The morning we charted a small boat over, its one humble temple was acquiring its annual repainting by devotees clustered around its base, now taken aback by the stranger in their midst. All work came to a halt.

Declining a breakfast invitation and not wishing to interrupt further, we pressed on to explore the islands lush greenery, rock formations, beaches, bays and cobalt sea, truly an idyllic setting I thought to myself, though this somehow failed to explain the weathered, work-worn faces of those we had seen struggling to eek out a living here. As in countless other third world venues I’d tramped through, while the setting couldn’t have been more spectacular its inhabitants remained at life’s margins.

A few hours later we found our boatman waiting patiently for our return, both he and his little dory looking even more like the defeated characters in a Hemingway novel under a glaring sun now suspended directly overhead. The spirit of fouled sparkplugs had to be exorcised from the outboard before it could finally be coaxed to life.

Having read that the hills between Burma’s lowland valleys and the coast were rife with wildlife, I had envisioned another southern Nepal mother load of exotica, so it came as a great disappointment to find it all but inaccessible by river for lack of transport, or even by foot owing to an impregnable barrier of bamboo jungle bordering the one road traversing it. In compensation Burma’s landscape as well as its perfectly intact culture had begun seducing me with countless variations of untainted ways: the perpetual rainbow of prayer flags; the nakara face painting; men sporting longyi skirts; gilded temples; shrines laden with gifts offered faithfully to local spirits, and of course the ubiquitous face of Buddha watching my every move, extolling me to embrace the eight-fold path to enlightenment. Western approaches to the spiritual seemed anemic by comparison, afterthoughts readily usurped by worldly distractions and untoward desires.

Inland, tilled fields eventually surrendered to the rolling central highlands where whole mountains of bamboo supported a struggling industry of hand-made goods patiently woven together in clustered dwellings that constituted the regions few and far between settlements. Too bad road maintenance had never caught on as an alternative livelihood, as that would certainly have assured full employment. It was up here that we broke a rear leaf spring and had to defer repairs for days, which did nothing to smooth out the ride. At one point the car’s frame got so contorted negotiating a deep furrow that the windshield cracked. I couldn’t help but feel bad exacting this toll after I found out it was in fact Din’s car, not some agency’s, and this being only the fourth day. The terrain was only going to get worse. It was around this time in an act of sullen defeat that Din stopped cleaning his penny loafers every evening, and began eyeing my boots with envy - a covetous look like the one Peter Lorre had for the Maltese Falcon.

Just as the endlessly jostling road and sweltering heat became unbearable the blue promise of ocean appeared in the distance, though once sighted it still proved two more twisty hours away, and even after the coastal range was well behind us it seemed an interminably long interval before a sweeping curve rounding a tall bluff unveiled the bay at Gwa like a big postcard in our windshield. My jaw dropped at its iridescent beauty. I didn’t care if we had to sacrifice the car to a high tide - I didn’t want to go another foot before I was embracing the sweet caress of its unfolding waves. Din was unimpressed. I only found out later that, like the vast majority of Burmese, he couldn’t swim.

The village headman at the government run guest house extended a gracious welcome. To say the little enclave was past its prime would be charitable, the ambience inside its one habitable bungalow impeccably exemplified by collapsing drywall, bullfrogs under the bed and a beetle sporting long handle bar antennae who serenaded me and everyone within a mile with a buzz saw concerto after dark every night.

Out in that glorious water with the bay all to my self, it seemed more like the whole world. I would have swum to Sri Lanka with little encouragement, but it was nirvana just body surfing the see-through waves out from where that coast line looked endless. From there the view inspired the next days hike to the bay’s northern reaches, which looked to be a daylong commitment best begun early and hopefully under a thick cloud cover. Burma’s capacity for heat was never to be underestimated – a sweltering, debilitating ordeal made even less comprehensible given that this was the ‘cool’ season.

Our march began at dawn the next morning, Din wisely opting to go barefoot. Unexpectedly, we found our path dissected by a river a few kilometers down the beach, presenting a slight dilemma. Showing uncharacteristic initiative, Din hunted down a boatman to ferry us across, the delta’s bottom appearing in perfect detail the entire half-mile crossing. I’d never seen a clear water river delta before and found it one more in a long list of contradictions. Continuing along the far beach, a carpet of tiny red crabs scrambled at our approach as a fast rising sun conspired to reduce us to ashes.

