Latest news

Andrew Fisher’s large hand gripped the receiver as he listened to the telephone ring at the other end. Sweat broke on his brow and his skin felt clammy. He was breathing heavily. Outside he could hear magpies warbling and the gully winds caressing the tall gum trees that surrounded his isolated home in Victoria’s Dandenong Mountains an hour’s drive from Melbourne. The sounds of the bush should have been soothing, but his nerves were on edge. As the telephone continued to ring he toyed with hanging up. Yet he was unable to do so. He had thought about this telephone call for six months. It was part of his plan.

As I stood at the rail of the RV Pandaw IV looking towards Katha in Burma, I wondered how George Orwell must have felt as he arrived at this remote Upper Irrawaddy river port, which has changed very little. We had been on the Pandaw IV for several days, and I was looking forward to seeing the home in which George Orwell had lived in 1926-27.

Not even being forced to temporarily abandon ship the first night of a cruise up Burma’s normally placid Irrawaddy River was sufficient to thwart photo-journalist John Mitchell’s vacation. Here he tells the story of how the Pandaw IV’s courageous crew overcame a freak occurrence when 150kph wind hit the vessel – the first time it had happened in the company’s 15-year history of cruising in Burma.

Dusk in Assam at the border of India and Bhutan is like being halfway to heaven. On one side of the majestic Manas River is the lush national park which takes its name from the river, and on the other are the misty Himalayan foothills, which turn golden at sunset.

Cruising the mighty Brahmaputra River in the remote north eastern Indian state of Assam is like taking a step back in time. Sitting on the cruise vessel’s panoramic sundeck at dawn, as the sun shows as an almost scarlet orb and the mist lifts to expose the remote landscape, one could be forgiven for imagining one’s travelling companions are Mahatma Gandhi or Rudyard Kipling.

JMPR is based in Adelaide and services local and national accounts. The consultancy was established in late 1986, and is a full service public relations consultancy.