"...When people come to the beaches of Chaung Tha and Ngwe Saung in Irrawaddy Division, they immediately feel their stress melt away. The warm sand, clear blue sky and bluish-green water bring relief to the weary souls of Burmese city dwellers and world travelers alike. But for many of the original residents of these famous resort areas, life here is anything but paradise. Although they once lived simple but comfortable lives as coconut growers, many local people now barely scrape by on what they can earn from wandering the beaches with food to sell to tourists. And even this income is often denied them by police and resort owners, who regard them as little more than a blight on the local tourism industry. Many foreign and local tourists flock to the beaches of Ngwe Saung and Chaung Tha from December to April. There are now 18 hotels in Ngwe Saung, 13 in Chaung Tha and another 25 bungalows waiting to accommodate visitors from near and far. Most have appeared in the past decade, after a land grab by the government cleared the way for cronies of Burma?s ruling junta to develop prime seaside properties. For beach vendors like Mya Mya, who carries trays of grilled seafood on her head all day long—her face covered with a thick layer of thanakha paste to protect her skin from the scorching sun—there is no forgetting that these beaches once belonged to her and others like her. ?We used to own these lands once,? she says, looking vacantly at the Ngwe Saung seashore Like many other people who lived in this area before property developers moved in and turned it into a upscale tourism hotspot, Mya Mya and her family lost their coconut plantation in 2000, when the government confiscated their land..."