Moken Village Photo

Photographer’s Note

I like this photo for its depiction of a simple and seemingly idyllic life on a beautiful tropical island.
The Moken (aka Salone, sea gypsies) are a seminomadic seafaring culture that live off the fruits of the Andaman Sea. They have their own ways and religion and live for 8 months or so in boats, returning to land during the rainy season.
Here is a Moken village on Bocho island. Nomads living in a village is rather contradictory -- they are still seen living in their boats among the islands but through some series of events unknown to me, involving a comination of population and the government, some live in this spartan village headed by a buddhist monk/former army colonel.

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Critiques | Translate

nygus (8077) 2004-12-26 7:51

i am interested a lot in them for quite time. did you stay with them, or was it just a short vist?

sohrab (7423) 2004-12-26 15:09

this is a nice david.
i like the fact that you have those 2 people in the foreground.. and as a background you have caught a very nice view..
what im really interested in knowing is if you had to take special permission to go here.. since free travel basically exists only in the quadilateral formed by yangon, bagan, mandalay and inle..
was it a problem getting the permission.. that is if you had to get it ?