U Tin Maung shows off a fish that swam into his net. Pic: Minh Zaw

IN the middle of the day, when temperatures are at their highest, most visitors to Ngwe Saung Beach retreat to their hotel rooms to escape the scorching rays of the tropical sun.

But the fleeting emptiness of the beach along the Bay of Bengal in western Myanmar provides an opportunity for one old fisherman to cast his net wherever he pleases in the hopes of hauling in a few fish.

“I’m 65 years old so I can’t go out on boats at night with the younger men anymore,” said U Tin Maung from the nearby village of Kyauk Kee.

He said that on a typical day he catches enough fish to sell for about K2000, which he uses to buy rice and oil to last for two days.

“Because of my age, I don’t fish every day. I only come out when I need to buy food,” he said.

U Tin Maung said another consideration was the need to share the coastline with growing tourism interests, a relatively new development in an area whose residents have relied on fishing since time immemorial.

“Some of the hotels here don’t like people fishing on the beach. Others are more sympathetic. They understand that I need to fish to earn a living,” he said.

The Ngwe Saung Zone Hotelier Association has made a project this year out of cooperating with local authorities to ban motorcycles from the beach and to make sure that fisherman do not interfere with tourists’ enjoyment of the beach.

“Our priority is to please visitors and preserve the beauty of the beach so more tourists will be interested in Ngwe Saung,” said U Maung Maung Aye, the chairperson of the association.

Since Ngwe Saung’s establishment as a tourist zone in 2000, more than 20 hotels have been established along the 15-kilometre (9-mile) stretch of coastline.

Many locals who once relied solely on fishing, paddy farming and collecting toddy from palm trees have been able to cash in on the development of tourism by selling goods to visitors and working in hotels.

Still, U Maung Maung Aye said tourist numbers are far below the beach’s potential to accommodate visitors.

“We have accommodation for 1600 visitors a night but we get far fewer people because they don’t know about the beach,” he said, adding that total visitation in the month December was 1453 foreigners and 1779 locals.

This has made it hard for some hotels to make much of a profit at this stage, especially with the added cost of running generators to provide 24-hour electricity.

“We use 80 gallons of diesel a day to run our generator,” said U Tun Zaw Oo, the manager of Sunny Paradise Resort. “But we need to keep the electricity on or our food will spoil.”

Meanwhile, many of the area’s 2000 locals who are employed by hotels – most of whom get a base salary of about K20,000 a month – are trying to adjust to their new lives in the tourism industry.

“Our base salary is not enough for a family of five but when there are many visitors we get bonuses from the hotel and tips from the visitors,” said a staff member from Silver View Hotel.

While hotel staff wait for more visitors to come, local residents who are not involved in the tourism industry continue to play their own waiting game, this one for fish.

“Most of the people here still depend on the sea for a living. They go out in boats to an area 6 miles from shore and spend the night waiting for fish to swim into their nets,” said U Tin Maung.

“Some things just haven’t changed despite the hotels.”