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All at Sea: Another Side of Paradise

All at Sea: Another Side of Paradise

Author(s): Julian Sayarer

Location(s): The Surin Islands

Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs

Era(s): Contemporary

Location

Content

On the small island of Surin, near the naval border of Thailand and Myanmar, an indigenous people known as Moken ‘sea gypsies’ struggle to maintain the same timeless existence as their ancestors.

As real estate developers, oil exploration and industrial tourism reshape the waters they call home, Sayarer receives a mysterious offer from an idealistic Luxembourger determined to tell a tale of the Moken on film, and in search of a writer to detail the efforts of his motley crew.

Events unfold in a reality strangely different to that version captured by the lens. In the quest for indigenous wisdom, cameras and tripods clutter bamboo huts, while fishing trips and dives are staged beneath the waves. With the quest for paradise seeming ever more artificial, Sayarer instead begins listening to the stories of Laurie, an old sailor, with a life on the water behind him, and in whose ship the crew sail out into the Andaman Sea.

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Book Reviews

Lead Review

Author: Tina Hartas

  Julian Sayarer is the author of Interstate which won the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the year in 2016, which is no surprise because this is an author who can write so very well and...

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