SE Asia Adventures

The Days of Yore

2007-06-07T16:48:00.000+07:00

People come to Southeast Asia for many reasons. White beaches, tropical weather, wonderful food, friendly people and also a bit of history. We came to Thailand for different reasons but before leaving we both wanted to check out a little place that we had heard good things about for a chance to experience a bit of what the region was like hundreds of years ago. It is easy to get a bit templed out in Thailand since there are so many new and old ones in nearly every city you visit. We had both found the history and ruins of Ayutthaya interesting but were felt that a few months in between this historical park and that of Sukothai would be a good break and allow us to appreciate it even more. So with just a few days in Thailand left we decided to hit up Sukothai on our way out.

Sukhothai is known as the 'first' kingdom in Siam and was first established in the 1238. The kingdom eventually was absorbed by the Ayutthaya kingdom in the 1438 and lost much of its influence in the region. People continued to live here until the 1800's or so but much of the temples and structures were taken over by the forest and it was not until the early 1900's that the Thai government recognized the importance of the history that this region held. Many of the ancient structures were renovated and the area was eventually declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with two other nearby cities.

Today many tourists, both Thai and foreign alike come to view and wander around the pleasant surroundings that these historical parks offer. It is not as well visited as Ayutthaya since it is farther from Bangkok but in many ways the park makes for a more pleasant visit since the sun is not quite as intense, the area is much more shaded and the structures are just as fantastic. Since the area was also not attacked like Ayutthaya was by the Burmese, many of the structures are also more intact and picturesque. That being said both parks were worth a visit if just for a chance to imagine what live must have been like hundreds of years ago in these ancient kingdoms.

We only had two days to spare in our jam packed schedule and arrived early in Old Sukhothai (the nearby New Sukothai is actually a larger city where many guesthouses are located but we elected to stay closer to the sites). We checked into a room, had a quick breakfast and rented cheap bikes for the day. As we started to ride around we noticed many birds flying overhead and we discovered that this temple sightseeing excursion could also be combined with our birding interests. Since we had entered a new region of Thailand many of the birds were new ones for us so this was indeed a great discovery.

Our hours were whiled away taking in the amazing structures that had been built in a time before we could even imagine. The many different styles of the temples spoke to the different influences that had affected the people here (Khmer from Cambodia as well as Sri Lankan and Burmese influenced architecture). We biked around and enjoyed the park-like setting of Sukhothai where green lawns and lily filled ponds were interspersed with ancient laterite structures (the major stone used in building) and staring Buddha images. We seemed to have the place to ourselves (being the non-tourist season) and this made this spot even more enjoyable.

By the end of the day we had seen enough Buddhas to make our heads spin, the most impressive being a huge reconstructed image at Wat Si Chum which sits at about 12 meters high located within its own little cubicle. As to why many of the Buddhas have their own little cubicle I am not exactly sure but perhaps each Buddha image needs a bit of time to itself. We also visited a nicely put together museum with many artifacts and you guessed it: more Buddha images. I would like to hear how many Buddha images there are in Thailand. The task for that would certainly be a life long occupation for many.

By the end of the day we were pretty pooped but had successfully seen most of the 'significant' sights of Sukhothai and had bagged a number of new life birds as well. Not a bad day at all.

The next day we decided to rent a motorbike and head to another UNESCO World Heritage Site about 60 kilometers away. It too was an ancient city from the Sukhothai kingdom but we had heard that this place was a bit different and worth a look as well. After a bit longer ride than expected we arrived at another ruin strewn landscape. It was certainly different and worth the ride. The ruins were more visually striking in some respects and the whole area was interlaced with forest rather than wide grassy meadows.

We constantly asked ourselves how a place could have been a thriving population center and then abandoned for hundreds of years to be taken over by the forest. It is a bit mind boggling. Many of the structures were 'rediscovered' in the early 1900's and since then the Thai government has done their part to restore and preserve this historical area. In my mind this is quite forward thinking that began quite a long time ago.

Again these ancient ruins offered us with some amazing sights and a bit to ponder. This landscape also offered us another birding opportunity as forest near the temples was being used by thousands of waterbirds for a roosting sight. A huge area was being utilized by a number of species of huge majestic birds and this once again offered us another great diversion from temple viewing.

After our short two days of taking in the ruins we were again on our way. Our next stop would be another national park for you guessed it: more birding. We would enter northeast Thailand, the fabled Isaan, where the cooking is supposed to be fantastically spicy and the landscapes breathtaking.

Another River Trip

2007-05-30T20:51:00.000+07:00

Our last few days along the border were filled with some good times. We were given a proper farewell and a bit of closure is always nice. We had two amazing meals: a Burmese soup with chicken and and quail eggs and delicious rice snacks at Laura's organization and one of our favorite dishes in Thailand (their version of sukiyaki or a sizzling hotpot with meat and vegetables). We were showered with unexpected presents as a sign of gratitude for sharing our time with the people here. It certainly was a great way to end our time and we were even given handmade traditional clothing which the ethnic group that we were working with wears. This was a truly heartfelt present and the best that we could think of. Perhaps not so practical to be worn in the USA but a gift which will be treasured.

After our final goodbyes we left on a bus on a rainy day heading south. Our destination was the Salawin River. This is one of the most important rivers in Burma and for now is also the longest undammed river in Southeast Asia. It is one of the most biologically diverse rivers in the region and provides a livelihood for the many people that live along its shores. It will not stay undamned for long however as agreements have been made to dam the river in numerous places in order to supply power to Thailand and for the new capital of Burma. This has been a highly controversial issue and many Karen and other ethnic people inside Burma where the dams are to be placed have been forcibly relocated. The military has come through destroying many villages, raping and pillaging along the way and offering no reinbursement for the relocation. This has caused many villagers to flee to Thailand or live out a miserable nomadic existence in the jungle. All in all a pretty horrible situation.

The Salawin forms the border with Thailand for only about 100 miles but there is a large national park that has been set up here and we wanted to check out the life on the river as well as do a little birding. We had stopped at the park a few weeks ago but unfortunately did not actually visit the river and only had a chance to walk through some of the nearby forest. We had heard about an interesting village that laid on the banks of the river and also a river trip to a nearby town which sounded fun. A Thai doctor on one of our visits to the hospital had told us that the birding on the river was decent as well so we were excited about the prospects.

We arrived in the town of Mae Sariang a bit too late to catch a truck to the river village and the weather was not too great anyway so we decided to bed town in this cute river town (not the Salawin but a much smaller tributary) for the night. We awoke the next morning to relatively clear skies and jumped on the first truck to Mae Sam Lap, the aforementioned Salawin river town. The scenery along the ride started with pleasant rice fields in the valley but soon changed to thick forest in a hilly landscape and unfortunately the change in scenery was accompanied by a change in weather. The hills produced a rain that did not let up for the rest of the day. So much for that seemingly pleasant weather.

As we got closer to the Salawin, small houses along the roadside started to pop up. It was clear that many of the folks in this area were originally from Burma as Burmese seemed to be the ligua de franca of our fellow passangers and the longyis (the traditional Burmese sarong) was the favored clothing of those on the side of the road. We soon came to the bank of the river and noticed that the houses were packed in precariously along the steep slope. It looked as if any second they would tumble down the hillside but what do I know. Even in the rainy weather, this place was striking and memorable. I could only imagine why many of these people had fled their homes in Burma and decided to take up life on the river banks of the Thai side of the Salawin: for more trading options, to flee persecution, or otherwise.

We eventually arrived at our destination on the banks of the river where many boats plied the river to two nearby towns. We were not quite sure of what we wanted to do but we went to check with the local staff of the national park which had an office just outside of the village. At first we thought of staying in the nice bungalows that were offered here to both bird around the river and get a bit more exposure to the life around town. When we told them our interests in birding though, they told us that it would probably be best to head upriver to stay near the town of Ta Tha Fang. So with a bit of the help we looked for a boat heading upriver and waited a few hours as the rain continued to intermittingly drench the village.

While waiting for the boat, many interesting characters came up for a small chat. I am always amazed by the quality of English spoken especially along the border. One young Karen (a large group of indigenous people which lives both in Burma and Thailand) told us that he had learned English in one of the nearby refugee camps. This is interesting since he is not a refugee and was in fact born in Thailand but it seemed like he was putting the skill to good use. A Karen tour guide who was leading two French tourists around the area asked if we wanted to join his tour. When we said that we did not he was unexpectedly not pushy at all and actually helped us quite a bit in giving pertinent information about our own plans. It is so nice to be in places which are a bit less touristed. It always seems that the people are nicer and more helpful.

After about two hours, a boat was finally heading upriver and we jumped on board. Luckily the rain held out for our half hour boat trip on this majestic, muddy river. The banks were lined with sand banks and beautiful rock formations as well a number of birds. We arrived at the national park field office and quickly jumped off the boat and settled into our nice little room. No one else was staying here and it looked as if it had been awhile since anyone had. The facilities at Thai national parks have absolutely amazed me. They are nothing short of phenomenal, especially compared with say the Philippines (where they are virtually non-existent). Some Thai parks do charge a bit exhorbantly for foreigner admission fees but it certainly seems like these fees are being used appropriately.

