Our destination was Myanmar’s Myeik Archipelago, also known as the Mergui Archipelago, a chain of some 800 islands stretched across nearly 400 kilometers between the southern ports of Myeik and Kawthaung. Despite Myanmar opening to tourism (and foreign business) in 1997, this island-scattered seascape remains largely untouched by the country’s race toward modernization. From everything I’d read, it was one of the few places in Southeast Asia where you could have an entire beach, or even an entire island, all to yourself.
We had completed all the necessary online visa paperwork for legal entry, but one small problem remained: Myanmar was in the middle of a civil war.
Despite global travel advisories warning against entry, the Myanmar government continued to assure tourists that many regions, particularly the coastal ones, were safe and navigable. It was a bit like being invited to someone’s house for tea, only to realize the house was actively on fire.
Part of our journey in this part of the world was devoted to learning how to freedive. My wife Melissa, of course, was already something of an amphibious marvel. She had completed two freediving courses on previous trips, one of which included spearfishing. She could dive to nearly 24 meters and remain calmly submerged for over two minutes while harvesting her own food. Incredible, right? I, meanwhile, was hoping to train with her and a professional instructor, hoping my clumsy land-mammal body might catch up with her sleek adaptations.
What intrigued me most, though, were Myanmar’s own aquatic masters: the Moken people, sometimes referred to (depending on where you are and how much trouble you want) as “sea gypsies.” The Moken are the traditional inhabitants of the Mergui Archipelago, living a semi-nomadic lifestyle centered around diving for sea cucumbers, fishing, and bartering. Throughout Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines, there exists a lineage of Austronesian sea nomads – ethnic groups who’ve adapted to a marine way of life, mastering the art of breath-hold diving to depths and durations that seem superhuman.
The Moken fascinated me, but Myanmar itself offered a kaleidoscope of people and cultures. Home to over 100 ethnic groups, the country reveals stark differences in facial features, dress, and tradition as you move through it. It’s known as the “Land of Golden Pagodas,” famous for its ornate, gold-covered Buddhist temples. Like Thailand (the country we were leaving), Myanmar is celebrated for its warmth and hospitality, often referred to as a “land of smiles.”
This is also where I lose all objectivity.
New country. New people. New culture. I become utterly, irrationally enamored. It’s a kind of romantic frenzy: travel-lust. I enter a heightened state of attraction, a dopamine haze where everything feels profound and luminous. I get thrilled just to be there, to be breathing the same air as these strangers who seem, somehow, extraordinary. A solemn squint? A stoic nod? A half-smile? The only conventional north American phrase I can find to explain that joy and excitement is, “I absolutely lose my shit”.
Our journey to Myanmar began with a two-day overland trek from Krabi to the border town of Ranong. As a fair-skinned traveler, you quickly become a magnet at border crossings – for touts, money changers, taxi drivers, street vendors, beggars, boat captains, and occasionally, local police with ambiguous intentions. It’s chaos, the kind that forces you to white-knuckle your passport and clutch your wallet while scanning the crowd for signs of decency and deception. Internet horror stories of border scams buzz in your brain like uninvited guests.
I try to remind myself that this brand of paranoia is a choice. Maybe these people — these hustlers, these “annoyances” — aren’t predators, but angels. Maybe they’re just travel angels conspiring in our favor, doing their best to get us where we’re going safely, fed, unscathed and, mostly intact.
We found a bilingual boat captain who introduced himself, inexplicably and wonderfully, as “John Rambo.” He ferried us across the bustling channel in what turned out to be one of the most exhilarating boat rides of our trip. At various mid-ocean checkpoints, he leapt in and out of the boat with the grace of a cat, our passports in hand, while we waited, bobbing on the water, practicing trust.
In the distance, silhouetted islands rose from the sea like the backs of sleepy turtles – topped with primordial rainforest, ringed by mangroves and jagged limestone cliffs. We passed immigration checkpoints and what looked like multiple floating Buddhist shrines. Boats darted in all directions; ferries, fishing vessels, water taxis. Some sat anchored in quiet bays with their captains napping in hammocks. Others were noisy with labor; smoking deckhands, tangled nets, hulls piled high with buoys and fish. The sheer effort of it all — their livelihood, their floating world — made me feel vaguely seasick.
Unfortunately, we had a discrepancy on our visa paperwork: our specified port of entry was incorrect and there was no convincing, conniving, flattery or bribery (yes, my clever and resourceful wife bookmarked our passports with crisp $20 bills and made a second attempt at the immigration officer; “There must be something we can do”.). We were denied entry to the Land of Golden Pagodas. Heartbroken, we spent the afternoon walking around the small fishing village of Kawthaung, but in the end, we were required to return to Thailand.
The people we saw that day were beautiful, in the kind of way that can’t be Photoshopped. Faces sculpted by salt and sun and time—tanned, weathered, expressive. There’s something sacred in the deep-etched topography of a person’s face. These are the faces that challenge the Western obsession with wrinkle cream and artificially white teeth. These are the faces that tell you everything.
I’ve always been hungry for connection and I have always found a close kinship with people no matter where I am. I want to know who people were as children. What was their first heartbreak? What was their greatest regret? Their proudest moment? I want to hear their stories: their failures and their victories. I want to know what they think about the red-faced tourists who shuffle past them with backpacks and camera straps. Because every person at every checkpoint, in every small boat, has lived a life so vast it could fill a library.
And maybe that’s the true gift of slow travel. When you stop long enough, the people you once labeled as annoyances become individuals with names, dreams, heartbreaks, and hopes. The touts and hustlers now have voices and heartbeats. The countries you pass through now have faces.
If you really want to thaw your frozen heart and find a moment of truth and beauty in this chaotic, confused world, go somewhere where no one speaks your language. Let yourself be stranded in a place where hugs and hand gestures are your only lifeline. Learn to survive on pantomime and smiles.
You’ll discover that a country’s greatest natural resource isn’t its beaches, or temples, or oil fields: it’s its people.
And smiles?
Smiles are the only real currency in our bankrupt world.