The Mergui Archipelago region has been inaccessible since Burma gained its independence from the British Empire in 1948. Tenasserim was an important seaport at the turn of the century when trade between India and the Far East - China and Japan, avoided the treacherous Malacca Straits due to pirates, storms and the Portuguese. Small ships could navigate the Tenasserim River and their wares were transshipped over the hills to the Gulf of Thailand. Little is known of that route which is now covered in deep forests.

Trade flourished when Siam owned both coasts during the 16th and 17th centuries. War elephants, china and local porcelain, spices and silk were exported and the port of Mergui on the coast could accommodate larger ships.

During the period an Englishman became Shabandar (harbormaster), the French were interested in the region and then the times of freebooters and pirates followed. Finally the Siamese massacred the foreign traders and closed their borders to foreigners.

War later broke out between Burma and Siam and the Burmese conquered and gained control of Tenasserim Province. The British secured the Straits of Malacca and founded Penang and Singapore. Mergui and Tenasserim soon fell into oblivion.

When the British took over the region in 1826, as their initial settlement after the first Burmese War, they found it virtually uninhabited. Two hundred years of war and guerrilla warfare between Siam and Burma had caused the once prosperous population of Mergui and Tenasserim to flee to their respective homelands.

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