After settling in, we decided to head into the small nearby village to see if there was anywhere to eat. We had brought our own supply of instant noodles but wondered if there was a bit more on offer in town. Our walk was accompanied by the rain and it was not a very fruitful effort as no food was found. But the little village was cute and the surroundings were eye-pleasing. After a little wandering we found our way down to the banks of the river and the birding here proved to be decent. It was interrupted a few times by the rain but we hung out here for about an hour or so with delight.

Then the afternoon rain set in and we decided to head home. We made the fateful decision to take a different route than we had come by and head along the river. It seemed logical since our accomodation was on the river that we would quickly make our way back. We figured that it could not be too far away. We were wrong though and found that while the path started off very clear and easy to follow, it soon headed into the forest where we got a bit lost just a few times. It turned out that the trek along the river which we thought would be a short jaunt turned into a bit of an afternoon adventure. We were just about to give up and head back the way we came when the national park lodging finally came into sight. We had started to see visions of hiking in the forest at night or even worse but our intuition that if we followed the river we had to come to our lodging was correct. It just took a bit longer of hiking through pouring rain in a muddy forest than expected. But all in all no harm done and just another afternoon adventure in the books.

Upon returning we changed out of our soaking muddy clothes and cooked up our instant noodles as well as a salad with some green mangoes that we had 'foraged' from a nearby plantation. When dusk started to settle in we were ravaged by misquitos and decided to head inside but this proved to be little better even in the closed and screened off room. After dinner we settled in for a restless night filled with some of the most hardcore misquito biting ever experienced.

Unfortunately the weather did not want to cooperate. We got about an hour of decent birding in before the sky opened up and just would not quit. After an hour or so of trying to wait out the storm we decided to call it a day and hit the road. We packed our things and caught the next boat out. It had been a nice park filled with a bit of adventure and some decent birding which could have been much better if the weather had been nicer. But our schedule was tight and the rain had gotten the better of us so we decided to move on. We headed back to Mae Sariang and then to Chiang Mai and eventually to Sukothai. We were on our way back into the heart of Thailand for some more temple adventure.

On The Road Again

2007-05-30T20:18:00.001+07:00

Well the time has come once again to say goodbye and get a move on. We have had an amazing three months here in this little pleasant corner of Thailand and it has afforded us some great opportunities. Who knows if our time here will have had much impact on our students or the others that we have come into contact with but it has impacted us for certain.

As I have said before it always seems that you get a hell of a lot more out of volunteering abroad than you are able to give back. Funny how that works. It makes me often think that I am a bit selfish for living life this way: enjoying this way of seeing the world but often disregarding family and friends and connections back home and realizing that I am not having as much impact as I could say working on issues back in the US. But I realize that this way of life makes me happy and it suits me well. So I will continue. Sure you do not make much money, but who needs money anyway?

It is sometimes hard to leave a place that you have come to know as home, even if only for a month or two. A place that tugs on your heartstrings a bit and fills you with delight. A place such as our little corner of Thailand where we had the opportunity to learn a little bit about what life in Burma is like. A place that offered us some peace and calm and offered a chance for serious contemplation and reflection after months of constant traveling. But perhaps we have gotten too used to our nomadic lifestyle for we are both itching to move onto our next adventure.

Or perhaps it is because of our anticipation of new adventures ahead. A chance to continue our journey and learn more but this time inside Burma. The people that we met along the border helped us gain a little glimpse of what life is like but we thirst to know more. So after a bit of contemplation on whether or not to take the plunge and visit, we decided to go ahead. Some may condemn us for this decision as we are 'supporting' the regime by giving a few of our dollars to them but this is a trip for us about learning a bit more about this land. We will try our best to keep our money out of the hands of the government and do our best to take the time to meet the people of Burma. We will tell others about our experiences and what we see and discover in this forgotten place. Our bags are packed and we are ready to go.

Unfortunately we will be unable to post our experiences in Burma on this blog for fear that things may be linked between our time along the border and our time in Burma. We would not want anyone we meet in Burma to be put at risk. We have tried to be as vague as possible with people, places, etc... along the border in case that any of our students should choose to want to go back to Burma at some point. We are perhaps taking extraordinary precautions and the chances of any link being made are small with the chance that anyone from the regime reading our blog also being small but being safer is for the best in this case we think.

So look for future installments on a different blog which will be revealed to friends and family through email. Sorry about this inconvenience. We will still be traveling a bit in Thailand before heading to Burma so look for future posts on this blog. Also we will resume blogging on this site when we enter Cambodia for another volunteer stint in August. So stay tuned and good night.

Life in the Burmese Boondocks

2007-05-16T18:14:00.000+07:00

The other day I gave my students the following assignment: write a paragraph about what you like about Burma. I figured that so often people focus on what is wrong with Burma, that they lose sight of what is good. I could tell they were a bit confused at first, so I mentioned "Everyone says they always want to go back to Burma. Why do they say this?" Most of the responses to the assignment may as well have been taken from a tourism brochure. This was not exactly what I had in mind, but what could I do.

One student's story, however, I would like to share with you. She totally dismissed the assigned topic and instead decided to write about how the State Peace and Restoration Council (SPDC) has affected the little farming community where she grew up. I have only fixed some grammar, otherwise every word is her own.

My Village
My village is a pleasant place, which is surrounded by mountains. In our village, people live simple lives and most people are farmers. People don't have extra crops to sell, they only have enough food for their families. When the SPDC started the railway project in Southern Shan State it made the local people have a difficult life. They confiscated people's farms without offering the farmers compensation. Civilians' livelihoods were stolen and it created more unemployment and made it more difficult to survive. Many people couldn't get enough food and the village had more problems. There were more thieves robbing food for survival because most people depended on their farms. Local people not only lost their lands (farms) and they were forced to build the railway without food or salary. Sometimes they had to provide food for soldiers who supervised the work. If people didn't go to work for one day, they have to pay money for two days work, so people weren't absent. In addition, people had no way of earning an income. Therefore, people have insufficient access to food and famine was a part of people's daily existence.

A Day in the Life of Us

2007-05-15T09:37:00.000+07:00

Well since most of our posts are about the interesting exploits of travel and adventure, I decided to put one up about our daily life here along the border. We are officialy teachers and so a decent amount of our time is devoted to you guessed it: teaching. We both teach English for about four hours every weekday. Those actually are not bad hours you may say. And you would be correct. They are not bad.

That leaves us the rest of the day to explore other things. It may seem that we have tons of time to ourselves for relaxation but it is amazing how times flies. I seem to wonder everyday where the day has gone. Casey's organization was nice enough to give him his own computer with internet access for the time being so he has henceforth become addicted to it. He frantically checks emails hoping for some sort of communication, joins new networks and online communities, edits pictures and blogs, checks up on the happenings of the world, finds out new birding hotspot, learns about new travel and educational opportunities and numerous other things. He has vowed that he will pull himself away from it numerous times but he just cannot. Damn technology: it is just too interesting. It will actually be good for him to leave this place and once again no longer have instant access to the computer world. But in many ways it has been very nice for both Laura and he to once again become connected to a larger community and learn about some of those things they have missed in the past few years. But three months is enough. We soon be heading to Burma and will re-enter our own little happy world of ignorance and disconnect.

We also have time to enjoy the beautiful environs of own cute little mountain town. It is just gorgeous here and the weather has for the most part been pretty spectacular (save a few weeks with cough inducing and eye burning smoke). It has been fairly dry and the temperature has been splendid. Now we have entered the rainy season but even the weather now is more agreeable than the rainy season that we experienced in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Just about every afternoon Casey drags Laura along for a bit of running in our community through rolling hills and we are met with many smiles along the way. There is a cute little river which runs past our community and this is used by many locals and we have spent a few lazy afternoons here in little huts set up for relaxation. This may even be where Laura got her Staph infection. It is only about a thirty minute walk into town and sometimes we go in for a bit of exploration or an evening meal by lakeside. It certainly is a cute low-key town.

This area has also proven to be an amazing birding spot. Many mornings, especially on the weekends, are spent just walking around looking for our feathered friends. I cannot imagine what our neighbors think as they see the crazy white people wandering around searching in the air with binoculars. Are they trying to look in our houses? Are they some kind of spies? But it seriously has been a joy living in such a birdy place (certainly better than the Philippines). We have made a few ventures further afield, passing by many cute mountain villages along the way and overall I can say that I really enjoy this little corner of Thailand.

There is certainly much to do, but we have also spent a lot of our time relaxing and talking about nothing in particular. It has been a great respite for us and also a time to plan for the future. We both have so many things on our mind and things that we want to do but for now we have been trying our best to enjoy our little hill village haven.

Putterin' About

2007-05-14T09:37:00.000+07:00

On our last Sunday before ending our time teaching, we decided to do a little birding (surprise!).