A ways further, as I paused to draw from the water bottle and photograph damselflies on shady pines just above the tidal zone, the unmistakable glint of gold caught my eye just ahead. Moving closer, the pinnacle of a small temple revealed itself - one more example of these things materializing out in the absolute middle of nowhere, built by whom? maintained by whom? Nearby a yawning hole in the sandstone cliff was too obvious not be part of the scheme. Neither of us had a flashlight, but the intensity of the morning light radiated deep inside as we followed the narrowing cave passage, its tapering ceiling forcing us almost to our knees a mere thirty or so feet in. Stooping to continue revealed more gold glistening further on where the passage way opened up into a cavern. But it wasn’t an altar or wall décor glinting. It was the golden tunic of a Buddha, sleeping.

Even Din was impressed. He offered how sleeping Buddha’s are extremely rare and signify a peace so complete as to invite rest on one’s struggle towards nirvana. And by then I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The caves deep cool interior was a tonic to my parched forehead and overheated lungs and, having left both hats back in my frog-appointed suite, I deserved whatever the spirits of merciless climate were going to throw at me. But not for while - not until my core temperature got back down below the boiling point of blood.

At first it felt as though we had transgressed a crypt, but calmness overtook me as it soon became apparent this was meant as a place of meditation, that the only thing buried in here was one’s cares. Candles long burned to their base lined the reclining statues periphery, just skirting its draping robe. Wads of moth-eaten currency half filled a dusty offering jar. Din suddenly had the embarrassed look of someone who had showed up at a potluck without a casserole as he searched his pockets in vain for a donation. I felt compelled to cover for him, what with that huge wad of bills smothering my passport. We could ill afford to get on the wrong side of the Big B this early in the trip, not with all that bad road we still had ahead of us.

Heading north days later I couldn’t cross one more archaic bridge without photographing its pastoral perfection and told Din to stop and let me out just before crossing one of the more dilapidated examples we were to encounter. I could sense the rotting old thing shifting under my own weight as I ventured across carefully avoiding the larger gaps of missing timber. This did little to enhance the prospect of eventually driving over it.

But once out in the middle to compose the shot, it seriously began to buckle and sway. I turned to find a fully loaded bus coming at me, its passenger’s heads protruding out the windows as if trying to get an idea how hard they should be praying. The driver had no intentions of cutting me any slack, and I knew the unwritten law of right-of-way all too well: Buses over trucks, trucks over cars, cars over ox carts, ox carts over buffalo, buffalo over pedestrians. People only outrank goats, pigs and chickens. Having no time to scramble to its far end I was compelled to swing outside the splintered railings just in time to allow the over-loaded monstrosity to squeeze by, all the while thinking this is where I check out - pinned under six tons of rust, Tomb of the Unknown Foreigner.

But the local spirits had evidently cashed in the offering I had left back in that cave a few days earlier for an equivalent in karma, and by that afternoon we had made it all the way to Thandwe, forty tortuous miles up the coast - a new one-day record.

Contacts I had made at Gwa and its other compelling distractions saw our return there within a few days. The river just north of the village looked navigable, and the headman’s promise to secure me a boat for some exploration was kept within hours of our return, the first of many expressions of his largess and local clout. One of his underlings escorted me to the delta where a sizable fishing junk and crew patiently awaited my every instruction. The big lumbering craft led me to believe the river must be much bigger than I at first guessed. Heading upstream past its captains’ village, folks on shore wondered aloud where in God’s name we were headed – this tub was an offshore netter, not a river queen. The captain pointed to me as if the presence of a bearded lunatic explained everything, and apparently it did. They all waved as if we might never be seen again.

Before getting very far, the coastal road crossed over the river and clearing its frail bridge with this behemoth would be threading a needle with a diesel, mere inches of clearance allotted and, given their decrepit condition, even glancing contact would reduce boat and bridge to bundles of kindling. An ox-cart driver starting to cross over froze, not believing his eyes, staying put to await the outcome. But the captain knew his craft and made the passage look routine. Then, not two miles on, the banks squeezed closer together than the length of the boat, challenging my sense of logic. I seriously doubted this thing could turn around inside Cape Cod, much less within its own radius. But somehow, some way, upon returning hours later from where we had been dropped off to continue on foot, she was mysteriously pointing down stream as if the gods of levitation had intervened.

