Stretched out along the upper Irrawaddy, dozing beneath the sun, Katha could pass for just another river town. Yet it was here that George Orwell served two years in the British imperial police, and it's this setting he transposed into his first novel, Burmese Days, published in 1934. Nearly a century later, boats travelling the upper reaches of the river still stop here, and the world of the book remains remarkably intact.

Mooring at the Riverbank

As everywhere along the upper Irrawaddy, boats simply tie up against the riverbank, a gangway laid across the sand. The town begins right away: a sloping lane, teak houses on stilts, children running up to see the foreigners. The town has no tour coaches and no souvenir shops; it's explored on foot, by trishaw, or by cart, at the pace of the Irrawaddy.

In Orwell's Footsteps

Eric Blair, the future George Orwell, was posted to Katha in 1926. The settings of his novel can still be made out in the old quarter: the British club where the dramas of the small colonial society played out, the police station, the jail, the tennis court, and the government house the writer occupied, recognizable by its weathered colonial frame. Some buildings can only be seen from the outside, but the walk is enough to conjure the world of the book: sticky heat, shaded verandas, outdated hierarchies that the novelist portrayed with a fierce pen.

The Market and Riverbank Life

The beating heart of Katha remains its market, a maze of stalls piled high with tomatoes, freshwater fish, tobacco, checkered fabrics, and mountains of rice. From dawn, pots of mohinga, the national fish and lemongrass soup, steam between the aisles. Vendors, cheeks powdered with thanaka, weigh vegetables on brass scales. Heading back down to the water, visitors can watch the parade of boats: canoes loaded with bamboo, crowded ferries, teak rafts drifting down toward Mandalay, just as in the days when British timber companies used elephants to haul logs to the water. The riverbank doubles as a public square, a laundry, and a playground all at once.

Pagodas and Countryside

Monasteries and golden pagodas appear along the lanes, their bronze bells ringing out. Monks in maroon robes cross the streets in the early morning to collect alms, a silent procession residents await on their knees. In the evening, everyone heads back down to the shore to watch the sun fade behind the opposite bank, an unchanging ritual of Irrawaddy towns. On the outskirts of town, trails lead into countryside dotted with rice fields and bamboo villages; some routes lead to a hilltop pagoda and a bamboo bridge rebuilt every year after the monsoon, from where the view takes in the river's great bend.

A Few Things to Prepare

• Everything is covered on foot; allow half a day for the Orwell circuit and the market.
• Not all the colonial buildings are open to visitors: follow your local guide's directions.
• Shoes come off at the entrance to pagodas and monasteries; shoulders and knees should be covered.
• No reliable ATM on site: bring kyats in small denominations, obtained before departure or from the ship's crew.

Casting Off

The boat picks back up with the current, and Katha returns to what it has never stopped being: a tropical town leaning over the water, indifferent to the novels it has inspired. Orwell made it the setting for an uncompromising critique of empire; today's traveller finds something closer to a lesson in simplicity here instead. The two readings complement each other, and that's what makes this stop so distinctive.