We arose with the sun and set of to a famous cave which is a nice little haven. We had tried birding here before, but our timing was off and we were smoked out. This time, we hoped not to be rained out as we went ahead with our plans with clouds looming overhead.

Our destination was within the boundaries of one of Thailand's many national parks and is a little retreat with a very small cave (as one tourist asked us..."where's the cave, I didn't see it?"), nicely manicured lawns and a short nature walk. The cave itself and the nearby stream is inhabited by many large fish who are feed by weekend visitors and guarded by an interesting Buddhist statue clothed in a leopard skin robe. Strolling around with our binoculars at first we didn't find anything. Just when we thought the day was for naught, we were overtaken by a large bird wave. In about 5 minutes we had identified about 10 species. Joyously, we decided to continue our journey a few kilometers away at the headquarters for the national park.

We had just discovered this place on a large tourist map at the cave and decided to check it out. It was out of the way and obviously not well visited as when we arrived the office staff's first question was did we mean to go to the cave instead. We meandered along a little trodden footpath through thick forest and bamboo stands. We were amazed at the forest in this area as it seemed to be real jungle, something we had not seen around these parts. Soon, the trail disappeared under the bamboo stands and so we headed back the way we came. We were trying to practice our forest birding skills, which are basically non-existent, but the occasional showers and thick forest wasn't too conducive to bird identification.

The clouds continued to threaten us and Lora was tired so we were planning on heading back to our village, but as we came to the road we decided to turn right instead of left. The road to the right looked inviting. It was a wandering length of highway nestled in a narrow valley that held a churning stream. The mountains above were thick with bamboo and the valley was highly cultivated. It was a charming spot and so we pressed on. We had no idea where we were headed, but we had the whole afternoon ahead of us to explore.

We zipped along the little highway past the lychee laden bamboo baskets ready to transport the fruit into town, through the village and under a sign that read "checkpoint for locals" or something to that affect. It was at this point we realized: we must be on a road to Burma! Since no one bothered the stop us, we decided to head straight through the quaint village and up the thickly forested mountains. Awed by the ever-increasing greenery around us we suddenly realized that we were beginning to hear birds chirping once more. This was a little odd since it was the middle of the day, usually not prime time for birding and the weather was wet, also not the best for birds. Yet, there sounds were unmistakable.

We began halting the motorbike often in search of birds in the nearby trees. We became thrilled as we realized what a wonderful place we had discovered and a bit sad that we had not stumbled across it sooner.

Let's just say that we were in heaven gawking at both birds and nature.

The road kept winding up and we with it. I can't tell you just how amazed at the scenery we were. We didn't know forest such as this existed in Mae Hong Son where everywhere else the hills looked dry and overrun by stands of bamboo. But this looked entirely different. It was green and lush and I was beginning to understand how some people could refer to it as a jungle instead of a forest. I began to imagine elephants and tigers inhabiting the steep slopes.

When we reached the top of the mountain, we realized we were not yet in Burma. Not that we thought it would be that simple to jet across the border. We did notice a large signboard on the opposite side of the hill and thought that it just may be the border crossing. We zoomed down the mountain, stopping only for some birds and came across a large sign telling us we were in the soft-zone of Thailand. We wondered what this could mean, but decided to keep going as all the buildings were deserted. Soon we noticed that the road simply led up another hill and although we are keen on adventure, it was getting late. We were just considering heading back when a truck drove by in the opposite direction and subtly motioned we should follow them and continue no further. Perhaps it was because we were a little to close to Burma for I had a feeling that the soft zone meant disputed territory along the Thai-Burma border. So, then perhaps we could say that we made a third trip to the other side :)

What We Do

2007-05-10T22:39:00.000+07:00

As our time here along the border winds down, I thought it would be good to reflect on what we have done here. For the past three months we have settled down from our fast paced traveling lifestyle while in SE Asia and actually got a job. Well I guess it is a bit different than a job. We don't actually get paid and only work about 4 hours a day so I am not exactly sure what you would call this. But we are working nonetheless. It is perhaps different and less exciting than our traveling life, but it has been interesting on many other levels and very worthwhile. Some days are slow but this slowness has been a welcome change to the hectic traveling schedule in the rest of Southeast Asia.

Many may wonder what we do in our volunteer job. Both of us teach two English classes a day. The number of students in our classes have fluctuated with time, as folks float in and out of our organizations or as others are invited unknowingly into our classes. This constant fluctuation does not always provide for the easiest teaching experience but such is life. Neither of us have that many students. Right now we are both down to about 6 students scattered in both classes. This provides for lots of individual attention but does make some activities such as games difficult especially with shy students. Certainly one thing which is nice is the undivided attention that most of the students pay us and the respect that we are shown. We basically have no problem with control in the classroom and do not have to worry about reprimanding, as is the case in most Asian nations, where the teachers are much like a God. I like being like a God. Sure it is good to question authority and maybe a bit more free thinking would be welcome in the classrooms in Asia, but I do not think I could handle teaching an out of control class in the United States.

The teaching takes up our mornings and overall it has been a very positive experience. Our students all seem eager to learn at least on the surface which is nice. They have all made progress in the past three months. Certainly some could have worked a bit harder and showed some more initiative but that is the same with most students around the world. It has been easy and enjoyable, and in fact much more so than I had originally pictured. All in all I do not know how much of an impact we have really made and how much we have accomplished as far as the overall goal of our placements here. The purpose of our teaching was intended to build the capacity of the members of the organizations to more effectively communicate in English. Supposedly with better English skills, these organizations could work to better the situation of people both inside Burma and along the border. Theoretically they should be able to get the message out to the international community more effectively about the situation in Burma as well as work with international organizations who assist them with projects in the area. Sometimes we wonder if we have really helped in that purpose much at all. Granted three months is not really a long enough time to have much of an effect but we also sometimes wonder about the effectiveness of the organizations where we work.

As with all organizations, there are the little things that always make you wonder. Laura's organization is composed of mainly young women with newborn babies and they devote much of their time to this (as is necessary) as opposed to providing services to the community. These are young women too (even younger than us) and while they do have some interesting experiences, we are not always sure if they are entirely dedicated or motivated to do NGO work. The fact that they are migrants here and have to deal with all of the Thai policy bullshit of such a status certainly does not help this situation. Casey's organization on the other hand has an old dog who has been here for a long time and who has many connections with international donors and local Thai authorities. The organization are fairly respected in the area and do some decent work but the capabilities of the staff here is also limited. This is compacted by the fact that the leader does not like to really give any power or responsibilities to his staff. He is the boss for sure and recently he kicked the most skilled person with the best ability to communicate with international donors out of his organization due to a percieved power struggle. Ah yes. Life on the border.

That being said, these people are doing the best they can in a situation that is not an easy one. These people are outsiders without a country or a home and many have decided to try to devote at least part of their lives to helping their people. It may not always be done with the vigor or in the most appropriate way but who am I to judge. One of the most poignant things that sticks out for me is something that many of the people we have met here have said, "I want to go home as I love my country, but I will not do so until it is free." Many of the people have chosen to live here in a precarious position and work towards that freedom and that is good enough for me.

Life is never perfect but we hope that we have had at least a small impact on our organizations and helped them a bit. It is hard to do too much in a short time. Once again it has been a time that we have probably gotten much more out of than we have given back. It is interesting how volunteering works out in that way. We have had a number of interesting cultural experiences, tasted some of the best food in Asia (in our estimation), heard some great stories and met some great people. All in all, a big check in our books.

No Room for Change

2007-05-10T21:39:00.000+07:00

I figure I better get these thoughts out now before I enter Burma...so sorry in advance for the cynicism.

I am currently reading an excellent book on the Burmese situation entitled Living Silence it's by Christina Fink, if anyone should want to pick up a copy.

In the book, she discusses why after everything that has happened in Burma, there is no change. Basically, she says it's because the regime has done such a good job at intimidating people that they feel like it's better to go along with it rather than fight it. For instance, if someone is to stand up against the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) they are not the only ones to get in trouble. The SPDC will go after their family, friends and even acquaintances regardless of their political activism. They have their fingers in almost every aspect of the economy so if one is looking for a nice secure job, they are practically forced into agreeing with all of the SPDC's agenda. Needless to say, parents who long to see their children financially successful (or at least secure) encourage them to align with the regime.

With the development of the United Solidarity and Development Agency (USDA) a supposedly social (not political) arm of the SPDC, many people have been forced to become a member in order to retain their jobs. Even students have been enticed to join by their teachers who threaten to lower their grades or even have them expelled for failure to join the USDA.

The education of Burmese history is horrendous in the school system, where rebellions and ideals of former leaders are left out of the curriculum (reminds me of Tienanmen Square and how China denied it). At home, the children are not taught the truth either for fear or simply because their parents think it's futile to talk about the past when nothing will change.

A case in point of all of this is one of my students. She has told me a few times that she never understood the oppression of the Burmese people until she came to Thailand. She was not too fond of the SPDC in Burma, because they were to blame for the high inflation and low standard of living, but she was completely unaware as to what kind of atrocities the government enacts in order to keep their position in power.

