The Jahan

The Jahan is a Mekong river ship built in 2011 and operated by Heritage Line, which runs a fleet of about seven river and bay vessels across northern Vietnam, the upper and lower Mekong and the Ayeyarwady. Lindblad charters her for its Vietnam and Cambodia trips and puts its own expedition leaders and National Geographic experts aboard. Nothing about her is polar, and the expedition vocabulary that attaches to the rest of the fleet (Zodiacs, ice, undersea specialists) does not apply on a river with villages on both banks.

The decor is the concept

She is named for Shah Jahan, the seventeenth-century Mughal emperor who built the Taj Mahal, and Heritage Line has committed to the theme with a straight face. The lounge is the Raj of India. The dining room is the Viceroy Dining Hall. The bar is the East India Club. The two top suites are the Taj and the Lord Byron, and they come with private Jacuzzis.

Whether a British-India costume drama is the right register for a boat on the Cambodian Mekong is a fair question and not one the brochure engages with. What is not in question is that the rooms are good. There are four grades across three decks (Terrace, Upper and Main) starting at 323 square feet for the Superior and Deluxe staterooms, 388 for the Signature Suites and 549 for the two Noble Suites. All twenty-four cabins Lindblad sells have glass doors onto a private balcony, which on a river is the feature that matters: the scenery is at eye level and it is continuous.

Elsewhere aboard there is an Observatory Lounge, a small swimming pool and Jacuzzi on the terrace deck, the three-room Apsara Spa, a fitness room and a steam room. Dining is a single seating with no assigned tables, so all forty-eight guests eat at once. Forty crew look after them.

Where she actually sails

The lower Mekong. Heritage Line’s own product is short (three, four and seven nights between Saigon, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap), but the Lindblad charter is a twelve-night trip in both directions, embarking at My Tho in the delta below Ho Chi Minh City on the southbound legs and at Kampong Cham in Cambodia on the others, with land time at either end.

The season is the dry one, January to March, and that is not a marketing preference. The Mekong’s water level swings enormously between the monsoon and the dry season, and how far upriver a vessel of this draft can get, and which villages have a usable bank, changes with it. Departures cluster where the river cooperates.

Who she suits

Travelers who want the delta and the Cambodian river towns at close range, in a boat small enough to tie up at places a coach cannot easily reach, with someone aboard who can explain what happened here in the 1970s as well as what is growing on the bank. Twelve nights is long enough to get past the highlights.

She does not suit anyone looking for a wilderness expedition; the Mekong is one of the most densely inhabited rivers on earth and the interest is human, not remote. She is a poor fit for anyone who cannot take heat and humidity, for anyone expecting a large ship’s facilities, and for anyone who will find the colonial styling more grating than charming. That last one is worth thinking about honestly before you book.