Andaman Sea Anomaly Set to Boom - Part 1
Fah Thai (Thailand, November 1999)

What is most surprising about Myanmar's Mergui Archipelago is the fact that an untapped recreational resource with such enormous potential - especially one virtually bordering major tourism centers such as Phuket and Ranong - could have survived so unspoiled this late into the 20th century.

Given the post-1940s isolationist regime in Rangoon, the Mergui Archipelago was off limits to visitors for decades. Now the government is anxious to begin developing tourism in the area. Among other things, this huge island group promises to become one of Asia's best sport-diving destinations.

Whatever one thinks about the current political implications of supporting Myanmar tourism, low-impact tourism in the Mergui Archipelago is probably the best way, at present, of helping to conserve a remarkable natural resource. Access is mainly through Ranong and Phuket, two Bangkok Airways destinations in the south of Thailand.

You've slipped through a crack in space-time. Sailing around a point of land and into the cove, you encounter a Mawken village, a scene from another age. And the natives - sea nomads who traditionally stay ashore only in bad weather, living the rest of the year aboard their distinctive boats - are just as startled to see you.

The Mergui Archipelago has always been a mysterious area, the haunt of wild animals and pirates. Eighty years ago, a British visitor reported that the islands were very seldom visited, and those who did go there tended to be government officials or Christian missionaries: "The former want taxes and the latter want to convert them; and the (Mawken) is very timid, and avoids both." At the same time, contemporary accounts by other travelers agreed that the "rich luxuriance (of these islands) is beyond belief. They look as if they were forests sprung from the bottom of the sea. There is scarcely an inch of them that does not teem with life."

Today, almost a century later, the islands of the Mergui Archipelago remain little changed. The old engravings and black-and-white photos of sea nomad communities, for example, look much the same as the encampments you might stumble across in 1999. The islands are covered with forest and the seas are full of fish. The archipelago extends 200 miles from Kawthaung (formerly Victoria Point), the southernmost tip of Myanmar, north to the town of Mergui and beyond to Tavoy. The more than 800 islands - many of them heavily forested and coral-fringed - are uninhabited, aside from a few Mawken, Karens and Burmans. At least one of the islands remains home to tigers and elephants.

The town of Mergui was for centuries an important link in on a major China/Japan-India trade route. Goods from either side of the Malay peninsula would be traded in the Siamese capital Ayutthaya, which was connected to the port at Mergui by a land and river route (the Strait of Malacca alternative for goods shipped from Madras to Ayutthaya could take six months, in those days of sails, as opposed to a mere three weeks by way of Mergui). Aside from a few islands on the approach to Mergui, however, seafarers tended to stay out of the archipelago because of it's remoteness and the danger of pirates.

The first Europeans arrived in Mergui in the 16th century. Portuguese, Dutch, English and French merchants all came to have interests in the area. Aside from cross-peninsular trade, there were the local sea cucumber (bêches de mer), edible birds' nest and pearling industries.

Today, attracted instead by tourism-related development, Asian investors are leading the way. Among the features of the Mergui Archipelago: 200 miles of what, from early surveys, appear to be superb open-water dive sites up the outside of the archipelago; many more shallower dive sites in among the islands; splendid scenic islands with dense forests and lots of wildlife; a fascinating and little-studied indigenous people, the Mawken - those sea nomads that are, among related groups around Southeast Asia, least affected by other cultures; and a rich history that has seen various Western and Eastern powers cooperating and contending for a share of the region's resources.

Now the harbingers of change are in the wind.

Myanmar declared 1996 its official Year of Tourism, and the Mergui Archipelago figured in development plans. Thai money established the Andaman Club, a "resort with gaming rooms" (one mustn't say casino) on an island just a few minutes by speedboat from the Thai provincial center of Ranong. Other resorts and, reportedly, another casino are planned with investments from China, Malaysia and Korea, among other sources.

As it stands, Ranong and Phuket are the main bases for exploring the Mergui Archipelago. Aside from the resorts with gaming rooms, liveaboards dive cruises from Ranong and Phuket have been the first development, with private sailing cruises and gamefishing following. Week-long sailing, kayaking, snorkeling, diving, forest-exploration cruises have proved one of the most popular options within the past year or two.

Given the lack of tourism infrastructure in these islands, and given the central government's uncertain jurisdiction over some of the remoter areas of the archipelago, the authorities are not anxious to encourage mass tourism in the islands as yet. It seems that low-density, low-impact tourism is the order of the day, whether this is because of official concern for the environment and sustainable development, or whether it's primarily because of security considerations. For now, the Mergui Archipelago is one of the most exciting tourism prospects in Asia.