Another way at which the SPDC excels is in fracturing their competitors. Instead of having the opposition fight them, they have turned different opposition groups upon each other and in some cases they have caused groups to splinter and fight. Most of the minority groups have always considered the Burmans (the ethnic Burmese) untrustworthy, but now there is a lack of trust and unity among the different ethnic groups.

To emphasize this, let me tell you about a talk I had with my students. They are all a part of the same ethnic group. Most of this group comes from Shan State, which is largely comprised of the Shan ethnic group. My students assignment was to create a political party and so we were discussing their choices. At first both groups insisted that their party be only for their ethnic group. They claimed that if they let in another ethnic group (such as the Shan) then their group would not receive the same rights. They continued by adding that currently in Shan State their ethnic group is treated worse than the Shan and so they need a voice in order to gain equality.

Now, from my perspective it seems like the inequality between Shan and Pa-O could not even compare with the inequality between the Pa-O or Shan and Burmans. And that the Shan and Pa-O have much more in common, while trying to gain equality with the Burmans than they have differences. I asked how could their party possibly get anything done when they only have a few people voting for their cause. To an outsider, it makes more sense for the minorities to band together until their fight against the SPDC is over than to turn toward inter-ethnic issues. But, to them, they must first fight to keep their ethnicity intact, which can involve fighting other ethnic groups.

Almost all ethnic groups, I have been informed, are fighting for self-determination. That is, they all want to separately have control over their own government. While this is not a bad thing, it also increases the tensions between ethnic groups that intermingle because each group wants to run things their own way.

Sadly, the more I read and the more I learn about the situation in Burma, the more I think that there is no hope in store for the country. The culture of submission is exploited by the regime. The citizens are taught that only the regime can help them and that military men are heroes. Also, many people are too concerned with how to make a living and thus have little time or care to devote to making change. From all of my research and talks with Burmese, I haven't found any solutions to the current situation and this is very upsetting.

Another Run for the Border

2007-05-10T20:59:00.000+07:00

Well the month just slipped on by us. Last weekend it was time for another run across the border to renew our non-visa entry permit. This time we had some business to take care of in Mae Sot, so we decided to head across to Myawaddy, Burma instead of Tacheleik like we did last time.

On our way down, we thought we try our hand at birdwatching along the famous Salween River. The Salween is currently (but not for long thanks to Japan, Thailand and the SPDC) the longest undamned river in SE Asia. It forms the border between Thailand and Burma for about 100 kilometers (or miles, I can't remember). While Laura was at the hospital, she had a discussion with a doctor and fellow birder about where the best birding spots around were and she recommended the Salween. Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs the entire trip down and we had to postpone our outing.

After quite a long and wet trip we finally made it done to Mae Sot and crossed the border to go through the necessary passport stamping. The minute we ran walked across the "friendship bridge" we knew we were in different territory. As opposed to the last Burmese town we visited, this one is far less touristy. Apparently tourists feel it is too far off the beaten path to be worth a look. This meant that there was staring and gawking and not a single peddler hassling us. It was wonderful.

We wandered around the main street until we came to the local market. At first I feared that the town was a bit quiet as at first glance the market looked quite barren. But, as soon as we weaseled into the narrow halls of the market, the hustle and bustle began to reveal itself. We decided to have ourselves a little Burmese breakfast of noodles and fried tofu. The tofu was delicious, the vendor cut it open and then stuffed it with a single fresh chili, fried garlic chips and topped it with numerous unidentifiable sauces.

We wandered around the backstreets some more. One of the first things we realized was that the roads were horrible. It did not help that it had been raining for the past few days, but apart from the main road, the other roads were absolutely awful. There was yellow mud and rocks jetting out everywhere.

It's amazing how different a place can be just because of a border. I would have thought that Myawaddy would have been similar to Mae Sot. Mae Sot, after all, consists of more than 60% Burmese migrants. Essentially it is a Burmese town. When you walk in the market you see men and women wearing longgyis and their face painted with the traditional natural powder tanaka (made from sandalwood I just read). But I felt that Myawaddy had an entirely different feel. For one thing, it is a much more laid back town.

One of the things that caught our eye were the small stalls of betel nut vendors. They were everywhere! It was fun to watch them whitewash a small leaf with lime and then add betel nut and other ingredients before packaging it all up for the customer. We couldn't resist trying one of these creations. It looked pretty good with fennel seeds, tamarind and honey in the mix. We had a jolly time trying out the little Burmese that we know on the vendor and the few passersby who were awed by the foreigners buying betel nut. We realized our Burmese is horrendous, but it was a lot of fun to try.

Before heading back to Thailand we stopped in a teashop. Burma is famous for their teashops. The plain tea is free, but you must buy another drink or munch on some snacks. We had tea with canned milk, a creation very similar to the tea tarik of Malaysia that we enjoyed so much. We took our time sipping the tea and nibbling on the snacks that were splayed across the table. We were treated with some Burmese music videos filled with cheesy scenes of star crossed lovers.

It was a great experience and piqued my excitement about heading to Burma. I am very eager to learn more about the country and it's people and I'm sure we'll have a wonderful adventure.

Feisty Fighter

2007-05-10T20:57:00.001+07:00

At the naming party, we met a feisty Karenni woman. She is from the Padaung (aka Kayan) tribe and she moved from Burma to a refugee camp with her family when she was seven. Her tribe is famous for their custom by which certain women decorate their bodies with brass rings and the ring around their neck pushes down their collar bone to give the illusion that their necks are elongated.

Her mother still wears the rings and lives in the tourist village just outside of the refugee camp. Her mother, she informed us, wears the rings our of respect for the tradition and not just because she is paid by the Thai authorities to do so.

This woman wore the rings when she was a child, but told her mother she would no longer wear the rings after arriving in Thailand because she wanted to go to school.

She attended a top secret training that lead her abroad to the UK for three months. Now she works for an international organization that assists refugees. She stated that she liked her work, but she and the other Burmese are not treated as equals to the rest of the staff. This seems ridiculous since without the Burmese workers, the organization would be useless. Sadly, she explained, that much of the discrepancies are because her and the other Burmese do not have the education credentials needed for higher positions. They have a lot of experience, but without a Thai ID card it is difficult to attend college in Thailand and without any documentation it is nearly impossible to travel abroad to get an education. Ironically, her situation is caused by the fact that she fled her homeland and it is precisely people like her that the organization she works for is assisting, yet they won't let her move up in the ranks.

In a statement not too uncommon in these parts, she announced that she does not want any children because there are so many things (such as go to college) that she wants to do. She does have one child, however, but she comically commented that it was her husband who "forced" her to have the child and as a consequence he spends more time raising the child that she does.

I hope to meet her and her husband again before we leave. She is an incredibly strong women who's not afraid to state her opinion and that's not a quality you find often in an Asian woman.

Naming the Baby

2007-05-10T20:46:00.001+07:00

May 4, 2007

Last week we had a party to celebrate the one month birthday of the newest edition to the organization. This is the day the baby receives his name and it also marks the beginning of the end of the after birth taboos.

We forwent class in lieu of a day of cooking. We were making the traditional Burmese dish mohinga. mohinga is typically a breakfast dish. It is usually made with banana pith, fish and a lot of other things I'm not savvy of, although I can pretty much bet on MSG being a main ingredient. The soup is eaten with fresh coriander and green beans, which the diner adds to their bowl at their leisure.

To prepare we shelled copious amounts of onions and garlic and we sliced and diced buckets of coriander, banana pith and green beans. A batter of rice flour and yellow lentils was fired to a crisp as the ultimate topping for the soup.

During the actual party it rained. Thus, not many guests showed up to greet the baby boy. However, from what I gathered, the typical gathering consists mostly of the comings and goings of guests - most just stay until their bellies are warmed and full. Before they go they tie a string around the baby's hand for safety and good luck. Presents and money are also welcome contributions. The mother is still in semi-seclusion so she stays with the baby inside the hut and the people come to pay their respects to her while the party continues outside with the father acting as host.

Traditionally, the baby is not named by the parents. The naming is generally performed by a monk who takes into account the day (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc) the child was born to determine the appropriate name. The right name is said to help the child through life.

This baby boy has at least two names: the Thai name he was given at birth (by someone at the hospital). In this case, he was named after a movie star. He will also have at least one ethnic name (his parents are both from different ethnic groups) and perhaps a Burmese name as well. The Thai name he will use in school and another will be reserved for the household.

Splish Splash

2007-04-13T22:08:00.000+07:00

Ah Water Festival (or Songkran as it is known here in Thailand). A time for heavy drinking, fighting and motorcycle accidents. Oh and that part about the water too. When asking many people about water festival, a smile often comes across their face. It seems like everyone loves it. They say it is so much fun and everyone has a great time. That is of course for all of those people who don't get into fights and accidents. But even they enjoy it until that fateful moment.

