We first set off from Lower Lough Erne in good company: self-designated ‘Misfit Mariners’ Eric, Jill, Giles and Ted, and dogs Oíche (=Ee-ha) and Hobbes (=Hobz!), had already traveled together for several weeks over the summer, sharing meals and water-borne adventures. I’d heard all about it while I was working, and couldn’t wait to join them.
Eric lives aboard the tjalk Nieuwe Zorgen with Oíche, and Jill and Giles aboard Dutch barge Hawthorn with Hobbes. We live on the smaller widebeam barge Heron. Ted’s motorbike, a Transalp 650, was of the journey too, either on our boat or on Eric’s. It only just fits on the Heron’s rear deck, as it is a long as the boat is wide.
Together the boats looked a great sight, and to be honest, a somewhat curious spectacle next to the plastic hire cruisers that patrol these waters.

I liked traveling with the Misfit Mariners. We sailed from harbour to jetty, stayed here and there and just…. lived! A live-aboard life. Jill and Giles run a business from their barge, making boat covers, and sometimes that was the reason to stay somewhere. One of these stays was Swan Island on Lough Garadice.

At first, after India and Asia, this journey seemed a bit dull to share – even though I was enjoying it very much! It took a while to dawn on me that we were actually doing quite unusual things, all in subtlety.
Watching the kind of pictures Ted took opened my eyes. The camera had to be turned around and pointed at ourselves, not at the landscape and people I saw. Rather than functioning like a witness to extraordinary surroundings and unfamiliar people living their lives, I was the slightly unusual object, living in more familiar (by European standards), but still extraordinary surroundings. By the time I realised that, my camera batteries were dead. So I borrowed Ted’s camera now and then, and in part 2, I even borrowed one or two of his photos…. But here’s the journey:

[View with PicLens]

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I first thought of visiting the country when Laxman announced, almost a year earlier, that he was now ready to go and see what was going on there. I thought I wouldn’t mind going along, accompany him on a first time adventure for both of us. He had postponed his visit for two decades because of the political situation in Myanmar. Till my first trip to India the year before, I’d never really thought of where I’d like to go, and I certainly hadn’t thought of myself as someone who’d go anywhere ‘dodgy’. All I’d heard of Burma was about Aung San Su Si on house arrest and 1940’s soldiers building railways in jungles, but suddenly the names of Mandalay and Rangoon sparkled with poetic wonder in my mind.

Our friend Charlotte had been a tour guide on several organised trip to the country, and spoke of it and of its beautiful people with warmth and enthusiasm.

I started reading up on Burma, her history, also contemporary real stories, and talking about it. Some of my friends had seen documentaries about the tourist infrastructure being built on slave labour, the Burmese had called for a boycott themselves and the regime brutally repressed the people. But now on the internet, some other Burmese were decrying the boycott as more harmful than tourism, saying that there is no worse fate for the people of Myanmar than isolation. It seemed the leader herself started to hint at discrimination.
What was really going on?

In the middle of my research, the September 07 monks’ rebellion started. Now, with some background information, our visit looked quite unlikely. Laxman continued to gather practical information, and I kept on following the news and reading background info till January, when I really needed to make a decision – I was leaving by the end of the month…

Reading the latest forum posts from people who had just returned, I made my mind. They were saying that we must go, tourism had dropped to almost zero, and the budding independent tourist industry was decimated. Isolation was painfully severe to ordinary Burmese, and used by the regime to control people further.

The important thing, insisted the travel book and individual travellers with a conscience, was to avoid putting money in the pocket of the government, and use as far as possible local, private and independent services. Put money directly in people’s hands.

So, sharing this information, we still both wanted to go.
I took off with the intention to get to Bangkok first, and see there if I’d get a visa there.

We got a visa without any hassle or trouble. There were only another 7 or 8 tourists applying, and it all went very quickly. At the embassy, the guys behind the window, presumably ‘baddies’ in league with the regime, looked like ordinary family men trying to earn their living. So it was going to be a lot more complex than the new Rambo film, just coming out these days and much talked about, made out….

As the old, near empty plane prepared to land, I let my thoughts wander – what were we going to find down there?

The light was great, and I had lots of time on my hands. In the process, I learnt as much about India and myself than about photography, if not more – my entire resourcing system, based on phone calls and the Internet, just didn’t work there. My friend Laxman taught me how to do it, and thanks to him I persevered and set up the project successfully.

It took a while before I got results. I had to re-invent the whole process empirically, without the Western controlled comfort of measures, light meters and instructions on packets.