Burma's Mergui Archipelago: Is tourism a force for good?

[DagonKhan]

Burma's Mergui Archipelago: Is tourism a force for good? As resort developers sense the money to be made in Burma's Mergui Archipelago, Nigel Richardson sails around its 800 islands and realises what is at stake

Tourists on boats by the U Bein Bridge in Burma Photo: Fotolia/AP

In Biggles Delivers the Goods our eponymous goggled hero flies north over the Andaman Sea on a mission to thwart the Japanese: “To the right, the horizon was defined by a long dark stain that was the forest-clad hinterland of Lower Burma. Below the aircraft, like a string of green beads dropped carelessly on blue velvet, were the islands of the archipelago, lonely, untouched by civilisation…”.

Beyond the guard rail of the yacht I was sailing on lay the same islands – still lonely, still largely untouched by civilisation though from sea level they resemble not so much beads as fin-backed clumps of rainforest rising vertically from the blue. This is the Mergui Archipelago, a chain of islands (800 is the round number generally agreed on) scattered across the Andaman Sea, just where the Malay Peninsula breathes in to create its hourglass figure.

Continues here:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/riversandcanals/11050725/Burmas-Mergui-Archipelago-Is-tourism-a-force-for-good.html