As to exactly what Water Festival celebrates I had a difficult time getting a straight answer. Yes it is a Buddhist holiday and yes Buddhists go to the temple and have special food and honor their elders and yes you throw water on people and have a good old jolly time, but exactly why??? What is the history of this tradition? It was like trying to pry teeth to actually get an answer to what I thought was a relatively simple question. So I decided finally that good old Google might be my best bet.

And here is what I found:

Songkran is a Thai word which means "move" or "change place" as it is the day when the sun changes its position in the zodiac. It is also known as the "Water Festival" as people believe that water will wash away bad luck.

The Songkran tradition is recognized as a valuable custom for the Thai community, society and religions. The value for family is to provide the opportunity for family members to gather in order to express their respects to the elders by pouring scented water onto the hands of their parents and grandparents and to present them gifts including making merits to dedicate the result to their ancestors. The elders in return wish the youngsters good luck and prosperity.

When I asked some of my students from Burma what the difference between Water Festival in Burma and Water Festival (they are predominantly Buddhist in Burma as well) in Thailand was they seemed to think it was a bit different. They felt that in Burma there was still a lot of religious significance left in the holiday. This is a holiday which lasts for about four days. They said in Burma people would visit a different temple on each of the four mornings while in Thailand, most people only visit the temple on one morning. It also seemed to them that Water Festival in Thailand was even a bigger party than in Burma with people starting to drink and begin merry making in the wee hours of the morning. Well all I can say is from what I saw is the people in the town where we are living know how to have a good time during water festival.

Oh yes, but what about those accidents and fights and such. That is not good is it? No it is not good and we were privilege to that as well. Weren’t we lucky!!! I have heard reports that up to 90% of the annual motorcycle accidents in Thailand happen during these four days. By day two of the festival this year we heard the death count in the country was up to 200. There were two deaths in our town by then. Laura had to visit the hospital herself (not related to the water festival) and saw a foreigner who was quite pissed that he had totaled a rented bike and had gotten injured in the process probably thanks to some kids throwing water at him while he was driving. The wet roads as a result of the water throwing, coupled with the overall state of drunkenness of the country is not exactly a great mixture for safe driving conditions. Oh let’s not forget the fighting. Laura was lucky to witness a fight involving beer bottles and screaming profanities induced by copious amounts of alcohol. And it was between two members of Casey’s organization no less but on the grounds of her organization. Oh joy!!!

Furthermore, there is the wasting of water and in the middle of the dry season. Granted I understand that it is tradition and I am all for keeping cultural traditions alive, but I cannot even imagine how much water is wasted for these four days. And in many places the water throwing starts weeks in advance. Today the tradition of water throwing has been what I would say steroid induced. People stand on the side of the road with hoses and huge 10 gallon buckets and soak all of the passing vehicles and pedestrians. Also granted that it is great fun and I participated in it for one afternoon, but four days of excessive water wasting does seem a bit excessive.

And people love water festival, you say? Yes, they certainly do! There are some not so nice things about it but it is a joyous occasion. People dancing on the street, throngs of happy children splashing each other with water, colorful festivals and parties, traditional food. It is hard to not get enraptured with the ‘merry-making.’

Unfortunately for us, we were confined to a hospital room for a majority of the festival. Luckily it was not an injury from a fight or accident but instead for something called Cellulitis that had attacked Laura’s leg probably because of a Staph infection. Also unfortunately, Laura has recently been a walking medical case and we may be our town’s hospital’s most frequent customers in the past month. However, surprisingly this has proved not be the worst situation as we have been very impressed with this local hospital. It is clean, the doctors seem like they know what they are doing and they explain what is actually happening with your condition. These are all things that often did not happen in the Philippines, even in hospitals in large cities, and this one in Thailand is in a fairly small town. So Thailand health care gets a thumbs up from us.

On the first day of the festival, Laura’s leg had yet to get nasty so we were able to enjoy a bit of the festivities. It ended up being quite a low key and relaxing day since the women at Laura’s office were not too interested in getting soaked, imbibing copious amounts of alcohol, dancing in the street or getting into accidents and fights. Instead they chose to stay at home and make traditional snacks that they make in Burma. We added what little help we could to the cooking experience and we made enough rice snacks to feed an army. We made two kinds: one sweet made of rice powder and sugar (which was alright) and one savory made of rice powder, pork, garlic chives, green onions, and tomatoes (which was delicious). Both of the rice snacks were wrapped in banana leaves and steamed to cook them (this process seems quite ubiquitous in SE Asia and I love it). The rest of the day was spent just chilling and watching the little babies run around the office.

This was a good way to start off the holiday but on the second day Laura’s leg and ankle had swollen to the quite an unbearable size and let’s just say it did not look too pretty (nor did it feel too great). We decided to head back to the hospital (the day before they had just prescribed antibiotics) and the doctor there felt that Laura should be admitted in order to give her antibiotics intravenously. So we gathered our things and headed to the hospital and settled in for a few days. Luckily after two days the swelling in Laura’s foot had gone down considerably and it felt a lot better. She was discharged and we were free to enjoy the last afternoon of Songkran.

We headed back to our places and loaded in the back of a pick-up with other folks from both of our offices. We also brought along two huge buckets of water to throw at others as we drove by. We drove through town and got absolutely soaked from the water throwers on the sides of the street and in other vehicles. It was certainly a good time although a bit chilly. Oddly enough, during the festival this year which is usually the hottest and driest time of the year, it was cloudy and there were even a few sprinkles.

After driving through town we disembarked at the nearby river where probably a hundred small bamboo huts had been set up to sit under and enjoy the river. The place was packed and people were enjoying the holiday with friends and family. The network of bamboo in the water was quite impressive and the number of people was also astounding. In the early evening we left for our next destination which was the lake and plaza in the middle of town. We waited for the procession to pass which included a number of floats with beauties from the local villages. The highlight of the parade for everyone however was the truck with a Buddha statue on it. The people would hand the people in the truck an offering of water which would be poured over the statue. The water would then be retrieved (now in a scented and colored form) from the basin below the Buddha and given back to the people that gave the offering. This water was now blessed and people sprinkled one another to offer good luck and show respect for their elders.

It was unfortunate that we were not able to be involved in more of the festivities but I do feel that we got our fill. In reality how many days of water fights can one truly handle. I enjoyed our first Water Festival even if half of it was spent in a hospital. We came away unscathed and uninjured which is more than I can say for others. After hearing so much about it, it was nice to see what Water Festival really is like and it was a nice chance to relax and join in a bit of the fun.

Baby Blues

2007-04-13T20:59:00.000+07:00

Laura's organization is crawling with infants, literally. Only one of the members living at the house is currently sans hubby or child. Right now the totals up to 5 kids.

The latest edition arrived last week. A cute little boy born to parents who, honestly, didn't seem too thrilled about the idea of being parents. As the mother told me "I don't like babies." She also mentioned that her husband would prefer she continue school instead of raising babies (he's a keeper for sure! Especially in these parts of the woods where many men do not hold the same views). It turns out that the baby was an accident and they really weren't planning on being parents just yet.

After hearing their story it made me glad I come from a place where parents have so many options about what to do if they have not planned their pregnancy. In Thailand and in Burma, abortion is illegal, supposedly because of religious reasons. Buddhist religious reasons. If one has the money, time and passport one could travel to Singapore. Adoption in these places isn't really an option either. You can leave your baby at an orphanage, but there is little chance that it will get adopted. This is because if the child cannot be cared for by the parents then extended family are left with the burden (and/or the joy).

Along with the baby came a whole slew of traditions. It seems like the people of Burma are still very much rooted in their traditional culture, including superstitions. Because I find it interesting, I will list some, related to childbirth (and after), below:

After child birth the mother is confined to her room with the baby. She is not supposed to leave this room. She cannot do any work including cleaning, cooking or doing laundry. Someone brings all of her meals to her bedroom. To keep her from going crazy with boredom (my own opinion), people are allowed to visit her. This seclusion lasts for at least 1 month. Maybe more if the birth was a difficult one. I do not mind this practice, but it is a little troublesome knowing one of my best students is unable to attend my class, which is about 50 feet away from her room, because of this tradition.

For a month after the birth, the mother must not eat a multitude of foods from most vegetables to chicken and beef. The chicken and beef are not allowed because they will make her hurt if she eats them. Spicy food is a no go because it could cause diarrhea in the baby. Jack fruit, a type of vegetable, may lead to a lower output of breast milk. Therefore, the mother is left with little choices, which usually range from fried pork to fried fish. All things considered, I don't understand why MSG is OK for the mother, but vegetables are not. I also find it interesting that one of the few things they are allowed to eat is also one of the few things that doctors back home are telling mothers and mothers-to-be not to eat (fish).

Lastly, the mother must not bathe with water. Instead, a medicinal concoction is boiled up for her each day and she uses this to bathe.

At the end of the month, the parents hold a naming ceremony for the baby. There is also a little celebration. They say it is for the baby, but I suspect it is to celebrate the release of the mother from these rules back into the everyday life.

