Mergui: What a Dive! (Part 1)
The Clarion Ledger (1998)

Unspoiled islands, beaches make for
memorable snorkel/dive trip.

Along the southwest coast of Myanmar, formerly Burma, scattered like little chips off a big emerald, lie some 800 islands just biding their time waiting for beach resorts.

To get the full picture, imagine the entire chain of Caribbean Islands mostly uninhabited by humans. Imagine those white sand beaches and coves without a single vacation home, a single hotel, a single tourist, a single jet-ski.

Imagine St. Thomas with no buildings except a handful of primitive huts occupied by a nomadic race known as sea gypsies. Imagine those turquoise waters without their usual convoy of white sails and motor yachts.

Then imagine yourself as one of the first foreigners in 50 years allowed to sail into the virtually untouched turquoise waters of the Mergui Archipelago.

If the picture appeals to you, welcome to the club. With some trepidation, I decide to put myself into that picture and take my chances with the country’s famously repressive government and rumors of pirates and crocodiles. But not to worry, I will later learn the sea gypsies, formerly pirates, have been pacified with rice and diesel fuel; and the crocs are "probably" extinct. I will try – not quite successfully – to stay out of the government’s way.

The adventure begins when our group of nine travelers meet in Bangkok for our flight to Phuket, a coastal Thai resort known for everything that Myanmar is not. We leave most of our luggage checked at Bangkok’s Amari Airport Hotel, linked to the terminal by covered walkway, and take the minimum island-hopping necessities.

In Phuket, we check into the luxurious Dusit Laguna resort, where the beach stretches for miles, and the art and architecture are classic Thai. After dinner, a classical Thai dance group entertains in the open-air pavilion/lobby/bar, then a combo plays old American tunes.

Soon we’re in the hands of SEAL, the first and only operation allowed into the Mergui. After several years of delicate negotiations, two British brothers, Adam and Graham Frost, and their mother, Marlene, inaugurated in the first Mergui dive cruises in February 1997. We’ve suited up for snorkeling at their dive shop in Patong Beach, and we’re off to the Thai border for the ultimate in eco-tourism.

It’s a long drive past pineapple, coconut and rubber plantations and through little junky towns to Ranong, the Thai jumping off point, but for a lunch we stop cliffside for a local beer and grilled fish, and it’s delicious.

Then we pull into Ranong, where the waterfront is filthy, dreary, smelly and crowded. At the bottom of a wide flight of concrete stairs, umpteen longboats jostle for position. But our van is met by Captain Adam Frost and his crew, who whisk us and our bags into a brightly painted longboat driven by two laughing, joking boys who seem to be from India.

We move out of river traffic into an enormous bowls of pink, orange, blue and purple. The vivid sky is not merely above us, it envelops us like a dome painted by Michelangelo. We’ve all seen sunsets before, but this one silences us for the remainder of the 45-minute chug to Kawthaung, where Wanderlust, our 51-foot wooden ketch-rigged trimaran, waits at anchor.

Under orders, we shed our shoes at gangplank for a real barefoot cruise. Cabins are small with tiny built-in fans rather than air-conditioning; there’s one communal bathroom, and canopied space for lounging.

While we unpack, Adam takes our passports to shore for paperwork, we endure another "first". From the reclining Buddha temple on the hill – all lit up with lights like a Christmas tree – comes a miserable wailing, deafening amplified by loud-speakers. It seems there’s a temple festival and the local monks are religiously exercising their vocal chords. We motor out of the harbor to bizarre sound effects: the tune-less chanting overlaid with Adam’s traditional "kick-off" fireworks. Soon, it’s just us and the ocean.