The Last Archipelago (Part 3)
Condĕ Nast Traveller – July 2002

Another reason Western tour operators haven’t moved into the Mergui Islands is Myanmar’s military government, which is notorious for human rights abuses. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, even after her release form house arrest, has continued to urge tourists to boycott Myanmar as long as the junta resists release from house arrest, has continued to urge tourists to boycott Myanmar as long as the junta resists reform.

When I confront Frost with this issue, he shrugs it off.” There are different schools of thought on whether you’re harming or hopping people by coming here,” he says. “Aung San Suu Kyi has spoken out against coming to Myanmar, but on the other hand, you have people like the Dalai Lama, from (similarly oppressed) Tibet, who are saying: ‘Come and visit my country, come and see what is going on. ‘It’s definitely a human rights issue but I think it’s blown out of proportion for political reasons. We at SEAL are of the opinion that links to the outside are more helpful to the people of Myanmar than are British or American sanctions.”

As the Seal One cruises northward, we come across a government-sponsored pearling operation on a small island just beyond the Forrest Passage. Pearling is a traditional Moken specialty-sea gypsies are known for their ability to reach dangerous depths with little more than a rock anchor and a deep breath of air but the pearl divers we find are Burmese teenagers outfitted in ancient brass-helmet diving suits. Looking like something out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, they descend on mossy ropes, as red rubber air hoses spool out from the battered wooden boats.

We hang around and observe the spectacle, perhaps longer than we should: By the time we pile back into the Seal One, we are pressed to reach the Marble Isles by nightfall. As we motor north toward the limestone outcrops, Frost and I scour the old navigation books for clues to where Elephant Island might lie. He seems to think that an island listed on the chart as Hnget Thaik Taung is our best bet. Given the waning daylight, I hope he’s right.

THE MARBLE ISLES ARE HARD to miss. Unlike the rounded, jungle covered granite islands that dominate the archipelago, these dozen or so limestone formations rise dramatically out of the water- as steep and stunning as their storied geological cousins in Guilin, China, and Halong Bay, Vietnam. Bonsai-like cycads – 200-nukkuib tear-old remnants of the dinosaur age grow out horizontally from the sheer cliffs: clusters of cactus like diamond club sprout just above the water. Anchoring the Seal One in the deep-blue bay of Hnget Thaik Taung, we unload the kayaks and paddle off to look for the hidden lagoon.

At first, our explorations are inconclusive. We do find a wide cave full of barnacle-encrusted stalactites at the back of the bay, but it dead-ends after twenty feet. Since the tide is up, this could indeed be the cave that leads into the Elephant Island lagoon. I backtrack from the cave and paddle along the sheer bayside cliff until I spot a low notch in the ridge thirty feet above the waterline. I climb out of the kayak and begin to scale the dimpled rock wall. Frost paddles over and follows suit. After a few precarious minutes on the cliff face, I finally top the ridge and peer down at the other side.

There, curving out from a narrow cove, is a deep-green lagoon surrounded by a jagged ring of white cliffs. Scrambling down the gentle back slope of the ridge, I throw off my shirt and dive into the water, then swim slowly toward the center of the volcano like lake, listening to the birdcalls echo off three-hundred foot walls. Even though Frost is a few minutes behind me, even though I realize Burmese fishermen must know this place well, I feel as if I am the first person to discover it. Treading water I turn to take in 360 degrees of rock, water, and sky. Fan-leafed palms fringe the tops of the cliffs: edible-nest swiftlets -small, quick birds that make their homes in caves-dart over the slight ripples on the water’s surface.

I wonder if it’s possible to separate the joy of being here from the nagging fear that this place may soon change. Would I enjoy this moment as much if the lagoon were full of pontoon boats and ringed with refreshment stands and guidebook clutching tourists? Even asking this question involves a kind of pessimism. It’s as though there’s no longer a psychic distinction between what can and cannot be accessed by the masses. Increasingly, we assume that pristine isolation is like a perishable commodity- a rare product with a fragile shelf life. 

WHILE TOURISM CREEPS ITS WAY 
North into the Mergui Archipelago from Thailand, the influence of Myanmar has made its way steadily south into Moken waters. Although Pan Daung is historically a Moken “mother island’ ( where the sea gypsies return during the wet season ), it now bears the distinctive mark of Burmese pagodas and fishermen’s settlements. We stop for the night in Thatchaung, a fishing village of two hundred houses perched on wooden pilings over a mangrove swamp, and the villagers tell us that they haven’t seen any Moken in the area for five years.

We’ve had the good fortune to arrive in the middle of a Buddhist full- moon festival. Outside the local pagoda, a – nyeint pwe performers ( traditional Burmese vaudevillians who travel from town to town ) croon, spoof, and ham it up for a crowd of onlookers. Along the central boardwalk, old women shoot craps, and old men swill whiskey: teenage boys rubberneck at the town beauties, who’ve dolled themselves up in red lipstick and hanaka (a white cosmetic paste made from tree bark). The festive mood is contagious, and the seven of us from the Seal One enjoy a kind of celebrity status as we stroll the boardwalks. In keeping with a nyeint pwe tradition, the revelry lasts until dawn. We depart on our four-hour haul to Myeik at midmorning, happy and exhausted.

Myeik ( also known as Mergui town), the only sizable town in the entire archipelago, sits on a mangrove island just off the Myanmar mainland, well south of the country’s tourist circuit, which is centered along the Yangon-Bagan-Mandalay axis. Formerly one of the most important trading ports on the Indian Ocean, Myeik is now a sleepy Coastal backwater. Since Frost is interested in turning one of its stately old colonial homes into a SEAL guesthouse, we spend two nights in the town. With no sea gypsies or hidden lagoons to give me a sense of purpose, I wander through the markets and monasteries of the ancient port. 

If there was a historical golden age here, it started six hundred years ago, when Myeik fell under the influence of a Siamese empire based in Ayutthaya (fifty miles north of present-day Bangkok). Since the Straits of Malacca, farther south, were notorious for pirates and poor trade winds, valuable commodities such as silk, porcelain, and copper were transported overland between Ayutthaya and Myeik, making Siam a major player in world commerce. Courted for the next four hundred years by merchants form as far away as Japan and Holland, Ayutthaya grew into one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Asia - and Myeik became a linchpin along the India-China trade route and home to a vibrant array of Chinese, Indian, Arab, and Portuguese communities.

Then, in 1765, Burmese troops swooped down from the north, slaughtering Myeik’s Siamese administrators and annexing the area. Cut off from Ayutthaya, Myeik fell into decline. By the mid nineteenth century, the area was under British control. Steamships were cruising unmolested through the Straits of Malacca, and Singapore had become the uncontested fulcrum of India-China trade. Bypassed by merchant ships, Myeik deteriorated into an obscure colonial outpost, and the Mergui Archipelago reverted to being a quiet home for wandering Moken boats.