As the sun burned through a hazy horizon the following morning I was escorted to the opposite end of the expansive bay where a large junk bobbed in the offshore swells. From it a host of crewmen deftly surfed a crude canoe in, waving me out to meet them - both cameras dangling precariously over my shoulders as relentless waves conspired to bowl me over. The canoe proved incredibly wobbly to my profound consternation. I couldn’t have either camera, let alone both, drown on me - not this early in the trip. Once aboard the mother ship, headman and I formed seats from piles of fishing nets and got to know each other through his marginal English, gleefully bypassing Din’s dubious interpretive skills. As we sailed off he pointed out features on shore and spoke of life on this remote coast which eventually lead to how he came to settle in Gwa after a long and fateful stint in the army fighting rebel insurgents in the northern highlands, going into great detail surrounding events that explained the shrapnel wounds peppering his upper torso; one man dead, ten wounded by land mine, the survivors of which had chosen to follow their old squad leader down here after hostilities ceased to carve out a new life. Apparently his war time heroics had garnered favor in government circles resulting in a sweet posting on this magnificent bay. But nothing made him prouder than extolling the rare peace his country was currently experiencing, a situation I had mixed emotions about given the Burmese governments well known, often abhorrent, civil liberties record.

Shuttled ashore to a small islands’ lee in that damnable canoe, I almost lost the cameras overboard again. We ambled around the isle’s periphery swapping tall tales, lighting each others cigars, examining exotic shells, and at a fishing camp as guest of honor was treated to dried stingray lunch, its taste and tenacity comparable to discarded footwear. To wash it down I was offered some hooch my new comrades had brewed - truly one of the most putrid libations ever to transgress my pallet. The smell alone initiated a lockjaw reflex that took superhuman willpower to suppress, which I somehow managed to their great delight, which only encouraged them to insist I down more. I just wished the vile concoction would’ve got me so blitzed as to erase the whole event from memory. Later, when I thought no one was looking, I stole away to an empty quarter of the beach and gargled with enough seawater to alter the tides.

Returning to the big boat the cameras came their closest ever to getting baptized, and once again when we surfed the canoe back in to Gwa beach. Headman found my little shit conniptions hilarious until, admiring the Nikon, he asked what it cost. When I told him he choked “…that’s more than the boat!” pointing out to the mother ship, then shouting orders to his men that the cameras and the photographer were hereafter to be protected with life and limb. Now he gets the idea.

And if my hosts hadn’t been magnanimous enough already, that night an exquisite dinner was prepared in my honor on incongruous cloth covered tables out in the middle of the broad beach where beer and rum flowed freely and a huge fire roasted spotted sea bass and other delicacies. Taking turns singing, I rendered an off-key Happy Trails that everyone thought was the most wonderful thing they’d ever heard. I encouraged them to have a few more drinks, then teased them about the conspicuous absence of women at this shindig.

I was introduced to two in the village later that night, both from prominent local families, educated, spoke some English and flashed radiant smiles, relishing my drawing them in to the conversation and obvious acceptance of them as equals, as local men and local custom failed so miserably to. It still pains me to think of all that human potential going to waste in a country that could ill afford to neglect any precious resources.

Not anxious to bring an end to that night, I ventured by flashlight up to the rhinestone-encrusted shrine I had spotted from a distance earlier that day on a hilltop outside the village. Leaving my footwear at the bottom of a long series of steps terminating at a large seated Buddha under a rusting lean-to, I slowly circled the edifice taking in the magnificent views from each compass heading. Fires simmered in the village below. Stars betrayed where the mountains defined the eastern horizon. It was as fine a romantic setting as I’d ever experienced, and I found myself wishing I’d challenged local social etiquette and asked either of the women I had met earlier that evening to come with me. That truly may have culminated in a religious experience.

