Ngapali

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Off to the beach for a few days of doing nothing.

The relaxation starts early with the first late start of the holiday. Our guide takes us to the airport, where she suddenly says goodbye and vanishes leaving a colleague to help us check in. We forget to tip her in the confusion, and David dashes back after her with her tip, for which she seems genuinely grateful. Her colleague is wearing a thick pink woollen cost, clearly necessary on a day when it’s only 28C. She checks us in and presents our passport to the immigration desk. It seems that foreigners have to be checked in and out of each airport that is located in one of the States, such as Shan State where we are now. We go through the most cursory security check yet, where even the open bottle of water that David is carrying is not removed, and sit down in what seems to be the departure lounge. Three doors open onto a small area of tarmac with 3 steps up to the runway. We are free to wander at will, in and out and even onto the runway. There are no planes. A frisson of anxiety strikes when we find the Yangon flight is delayed 6 hours, but ours is more or less on time. It lands, disgorges its passengers and their luggage, and loads us all within 20 minutes and we're off.

At Ngapali airport, we once again have to queue to be processed at the immigration desk. Thanks to an over officious woman grabbing our passports and handing them to the guy on the desk, we are given back the passports of the Swiss couple behind us, but remedy the problem. As we have no guide in Ngapali, we have to wait for the hotel shuttle bus, which turns out to be an ancient Chevrolet truck into which we squash with our luggage. Check-in is chaotic, they try and give us the wrong passports again, and we’re hot and bothered by the time we reach our villa. That becomes ten times worse when David asks where the wallet is, and it cannot be found in the travel bag. Near panic sets in, until Sara finds it sitting on the table next to David’s hanky. ‘How did it get there?’ he demands. “Did you put it there?”

We are not at all relaxed by this point, but things look up when we head out to the local restaurant 2 minutes walk up the road, which serves us a 3 course meal of tempura vegetables, fresh fish wrapped in banana leaves and grilled, and some water melon, washed down with Myanmar beer, all for under £10. Next morning, we gradually adapt to the idea of doing nothing, after Sara suffers an early frisson of panic when she realises we don’t have anything to do today. We sit on our sun loungers on our own little grassy area overlooking the sea, until the sun moves round, then retreat to the chairs on the verandah until they too become too hot and we head indoors to cool down under the aircon. It's about 34C and 80% humidity, so it's quite warm. The days pass happily, doing almost nothing. Some French people have the temerity to sit on the beach loungers in our line of sight to the sea, but we let it pass. The beach is beautiful, with golden sand that slopes ever so gently down to the sea. The sea is warm enough for even us to head straight in, and is the ideal way to cool down. First thing in the morning, the beach is covered with red crabs that scuttle in and out of their holes. Taking a photo of them is almost impossible as they hear the vibration of our footsteps from a long way off, but David eventually gets some shots by sitting on a lounger with his 300mm lens and waiting. In the evening, it’s the turn of tiny, almost translucent crabs that seem to float just above the surface of the beach as they scurry from place to place. At night, there is the usual chorus from the crickets, but also what we conclude must be a frog, sonorously croaking ‘fock it, fock it’ for hours on end. It gives us the giggles when it wakes us at the middle of the night.

We sign up for an early morning trip to a nearby “fishing village”. The publicity shots show scenes of smiling fisherman unfolding huge nets and showing off their catch of enormous fishes while their wives look on proudly. It all looks immensely picturesque. The reality is far more squalid. We are taken at 0630 in the hotel bus to the top of a lane that we walk down. There are little houses in each side of varying prosperity where children are being fed breakfast before school. The beach at the end of the lane is covered with rubbish – old sacks, plastic sheeting, wire, etc. At first glance it looks as if the worst of it has been washed up by the tide, but then we see a woman lugging a huge basket of her domestic rubbish which she simply tips onto the beach. Not much care for your local environment here, in contrast to what we have seen elsewhere in Burma. The worst things on the beach are large semi-decomposed heads of something or other (goats? sheep? They don’t look like fish) which absolutely stink and are crawling with flies.

Most of the boats have already come in, but a few remain, with men carrying poles from which are suspended big tubs filled with tiny fish. Some of these are driven off in waiting trucks, while others are taken to the back of the beach where women spread out straw, top it with blue netting then tip out the fish to dry. Fishwives crouch in various places with notebooks, presumably noting who has brought in what, maybe selling it to merchants from elsewhere, it is not clear. Stray dogs wander around, mostly looking unwell and underfed, with numerous litters of puppies. There is a pungent and almost overwhelming smell of rotting fish, which penetrates into your lungs and sticks there.

Back up the lane off the beach, larger fish have been filleted with immense skill and laid out for drying and/or for sale nearby. Some have been filleted the normal way and splayed open, but others have been filleted so as to create a ring of fillets. Clever stuff. We later learn the small dried fish are now mostly sold to the Chinese.

We have time to spare, so we head to the local market across the “high street”, where women are doing their day's shopping, selecting fresh vegetables and, yes, fish, or their favourite bits of a chicken. One woman offers David a sample of deep fried cockroach, rubbing her stomach and going “yum. As anticipated he declines to much mutual mirth. By the time we get back to the bus at 7.50 we are both completely drenched in sweat. How come the six other people in the trip don’t appear to be affected in the slightest by the heat?



Once back in our room, we discover to our horror that our walking boots absolutely stink of rotting fish. We spend the next half hour scrubbing them clean, to avoid having to smell fish on the flight all the way home.

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