The Last Archipelago (Part 2)
Condĕ Nast Traveller – July 2002

AFTER BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING. We leave Wa Ale in the Seal One, the outfitter’s semi rigid inflatable speedboat. There are seven of us on board, including porters, two photographers, and a Burmese interpreter. Our destination for the first day is Pulau Nala island, home to Marghon Galet village, where the Myanmar government has at tempted to settle a community of Moken sea gypsies. Forested islands pepper the horizon, their granite shores and sandy beaches just peeking out beneath tangled green jungle. A flock of black hornbills swoops overhead. Although I enjoyed my initial days of kayaking and swimming ( the primary activities at the Wa Ale camp ), I feel that my Mergui trip is just now beginning.

White sand beaches and hidden lagoons aside, part of the selfish romanticism that brought me here is the possibility of making contact with the Moken. When the Seal One arrives at Pulau Nala at midday and drops anchor offshore, Frost warns me that the “sea gypsy village” won’t exactly be an exemplar of Moken authenticity. “ Marghon Galet is basically a government creation,” he says. “By definition, nomads don’t keep permanent villages.”

As I unload my kayak and paddle toward shore, I can already see the influence of Burma in the Buddhist pagoda perched above the stilt houses and coconut palms at the far end of the beach. Originally set up as a safe haven for the Moken, Marghon Galet village has a hospital, a school, a fuel depot ( diesel boat motors are one of the few concessions the Moken have made to technology ), and several shops where the sea gypsies can trade shells and sea cucumbers for rice and tools. However, we don’t find many sea gypsies in the village. Burmese women and children, the families of fishermen, greet us brightly as we walk up the beach: Burmese-style craps tables and a karaoke machine ( which runs on a diesel generator ) adorn the town center.

Frost suggests that we go to the monastery and pay a visit to U Kay Masala, the tired-eyed sexagenarian monk who oversees the village. As is common in Buddhist Myanmar, U Kay took up the monk hood after a long life in mainstream society. When we enter the airy, hardwood monastery hall, I notice a picture of the monk as a young soldier, with medals on his chest and hair on his head. It’s because of this old military connection, Frost tells me, that U Kay was chosen to supervise the Moken of Marghon Galet. In an area that is de facto lawless because of its remoteness, the soldier-monk holds legal and moral authority. As the orange-robed old gentleman motions for us to sit, I spot a puffy bullet scar on his left calf.

“Over four hundred sea gypsies live here during the rainy season,” he tells us through our interpreter. “ Now that it’s dry, most of them are out living on their boats. We try to get them to at least leave their children to attend school, but they aren’t interested. So, while the sea gypsies are gone, Burmese fishermen come her and move into their houses.”

“Isn’s that illegal?” I ask.
The monk gives me a tired look. “It’s illegal,” he says, “but it’s hard to stop. A few months ago, there were four hundred Burmese living here. The village makes a good base for fishing, but some of these people are timber poachers and dynamite-fishermen. We finally made most of them leave, but some of them make decent money-and that gives them political clout.”

“Is this a problem for the sea gypsies?”
“Sure it’s a problem. The Burmese move into their houses and cut into their sea cucumber trade. Whenever I act to protect the interests of the sea gypsies, the Burmese complain. They think this village is theirs. And if it weren’t for me, it would be. Whenever I go to visit my home in Myeik, all the sea gypsies leave the village-even in the rainy season. They don’t feel safe without me.

“Do you think that will ever change?” U Kay Masala shakes his head grimly. “I’ve been here since 1995 , and each year the politics of protecting the sea gypsies gets more complicated. There’s simply too much money to be made selling timber and shark’s fins to the Thais and the Chinese. Before long, I will retire to Myeik for good. And when that happens, I fear the sea gypsies will go back to their old life in the islands.”

As the monk talks, I realize that the Mergiu Archipelago, while isolated, does not exist in a vacuum. Before I came here, I thought that the Moken would make a good metaphor for how this place stands to change once tourists arrive. But the sea gypsies are already contending with outside influences – not the least of which is the greedy pull of regional markets. If there’s a reason the Moken have remained so stubbornly nomadic in the face of such changes, it’s that this sprawling archipelago allows them to disappear on their own terms. Should these islands become saturated with tourists, however, this survival strategy might no longer be an option.

A DAY AFTER VISITING MARGHON Galet, we continue northward in the Seal One. Past Lampi, a fishhook shaped island roughly the size of Singapore, we enter the open water of the Forrest Passage, which signals our transition into the upper half of the archipelago. We hope to explore before nightfall the karsts known as the Marble Isles, which lie just east of Pan Daung’s sprawling shoreline. There, we will search for the hidden tidal lagoon on what was once called Elephant Island.

Should this lagoon live up to a nineteenth - century British civil servant’s glowing review (“A magic scene from a fairyland: a snow white ring, with an opening like the crater of a volcano, in the midst of a purple lake”), it will make a fine addition to SEAL’s cruise and kayak trips – not to mention a marquee tourist attraction, if Phuket-style mass tourism makes its way this far north.

TOURISM IN PHUKET GREW FROM almost no visitors in the early 1960s to 205 million yearly by 1996, with attendant water shortages, garbage accumulation, and soil degradation. It was during the nineties that Phuket-based dive operators began to gaze north to Myanmar. Look at a map of the Andaman Sea, Frost tells me as he steers the Seal One north through the choppy waters of the Forrest Passage. “ Count the number of islands there. In Thailand there are maybe fifteen of reasonable size. In Myanmar you have eight hundred. This was the obvious place into which to expand.”

In 1996, Frost received permission from the authorities in Yangon to enter the Mergui Islands, and he organized SEAL’s first exploratory cruise the following year. By early 2001, eight Phuket dive operators were making regular forays into the archipelago during the tourist high season-and three times that number had been granted licenses for future trips.

Despite the obvious appeal of dry-land activities in the Mergui ( where at least five islands compare in size to Phuket ), SEAL is the only company to offer them. Frost tells me that the lack of infrastructure in Myanmar, combined with the uncertainty of doing business in an untested area, keeps his competitors at bay for the time being. “ The Thai tourist industry has a very narrow and formulaic view of tourism,” he says. “ Nobody will try anything new until it’s a proven success. If what we’re doing here turns out to be successful, you‘ll probably see a lot more attention focused on this area.”

I ask him if that’s an unsettling thought, given the over development in Thailand. “My understanding since day one is that the Myanmar government is open to development of the islands, but in a very up-market fashion, Frost replies. Development along the lines of the Maldives. With different ventures leasing their own islands. That will control the number of visitors and ease the impact on the environment. Our company is also lobbying to make this a marine and forest reserve, to protect the reefs and woodlands from dynamite-fishing and illegal logging. In this way, we’re hoping that tourism will actually help to preserve the environment.”