The Last Eden (Part 1)
Action Asia (1998)

For many centuries – since the birth of the industrial revolution – technology, commerce and politics have together formed an all but irresistible bulldozer, ploughing relentlessly through the world’s natural environments. But every so often, through odd quirks of fate, a few places are inadvertently overlooked. This is what has happened with the Mergui Archipelago, a large and very beautiful island group off Myanmar’s western coast. Not only have the islands escaped development by the modern world, they don’t even have a significant indigenous population. Despite being right in the geographical center of Asia, surrounded by countries with the densest populations on the planet – India, China and Indonesia – a few human beings have ever set foot on these islands. They offer a rare chance to see a natural environment untouched by mankind.

It’s one thing to visit a remote tropical island – but something completely different to be the first person ever to leave your footprints in the sand.

Over the last few thousand years, since Homo sapiens have become the dominant species on the planet, mankind seems to have spread everywhere and traveled everywhere. These days even the polar ice caps, the highest peaks, the deepest jungles and the most barren deserts have felt the trudge of heavy boots or the roar of man-made machines. It’s almost unthinkable to turn to a map of Asia – the world’s most densely populated region – and contemplate a long chain of tropical islands, situated by a major land mass in the heart of the region, only to find out that virtually no-one lives there, very few have ever visited, and even the larger islands are designated "unknown and unexplored". Yet there is such a chain of islands. It’s called the Mergui Archipelago, and it stretches down the west coast of Myanmar. Apart from a few "Sea Gypsies", there’s not even an indigenous population. Through a few strange quirks of history, most of the Mergui Archipelago has been left to birds, beasts and plant life.

But now, as the results of the efforts of some entrepreneurs in Thailand, and the co-operation of the Government of Myanmar, these islands are open to limited commercial cruises from Phuket. Anyone lucky enough to get a berth on one of these cruises in the immediate future has the unique opportunity to go where few, if any, have ever gone before, and visit islands that man still hasn’t touched or despoiled – an experience that will soon be impossible to replicate anywhere on this planet.