Fishermen spreading net in the morning at Ngapali beach

Dear Friends,

I came to visit Ngapali, which is famous for its beautiful beaches along its coast and the island around. It also has some other inland places to visit. Ngapali is located in the western coast of Rakhine state, Myanmar. We stayed at a lodge at the side of the beach facing the bay of Bengal (the Indian Ocean).

Yesterday morning, I walked along the beach and encountered fishermen spreading net along the beach. I found that they dropped their long net from their boat and spread it in U shape so that the fish were trapped in it. I saw them pulling the net rope at both sides of their net. And I found the people nearby also helped them pull the rope. It was an interesting incident for me because I have not seen an event like this before.

And while the net became narrower, one fisherman started to catch small shrimps with his net walking side to side.

The fisherman has collected small shrimp and piled them on the beach for the first time. It was surrounded by curious visitors around. We saw very small shrimp - many of them in the pile. They were so small that they looked almost transparent to our eyes.

Those shrimps were so small that they were used only for making shrimp paste or eaten raw as salad with some squeeze of lime juice.

While we were inspecting the shrimp, the fisherman's net became narrowed to the point that they could take it to their fishing boat and started collecting the fish from it basket after basket.

I was not able to see what kind of fish they had caught but I found two fish grabbed out of the net by a visitor (He bought them from the fishermen I think). It was the fish I have never seen before.

There were many of such fish or could be different ones taken to their boat. It was an interesting activity event for me and the visitors. It happened in front of our hotel lodge.

Thank you for reading my post.

@princekham
4th Jan 2023
Myanmar