Run for the Border

2007-04-11T21:47:00.000+07:00

Our Thai tourist visa was almost up. We had to make a run for the border to get a new 30 day non-visa tourist permit. Even though we are extremely close to Burma, there are no official crossings near our town, so we had to make the long trek up to the highest point in Thailand, where we crossed over into Burma.

The trek took a full day of travel and involved an inordinate amount of transfers. But, it went through some pretty country and it gave a chance to once again be one of the infinite number of tourists who visit the Land of Smiles.

Casey had this brilliant plan to combine business (the visa run) with pleasure (bird watching) and designed a magnificent fun-filled 4 day excursion. Since coming to Thailand Casey's bird nerdom has reached new levels due to the fact that there are so many amazing looking birds here and they are fairly easy to find. Birds are basically everywhere we go and this pleases Casey very much. Compared to the Philippines which also has a great number of bird species but a relative dearth in density, Thailand is a birding wonderland. In the Philippines it seems that most of their habitat has been destroyed or the birds are dinner (even those little tiny sparrows) which luckily is not the same in Thailand. Casey has even managed to drag Laura along in his bird excitement and she now too has her own binoculars which makes the birding a bit more enjoyable (sharing while perhaps a good idea does not work well in practice when it comes to birding as someone always inevitably misses a bird and is miffed as a result). Casey had been anticipating and planning this particular trip for the past two months and was incredibly excited to be on the way. Bird Nerds Away!!!

Our plan was to stop at Doi Chang Dao, a mountain between here and the border crossing, where the birding is known to be superb. This detour was to last 1.5 days. We had planned to hire a motorbike for the ascent up the mountain but the night before leaving Laura has some misgivings about 2 hefty Americans riding a dinky motorbike up a steep slope with their packs. Even though Laura kept saying she was going learn how to ride a manual motorbike, the skill never materialized, thus we were unable to rent two bikes. We weren't completely convinced that this would be an issue, until we tried to rent a motorbike and the owner suggested we find another means of transportation up the perilous mountainside. This sent Laura into a frenzy as visions of people flying over cliffs filled her head. She decided (again) that a motor was a terrible idea and made it quite clear that the plans should be altered. Unfortunately, Laura was not adamant about her views until we were AT our desired location. If she had made her views more clear before, we could have easily changed our plans. But it was already close to 7pm and we were in a small town and didn't know what to do.

Thank goodness the last northbound bus drove by and we were able to catch this to carry us 2 hours further north. We thus decided to head to the border and swing back around to the mountain before heading home. This would mean going about 2 hours out of the way later and would cost us considerably more money since we were to rent a car instead of a motorbike, but it seemed like the best option to make both of us happy.

The next morning we awoke before the crack of dawn to catch the mysterious 5:30 or 6 am bus to the border town. Trusty ole Lonely Planet once again turned its back on us. This wasn't too big of a deal, it just meant that instead of a nice long ride in one bus, we had many short trips on various different modes of transportation to take us to our destination.

The Border and Burma
Once at the border, we were thrilled with how easy everything went. We were a tad bit nervous because of the new Thai immigration laws that no one can seem to keep straight, but everything was a smooth as silk. We were a bit annoyed at the Burmese government for charging foreigners $10 for a day permit. Actually, they said it was ten dollars, but they asked for 500 Baht and it wasn't until we were inside the country did we realize they had jiped us for about $4.50 each. Needless to say, we were not happy about supplying the military junta with any more money that was absolutely necessary to get the job done.

The town on the other side, Tachilek, looked, not surprisingly, much like the Thai town across the river. The main difference being the type of lettering used on the signs - one was Burmese,the other Thai. But, we heard Thai and English spoken way more than Burmese and the border market seemed to be full of Thai paraphernalia. I imagined the vendors smuggling Thai-dubbed English VCD's over from Thailand in order to sell them back to Thai tourists. There were also an inordinate number of walking vendors selling a variety of products (mind you, not too wide though). The hot ticket items were 'Marlboro' cigarettes which were definitely not Marlboros, little electric hand held fans, gag playing cards with pictures of Saddam Hussein or half naked girls on them and viagra. Yes, viagra.

The market had one other notable mention. One of the first stalls we came across was a woman eagerly selling endangered animal parts. Monkey skulls, patches of tiger fur, bear's gall bladders, antelope and rhinoceros horns were all what she had on display. Now, I have a hard time believing that the more exotic items were authentic. Why would she be selling a pair of tiger teeth for only 200 Baht? This seemed a too good to be true. We gawked long and hard before running in the other direction.

After about 2 hours in Burma we decided we had had enough and jetted back across the border and towards the Mekong River. Near a small town along the river is Chiang Saen Lake. We had come to do some birding and to admire the scenery. We were excited because we have not had much opportunity in seeing waterbirds, so this was the time to get some "lifers" and to practice birding over water.

Lakeside Birding
While in Chiang Saen, we stayed at this nice little Western-style guesthouse. By western-style I do not be like people from Western countries. I mean in the style of the old wild west and Rawhide (for those Phoenicians). This seems to be a fairly common theme in Thailand, though we can't figure out why. The woman who runs the place is very informative and nice. We rented a motorbike from her and puttered along to the lake, stopping along the way for bird sightings.

The lake was gorgeous. There was a nice boardwalk above lilies and other wetland vegetation which harbored all sorts of wildlife. We birded until just before dark. All the while we kept hearing this loud unusual sound, which we expected to be a great water bird, but in fact belonged to the resident peacocks. Why there were exotic resident peacocks at a protected wetland, we'll never know. But they did make for a nice photo-op.

The next morning we got up bright and early to do some more birding around the lake. We did a little touring around the pleasant little town of Chiang Saen. Hundreds of years ago this was the center of an important kingdom and as a result the town and the surrounding area are littered with ruins. It reminded us much of Ayutthaya or the many other towns in Thailand where ruins (some just piles of rocks and others extremely impressive) are so commonplace. This town also had the further appeal of being situated on the Mekong River. I do not know why but I have always heard a lot about the Mekong (although I am not really sure in what context). Well part of the reason to come to Chiang Saen was to see this mighty river for ourselves. Upon arriving it looked like a big brown river and we said, "Well, there it is. It's the Mekong." I do not know what I was really expecting but next time I get a chance maybe I will take a ride on the river. But we did not have time on this trip. We could have stayed longer as this town certainly pleased us but we had already racked up about 40 species of birds already and we still had another destination on our minds.

Yet Another Transportation Misadventure

So we reluctantly packed our things and moved on. At noon we left for Chiang Rai and then planned to head to Chiang Mai where we would rent a car for the trek up Doi Chiang Dao. Unfortunately upon arrival at Chiang Rai we discovered that all of the buses to Chiang Mai for the next 3 hours were fully booked. We did not expect this. It is times like these when one begins to appreciate the overcrowded buses that never pass by a potential customer just because they ran out of seats. Everything has a good side. Laura tried asking if we could sit in the aisle, but her pleading was to no avail. So we whiled away the three hours doing absolutely nothing but worrying that we would not make it to Chiang Mai before all car rental agencies closed and then our plans really would be screwed.

Lucky for us, we did make it in time to rent a car. Not from the place we had expected to mind you. They were too expensive, so we went running down the street in search of a company that had yet to padlock their doors. We did find a shop that had closed almost 1.5 hours previously, but had left their door open a crack, which gave me the opportunity to barge in a request a vehicle. The clerk was kind enough to call the owner, who came to the store to supply us with the proper vehicle.

What should we do now? We wondered. It was getting late, but we wanted to be at the mountain in time for the prime birding hours of the early morning. We tried phoning a guesthouse at the base of the mountain, but the owner didn't seem to thrilled with staying up until midnight just for us, so we scrapped that plan. We tried to find a cheap guesthouse in Chiang Mai, but the neighborhood we were looking in shuts down early and so we were left wandering deserted side streets.

Finally we decided to head for the mountain and sleep in the car. We thought for sure that we would be able to find a nice hide-away to spend the remainder of the night. We did find a nice place, until Laura decided she REALLY had to go to the bathroom and proceeded to wander about looking for a place to relieve herself. This did NOT make the resident dogs happy and they began howling like banshees. This did NOT make Casey happy who thought that some angry Thai would come running after us because his dog woke him up. After some debate, we decided to hit the road once more in search of another quiet place to park. At the end of the road, on the grounds of the monastery where we were planning to bird in the morning we found just the right spot. It was quiet and there were no barking dogs to ruin the night calm. We tried to sleep until daybreak, when we got up to begin a day of bird searching.

Mountain View Birding
The day was great. We wandered around the temple and monastery for the morning looking at birds and watching the monks go to and from collecting alms. The monastery is set on the slopes of Doi Chiang Dao, nestled in between some gorgeous scenery. It was quite a hike to get up to the temple, but it was well worth the view. We ate lunch at a spot recommended to us by other birders. The woman spoke beautiful English and we chatted with her for a bit.

