BBC
More than a century after Burma's king was banished, his descendants are stepping into the spotlight again - and raising the question whether his remains should be taken from their resting place in a foreign country and reburied at home, says Alex Bescoby.
In the grey dark before dawn in Ratnagiri, a sleepy seaside town on the remote west coast of India, I stand in what's usually a quiet and forgotten corner of this already unremarkable place.
Today, however, is different.
Secret service agents from India and Myanmar, also known as Burma, criss-cross each other whispering into sleeves, wearing the obligatory dark glasses, even though the sun has yet to rise.
Burmese in formal dress argue in hushed tones over where and how to seat Myanmar's five most senior holy men, its vice president and its highest-ranking soldier, whose arrival by naval helicopter is imminent.
I almost trip over an Indian policeman's hand-held minesweeper, then pirouette around his trailing sniffer dog.
A rising murmur causes me to turn around - a line of white ghosts is advancing up the dirt road towards me.
The spectres start to wave and smile as they draw closer.
For a long time, these people have been almost invisible. This is Myanmar's royal family, dressed in white, the traditional Burmese colour of mourning.
Few in Myanmar even know they exist. No member of this family has sat on Burma's Lion Throne since 1885, when a millennium of monarchy was brought to a swift end by an invading British Army under orders from Sir Randolph Churchill - father of Sir Winston - who was keen to open up lucrative new markets.
On New Year's Day 1886, the once-proud kingdom would be reduced to a mere province of British India, and would remain part of the British Empire until gaining independence in 1948.
As rivals to Burma's new rulers, the royal family were scattered and a campaign began to erase them from history.
Thibaw, the defeated king, was immediately sent into exile with his heavily pregnant wife, his junior queen and two small daughters. At just 26, the king had no idea he would live out the remaining 31 years of his life here in Ratnagiri, a prisoner of the British Crown.
Ratnagiri's remoteness was the exact reason it was chosen. Some 3,000 miles from Thibaw's royal seat of Mandalay, accessible only by sea for parts of the year and far from any of Britain's meddling European rivals, it was the perfect place to make a man disappear.
So successful was this move that schoolchildren in Myanmar today are told his story in a single sentence in the government history curriculum, and few know that the royal family returned to Burma after his death, and lived quietly among the people they used to rule over.
Back in their former kingdom the family would be watched over suspiciously, even after independence. Myanmar's paranoid military rulers also feared the potential affection the royals could muster, and some would face jail or even assassination because of their royal blood.
But now, exactly 100 years after King Thibaw's death, the royals are stepping back into the spotlight.
A squat square structure inside a walled compound, surrounded by crumbling apartment blocks is the final resting place of King Thibaw.
Today the king's descendants have for the first time been given permission to travel to India and publicly remember their forefather, in a bid to end a century of anonymity. It's one of the lesser-known consequences of Myanmar's opening up to the world, and a move towards greater democracy.
In preparation for the special day, the tomb has been hurriedly cleaned and repainted a startling white by the local authorities, and draped with curtains of orange and white flowers.
U Soe Win, Thibaw's great-grandson and head of the family, wraps my hand in both of his and a warm smile beams from under his neat black moustache.
"The day has finally come!" he exclaims.
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