Sailing into Adventure on the Andaman Sea (Part 2)
Los Angeles Times (USA, November 8, 1998)

Text by: Yvonne Michie Horn
Photos by: SEAL

Our adventure began at the edge of the Kakchan, the wide river that separates Thailand from Myanmar. We’d arrived via mini-van from Phuket, Thailand, at the port of Ranong, an undistinguished, sprawling Thai town from which we’d be ferried across the river. Making our way through a cacophony of humanity jostling to carry our bags, we crawled, jumped and teetered across a sea of longtail boats to the one that would ferry us to the Wanderlust’s anchorage at Kawthaung, Myanmar.

The glorified eggbeater of a motor revved to an earsplitting decibel, we entered the river, passing the docked, rustling hulls of fishing boats turned golden in the descending sun.

It was dark when we reached the Wanderlust, stepping directly on board since our feet could not touch the soil of Myanmar until Adam had delivered our passports to be scrutinized by the powers that be in Kawthaung. Armed with whiskey and cigarettes to smooth the way, Adam and Mojo, a Burmese "guide" appointed to sail with us to make certain we’d not stray, zoomed off in the zodiac in the direction of the town lights. A giant golden, illuminated, reclining Buddha smiled benevolently down on us from a cliffside perch.

Once they returned we motored in darkness out of the harbor, but not before Wanderlust’s three young Thai crew members had set off a flurry of firecrackers on deck to ward of "nats", evil spirits, and ensure us safe voyage. From a Buddhist monastery on a nearby hill, repetitive, wailing chants followed us over the water. Without a doubt, we had entered somewhere else.

Conditions aboard the Wanderlust were clean and neat – with large sunny decks and a well-equipped galley – if a bit crowded below. We slept in berths tucked here and there within the walls of the trimaran. I was lucky to get the saloon berth just off the galley where we ate. The only downside: I was the last to bed and the first up because the area had to be cleared for the meals prepared by a young Thai chef, who turned out extraordinary Thai food along some Western favorites.

At dawn I crawled out of my berth to find an Andaman Sea bathed in salmon light. The idyllic white-sand-fringed island in whose cove we’d anchored was perfectly mirrored in till water. Night birds silently winged their way back to jungle nests. A flying fish jumped like an expertedly skipped stone, leaving a series of widening pools in its wake. Sharing the cove was a shallow-drafted wooden Burmese fishing boat that silently pulled anchor to rift out of sight around the bend of the island, with those on board ignoring my good-morning wave. In our five days sailing in the archipelago, no other water traffic was seen save for a handful of these solitary, picturesque boats.

These were not the so-called se gypsies (Mawken) to whom the archipelago has for centuries been home. For the Mawken have never fished as a livelihood, instead harpooning only what was needed for daily use. Until recent years, the Mawken were born, lived and died on their little kabongs (boats); some still do. They dive for pearls, gathered swift’s nests (the best for the Chinese delicacy, bird’s-nest soup), collected and dried sea slugs, considered aphrodisiacs, to trade with the Chinese who sailed through.

Today most live in villages, rickety versions of Venice made up of a dozen or so thatched huts perched on piles driven into the mud. Off Lampi Island, one of the archipelago’s largest (about the size of Singapore), we anchored in sight of Pu Nala, a sea gypsy village, and Mojo and Adam set off in the zodiac to ask the headman if we might visit.

We waded ashore through floating filth that included a dead dog lying like a Rorschach blob on the ocean floor. A smoky pall hovered over the village, wafting from charcoal fires above which screens had been placed for sea-slug drying. Shy smiles greeted us as we stopped to admire children and show photos of our own families. From naked babies to small and slender men and women, Pu Nala’s residents were extraordinary handsome – the women dressed traditionally in sarongs and the men in longyi, ankle-length skirts knotted at the waist, embellished with a western-style shirt here, a baseball cap there.