After lunch we putzed around looking at her bird books and watching her staff come back from the road with loads of small leafy branches. Apparently, it's cocoon season and this means delicious treat! We watched as her staff carefully picked green cocoons from the leaves, which they will sell in the market for a high price. We were even privileged enough to try a few of the critters that were fried to a crisp. They must be an awfully good source of protein, but frankly I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

In the afternoon we began the ascent up the mountain. It took us awhile to find the turn off, then we realized that the car engine was awfully hot when it shouldn't have been so we turned around in search of anti-freeze. But silly us, we forgot where we were and when we asked the shop they went to the back and brought out a bucket of dirty water and filled up the radiator. Worked well enough for us! So we proceeded up hill.

We had read up a lot about Doi Chiang Dao, so you can imagine our surprise when in the middle of a road we thought was straight there was a fork. No maps we ever read even hinted at a split in the road and we were highly confused. Not understanding Thai, we crossed our fingers and picked the road that had a large sign of a mountain.

About 20km into the journey, Casey begins to get a little worried. As we looked behind us to our right the peak of the mountain came into view. Why would we be heading AWAY from the mountain we were supposedly climbing? We wondered nervously. Just before we were about to cash it all in and return from whence we came the glorious checkpoint appeared before us like a shiny beacon. Aaaahhhh!!!! Apparently, one needs to climb up and away from the mountain before one can actually climb the mountain.

We wandered a bit further then stopped for a little birding action before spending the night at a substation at the foot of the summit trail. The people in charge of the camping area were nice and even offered us a room (which we declined). We spent the night in the car (surprisingly comfortable!).

We got up early to search for the elusive magnificent Mrs. Hume's Pheasant that habituates the area. We weren't lucky, or skilled enough (or both?) to find it, but we did discover a number of other wonderful bird eye candy. We moseyed along to the summit trail, which was a real treat. Up this high, the mountain is covered in pine trees and the air remains cool all day. Even in the heat of the noon day sun there was a gentle, cool breeze. This was probably one of the nicest places that we have been in the whole of Thailand. The cool, clean air and the unparalleled views and scenery plus the birds just made for a magical experience. The hike to the summit reportedly takes 5-7 hours and it looked like it got a bit hairy near the top, so we decided against trekking all the way up. The part of the trail we did hike was on a ridge and therefore we were not forced to huff and puff on a steep incline like I supposed.

In the afternoon we slowly made our way down the hill and back to Chiang Mai where we caught the night bus to Mae Hong Son.

Though we racked up the miles on this trip and it was a condensed version of what we would have liked to do, it was well worth it and a nice break from teaching. We also surpassed both of our expectations and successfully 100 birds during our four day trip. Laura's unparalleled spotting skills and Casey's astute identification abilities combined make for a great birding team. You know what this means. We are moving up to the upper levels of bird nerdom. This trip also gave us a chance to have a little quality time together outside of our houses and to get outdoors, something we always prefer.

Little Princes

2007-04-04T22:00:00.000+07:00

Last week we set of to a rural village with some members of Casey's organization. We were there to partake in the ordination ceremony of approximately 40 boys. The though many boys throughout Thailand are ordinated as novices each year, the elaborate celebration that takes place before the ordination is unique to this area. The ceremonies of the town and the surrounding villages are very similar to the elaborate affairs held in Burma. The ceremony we attended lasted for 3 days. We've heard that in Burma they last for a whole week.

For the first two and a half days of the ceremony the boys are treated like kings. Their parents dress them up in magnificent customs of brillant colors. They wear a crown of neon fake flowers and their parents splash on more make-up than most teenage girls wear at home (and these are boys, remember). Many of the boys were painted like a canvas with Burmese powder. The boys were not allowed to walk anywhere but instead they were carried on the shoulders of their family members. They could not even feed themselves and I saw many mothers raising spoons to her child Prince like he was two years old. There were a lot of parades around the village and singing and dancing around the monastery. They must of had the time of their lives!

Casey's organization had paid for the ordination fees of 11 of the boys so they would be taken care of in the monastery. Many of these boys had come across the border to escape the situation in Burma.

Some Background Information
As I have recently found out, Burma has the highest rate of child soldiers of any country in the world. The Burmese government "recruits" soldiers, often by going to a village and demanding the village head to find them so many soldiers for their next tour. The government is still fighting a few minority rebel groups and even the ceasefire groups are known to actively recruit children into their armies. In the rural areas of Northern Burma, there is also a lot of drug abuse. Burma is second only to Afghanistan in the production of illicit opium and it's derivatives.

We interviewed three young boys for "Kids Around the World." This is a school program of the National Peace Corps association. The goal of this program is to help teachers bring international issues into the class room. The idea premise is that elementary school children around the world are interviewed in their native language. The questions are about what they do, what they like and how they live. There are also links on information for each country the children live in.

I am very excited about this project and asked Casey's organization to help. They were able to secure interviews for three of the children they assisted. We sat down with them all garbed up and asked away. Of course they were shy.

We later found out that two of the young boys who have been in Thailand for five years because their parents were afraid they'd become child soldiers. They came to live with their "uncle" but they have grown up in the village monastery instead. In the monastery, the boys are safe from the Thai authorities who randomly raid areas for illegal immigrants. If the children were to live with their uncle, chances are they could be sent back to Burma. But, because of some obscure Thai law, anyone who is ordained and living in a monastery is exempt from being deported. Thus, the ordination ceremony and thus the NGO's involvement to ensure the safety of these children. Sadly this is a common case.

Day 1
Casey attended the first day of the celebration. He said it was a smallist event, though he did manage to rack up a large number of pictures. Mostly it was just the locals parading about the children who will soon become monks.

Day 2
We arrived early in the morning. Casey's organization was kind enough to lend us some traditional clothing. Their Thai driver got a big kick out of the Pa-O from America and kept asking up to speak in Pa-O. Sadly after a month and a half here all I could respond was "Am Den (Let's eat)!" This made him chuckle, of course.

The parade was to honor the boys. Everyone in the parade dressed up to the nines. We were the only Pa-O, there were many in Burmese and Shan style longgyis (skirts) and many people from other tribes were dressed up just to watch the parade.

Everyone in the parade carried offerings for the monastery. I always love looking into the offering baskets, half of it never maeks sense to me: the small can of condensed milk next to the small can of coconut milk which is in front of individual packets of instant hot chocolate. All things to help create healthy young novices! Casey was the photographer while I marched away with the rest of the Pa-O women. The parade was at a hellishly slow pace and lasted at least an hour though we didn't travel for more than a kilometer (perhaps a slight exaggeration on my part, but not much). During this long procession, the boys were all carried on the backs of their loved ones while others kept the sun out of their eyes with gilden umbrellas. Gongs and drums beat out traditional Shan music as the sun rose higher in the sky.

After the procession we all headed inside the monastery to present our offerings. Many of the offerings were provided by the village council, who used the ordination fee to pay for donations and food for the festival. Everyone was invited to lunch and snack while listening to the chanting and dancing that still proceeded outside. The festivities dragged on as the day heated up and soon our companions were eager to rest.

The festivities carried on deep into the night. We were lucky enough to be staying across the street from the monastery and thus were continually awakened by the drumming and chanting over the loudspeaker and irregular intervals throughout the night.

Day 3

In the morning the boys were treated once again as royalty. This was a time of picture taking and merry making. After lunch the festivities dwindled as the ceremony began. This was a solemn time for the young boys and their parents. They boys ritually thanked their parents for all they have done for them. Many of the children and their loved ones were crying. This would ceremony was the last goodbye for many of the children who would not see their parents for weeks, months or even years. This is also a symbolic goodbye because after the children enter the monastery as monks they will be the children of the monastery and no longer the children of their parents. The parents then shaved the eyebrows of their children and then handed them their novice robes. Then monks and older novices helped the children into their robes. There was a lot of chanting and an older monk held a Buddhist service. Finally there was more picture taking and then the parents left the boys to learn about the Buddha.

Motoring About

2007-03-25T22:02:00.001+07:00

Today we took the day off and jetted around the remote villages. Now 'jetted' should be taken with a grain of salt as our borrowed motorcycle was not exactly what one would call high powered. Casey said riding on it reminds him of the motor scooter from 'Dumb and Dumber' (yes that horrible movie from his teenage years that he finds absolutely hilarious). For those of you have not seen the movie, lets just say two
Americans (who are very heavy compared to Asians) do not exactly mix very well with a small engine and the steep mountain roads of Northern Thailand (or as it was in Dumb in Dumber, the mountains of Colorado). But it certainly gets good gas mileage.

We arose early to make our way out before the heat arrived. We also wanted to take advantage of the early morning birding hours. We puttered about in the haze filled morning until we arrived at a waterfall where we relaxed on rocks in the middle of the stream as we gazed into the bamboo and branches above for flittering birds.

After a bit of morning relaxation, we hopped back on the motorbike and zoomed uphill, when all of a sudden the handlebars started to shake. This was not a good sign, and we soon discovered our back tire had gone flat. Not knowing how far we were from our destination, or from any village and not wanting to head back down the mountain we opted to sit by the side of the road and hope for a rescue operation. Sure enough, a nice young man came to our side and told Laura to hop on his bike while Casey followed with the flat. He took us to a little town and fixed our tire for free. Lucky for us, he used to work in a motorbike shop, so the job was quick and well-done. To show our gratitude, we followed him to his father-in-law's house to meet the family and have some tea.

