scots merchants established the first such firm in the area, eventually having 650 vessels by the 1920s, the largest privately owned fleet of ships in the world.

Mr Strachan designed and built the ships as well as choosing the routes which are offered today.

Now retired from the operational side of the business, Mr Strachan, 45, is based in Scotland where he offers information and advice to travellers on the river cruises.

But he returned to Burma in May this year when the cyclones struck, offering two of his boats to aid organisations.

His main interest is currently the Pandaw Charity and he is actively involved in fund-raising and the development of the Pandaw schools and other projects along the rivers where Pandaw Cruises operate.

In 2002, Mr Strachan took his Pandaw company to Indochina where they now have two Pandaws operating between Saigon in Vietnam and Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

When the Mekong routes opened in 2003, the company was renamed Pandaw Cruises.

His third book, Pandaw: The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company & the Rivers of Myanmar, is about the company he helped revive and the history of the flotilla.