Pearl Diver

The diver are the natives of the island world in the south.

The Salone or sea gypsies (in Thailand they are known as Moken) live on the islands and their houseboats, when the weather is suitable they dive for natural pearls. On the picture one of them just found a giant oyster and lifted it up to the boat.

Since the introduction of cultured pearls diving almost came to a standstill. Another reason is that too much has been poached and that the balls were usually not a perfect sphere. There was therefore only a low yield which made the divers to move to other businesses such as larger scale fishing.

Every now and then some festivities come up and the beauties wear the pear necklaces made from the spheres they found in the oysters on the ocean floor.

Islands of the Myeik Archipelago >

A trip to Kawthaung >