Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting into this area is not easy. We anchored of the undistinguished
town of Kawthaung on the Thai-Myanmar border to await a Myanmar
customs oi cial. He was dressed in a uniform straight out of the old Marlene
Dietrich movie
Shanghai Express
. As dusk fell we entered into complex nego-
tiations involving passports and large sums of money. Satisfi ed at last, he
swung down into his launch and departed.
We sailed northwest that night, and the next morning found ourselves well
inside the region of the Andaman Sea claimed by Myanmar. First light revealed
a set of jagged reddish rocks that jutted out of the sea. There were three of them,
and divers had with great inspiration named the site the Three Islets.
These steep rocks formed part of the scattered Mergui Archipelago, a
mostly uninhabited set of hundreds of tropical islands strewn up Myanmar's
long southern coast. Some of the Mergui islands are quite large and heavily
forested, and some even support a few wild elephants.
Above water the Three Islets were bleak and vegetation-free. The only
signs of life were a few fast-moving ghost crabs that fl ed into rock crevices at
our approach. But underwater the islands' slopes were a riot of color.
Figure 63
Corals are eaten in a wide variety of ways. Here wentletrap snails,
Epitonium
billeanum
, feast on orange cup coral polyps in a reef off Thailand. As they feed the snails are
laying a mass of yellow eggs, most of which will be eaten by other predators.