On a jungle hike the following afternoon animal trails provided access through otherwise impenetrable vegetation into the hills. Din’s shoe’s and a serious apprehension of all things natural did nothing to enhance this experience for him, but for what his services were costing me he could just stay behind if he couldn’t deal with it, and upon sighting the first hand-size spider repairing a web so large it blocked the way, that’s exactly what he did. With the exceptions of a few skittish parrots and iguanas, photo ops were nil. What I really needed to do was follow these paths for miles, for days, which I simply couldn’t without a pack animal – a non-existent local commodity. Anything with four legs around here was needed behind a plow. Settling for the achievable out in the waves that evening I raced the sun to the horizon - a little ways at least, and contemplated the pure serendipity of having what had to be one of the most spectacular settings on earth all to myself, though wishing I had someone special to share it with.

Before we departed the next morning headman and his cronies presented me with the bill for both boat excursions – eight bucks. Scarcely believing that even covered the cost of fuel, the least I could do was leave a twenty dollar tip. Hugging headman goodbye I could feel massive gapping wounds in his back right through his shirt. Suddenly his war stories became painfully tangible. I wished all of them a long, serene life and a lasting peace in their beloved country.

It takes a very special city to impress me, so I suppose Bagan was one exception owing to its village-like qualities, albeit a massive village of say around 400,000 devout Buddhists. The thousand year-old temple at its center could be seen long before any other evidence of the city itself was apparent and only grew more imposing with each closing kilometer until it dominated the entire western skyline. And it was only one of seemingly endless indescribable structures there, each a testimonial to the spiritual servitude of uncountable generations. This was one of those rare occasions I was compelled to explore a city center drawn in and mesmerized by the color and the cacophony of foot traffic, push-carts, hawkers, livestock and bicyclists, singling out an individual here and there, each making there way to the next most important thing that had to get done, trying to imagine their daily struggle, looking for inspiration in lives that must be one long series of momentary victory over the overwhelming.

Heading north we happened upon one of Burma’s only officially sanctioned nature preserves, so designated to accommodate the annual migratory waterfowl that come here in their hundreds of thousands from as far away as Mongolia. But of course my timing was months off. Essentially a shallow lake about the size of Delaware, I was constantly frustrated at our muffler-less boat’s damnable propensity to scare off the few species calling this place home year round before we could get anywhere near them. At its far edge a tiny village all but declared a legal holiday when I met with its constituents and wandered along its dusty protective earthen dikes with entourage in tow.

But the highlight of that day was after we had returned from the boat trip, watching a young boy in charge of a herd of water buffalo, heading them out for their daily bath, resolutely allowing the thirty or so of them less latitude to wander off than some American suburban brat would a new puppy. It was sobering to watch him do what he was almost certainly destined to the rest of his life, that at this tender age he had already mastered all the skills he would ever put to employable use, and it spoke undeniably to the disparity of opportunities between his world and mine. I had seen countless other examples, sure, but there was something especially poignant about him on his own out there marshalling the huge beasts, all vestiges of childhood long behind him. And then I recalled my arrival in Burma, when the young girl behind the Customs desk asked me to confirm the $3000 cash I had claimed on my form. It hadn’t occurred to me that this sum represented something on the order of ten years wages to her until, with great excitement, she called several co-workers over for a transfixed gaze at this treasure, this well of potential and promise, the magnitude of which they may never see again at one time. I walked away in an embarrassment of riches wondering how I would fare had I been born in their place, a question that would plague me until I returned home - where far too often it seems too many choices are too readily available to the truly unworthy.

All it takes is being cut off from a perpetually changing world and some cultures can actually remain at the apex of what their organic form was destined to evolve in to. Burma’s previous government-imposed, rigidly enforced isolation had actually had that one important if unintended effect. I suppose it wouldn’t be so disheartening if nature and tradition weren’t always the first casualties of modernization, but it seems to be a central, undeniable truth as uncountable examples throughout the world demonstrate.

It’s all a matter of trade offs. And, perhaps, destiny.

The following are John's previous articles for the magazine:

• Adventures In The Caribbean ~ Tobago, Trinidad and Grenada
• Travel In The Yucatan ~ Exploring Mayan Ruins
• Late Autumn In Laos ~ In The Laotian Jungle
• Explorations In Nepal ~ Deep In The Hinderlands
• Indonesia ~ Adventure
• Explorations In The Amazon Basin ~ Into The Unknown
• Adventures In Surinam ~ Into The Jungle
• More Adventures In Surinam ~ Explorations