His father-in-law was a nice man who originally from Burma. He has been living in Thailand for the past 30 years. He told us some interesting stories about life on the border.

Interesting Character
About a decade ago, he was a tour guide in the area. He was out with some tourists, trekking in the jungle when they came across a few Burmese soldiers. The soldiers figured out he was Burmese and whisked him away. They made him stay the night and they took all of his documents (ie his passport, his driver's license, etc). Apparently, they thought that he had crossed the border with his clients and they were not happy. He had to convince them that they were in Thailand, not in Burma and that they had lost their way. He also had to explain that he knew where they were NOT because he belonged to a rebel army group, but because he was a tour guide and therefore he needed to know the area. He was so glad that he made it out of that experience alive that he didn't care that he had lost all forms of documentation. They could easily have shot him for being a rebel.

He also related some interesting stories about the refugee camps. He does not approve of how the UN and other NGOs work the refugee relief. Apparently, they give all of the rations to the leaders of the camp, who make sure that everyone gets their share. Of course, this does not happen because in politics, people are corrupt. He says that if someone does something wrong in the camp, they will not receive their rations, but the leaders still receive the rations from the UN. Then, the leaders travel to the villages and sell these "surplus" rations to the people for prices cheaper than those found at any store (because they get them for free from the UN and other agencies). Also, there is the whole family and friends issue, where the family and best friends receive the best and first pickings, followed by the rest of the refugees. I don't know what his solution would be, but this does seem like a serious issue. Especially since we've heard that the rations AREN'T enough for those living in the camps.

He also had some interesting thoughts on corruption, which were really quite simple. It's OK to skim some money off of the top when requesting money to help others. He would do it (and most undoubtedly does) and he doesn't think this is an issue. I could understand someone in his situation doing so, to help off-set his meagre income, but it's harder to justify it when it's the super rich ex-prime minister of Thailand (whom he was defending). His main justification for this was that he felt that the ex-PM was very helpful and kind to the poor and Burmese refugees like himself. He is not so sure that the current military regime in charge of Thailand will be so kind to to people like this which he is one of. This is why he chooses to defend this corruption. An interesting perspective.

He is also the man in the previous post, who holds an after school English program in his backyard. We visited the school, which is complete with battery-backed lights for when there are blackouts. We said we'd come back to speak with the children and then we set off again. Over all an unexpected but very nice way to spend the afternoon taking to yet another interesting person from Burma who has been so willing to share a bit about his life.

Tea Time
We wandered around for a bit, taking in the mountain scenery and smoke filled air. We meandered through softly falling ash as we passed a large reservoir. We came to a dead end and turned around briefly before heading in a different direction.

We ended up in a small village known for it's tea and Chinese immigrants. On the way up we climbed through fields of cabbages and onions then plantations of tea bushes. We settled among the "tourist center" and feasted on a wonderful lunch of Yunnanese food as we sipped locally produced tea. The owner of the tea shop served us delicious ginseng tea. We had never had ginseng tea quite like this before and it left a sweet sharpness in your mouth long after the brew was swallowed. We decided to take some back, to try at home.

As the sun began to descend in the sky, we wandered about this breezy little town, snapping photos and watching the daily happenings from the back of the motor.

Slowly we headed back toward the village. We made a little detour through the Bamboo Complex to do some late afternoon birding and to admire the environs. Reluctantly, we hopped back on the bike for the final descent to our village.

Motivated People

2007-03-25T21:47:00.000+07:00

After working in the Philippines and at times getting frustrated because it seemed like few people had much motivation, let alone motivation to help other people, coming to the border has been a very refreshing experience. I will illustrate with two examples:

One of my students and one of Casey's students are both members of the Burmese Migrant Labor Union. Two years ago they, under initiative from their organization, decided to create a weekend English school for children of migrant laborers. They began by teaching in someone's house until they received funding from an international agency to build them a 3 room building. They also searched for funding to receive snacks/lunch for the students. Though there are some flaws with the program (unavoidable considering they don't have much of a background in education or much knowledge of English which is the main thing they teach to the children), the sincerity by which our students teach their students is heart warming.

Today, Casey and I met another man, who has developed an after school English program for students from 3 remote villages. It too, began from his house and he asked for the students to pay a small fee for electricity but did not like this because most families in the area cannot afford even a small fee. Eventually, he received funding from an international organization to build a school on his property. They also sponsor materials for the children and occassionally send English speaking volunteers.

In both of these cases, the educators are doing this because they realize that their children deserve a better future with a better education. While they currently make some money from the projects, they began teaching for altruistic reasons. Unlike much international development I have witnessed, where international NGO's try to force potential projects on their target communities, these projects TRULY did come from WITHIN. Only after these projects were started, did they receive resources from the outside. This IS how development should happen everytime.

Filipino Anthropology

2007-03-19T15:23:00.000+07:00

If anyone is interested to read some more about some of the tribes we visited in Southern Mindanao, check out this e-book. I haven't had time to browse it yet, but it was written in 1913 by the curator of Malayan Enthology.

Border Politics

2007-03-19T15:10:00.000+07:00

A few weeks ago, a woman came to our house to live. She is not Burmese and is not from the area and she never met the women of my organization until the day she arrived. She came for one purpose and one purpose only: to learn English from me.

"Why is there?" you may be asking. We've been asking ourselves that very question. Here is the story, as I understand it.

Casey's organization in on very good terms with the Thai headman of the village. This is a VERY good thing, since it enables them to live and work here illegally, with the fewest amount of troubles. He visits their house often and drinks with the head of the NGO. So, of course he heard about the free English lessons that were going on in our respective organizations.

Could he just let it be? Of course not! What are the perks of being the headman if it's not to take advantange of other people's situations!! This started by sending a few villagers to Casey's classroom.

Then, one day, this woman showed up at our doorstep. If you ask the headman who she is, he will tell you she's his neice. But, if she was, in fact, his neice, why is she staying here instead of his house, which is only a few minutes down the road? If she was his neice, why isn't he taking classes with Casey's organization, which has better relations with him than my organization does? These are all questions that were asked during her first few days here.

To answer these questions, the women at my organization decided that she must be the Headman's mistress. Actually, they have informed me numerous times that he as many "wives." The other day, his wife #1 found out and began asking questions such as "what does she have that i don't have."

So, to sum up: So these organizations can continue to function as smoothly as possible, they made a deal with the Headman to allow his mistress to stay here for free and learn English from me. Don't I feel special!

On top of that, the Headman also suggested that Casey should teach the students from the village during their summer vacation. After all, he is doing the for free, so why should they pay someone in town. So far, this has not panned out yet, but summer's only just begun :)

The Fog that Never Lifts

2007-03-13T13:07:00.000+07:00

When we first came to our town we heard everywhere that it was the Land of the Three Mists. Boy does that sound romantical. Not when you consider the sources of each of the three mists. With each season, come a "fog." The real mists are associated with the winter, the rain with rainy season and smoke with the hot, dry season.

"Smoke is not a mist," you make be thinking to yourself. You are correct. While the first two phenomenon are made by nature and both deal with water, the third mist is a horrible, thick smoke, the result of excessive burning by God Knows Who. This mist rolled in about 3 days ago and hasn't lifted since. On the contrary, it has settled even more into the valleys, the skin and our clothes. The smell of burning brush is everpresent and makes one's nose hurt. The eyes burn and the throat feels raw. I can barely see the top of the hill across the street. This is not good.

I am reminded of the Indonesian fires, which happened not so long ago and induced the complaints of Malaysia and Singapore. While we were not in the midst of these (Thank Goodness) we heard how horrible the smoke made for travelling and living. I can't help wondering if we now among similar smokiness, or if the Indonesian fires were far worse, which is hard to imagine.

If there was one thing I could change about the practices I've seen in SE Asia it would be the ever-present fires. I really see no point. Households burn the leaves and rubbish around their house, when it would do them more good to let the nutrients soak up into the soil through the natural processes of decomposition. Farmers burn their fields thinking they are increasing nutrients in the soil, when all they are really doing is burning off most of the nutrients and increasing the chances of erosion on their field. People burn forests so they can plant more crops instead of learning techniques to plant in and around the forest.

Sometimes it seems like I'm the only one suffering from the awfulness, but I know that children and adults must also succumb to asthma and respiratory infections as a result of all of the smoke.

But, until they change their ways or at least until the fires run out of fuel, I will sit in the house and breathe the fresh air of the mist.

An interesting article on what the government is doing about the misting problem.

Ant Man

2007-03-13T09:26:00.000+07:00

We have an ant harvester in the neighborhood. He comes around to the house about once a week with a long bamboo pole with a rice sack fixed to the end. He uses this contraption to knock the ant nests down from the tops of the trees and then he collects the larvae. When asked what he does with the larvae the response was "eat it." I wonder how often he has ant larvae for his meals since I've seen him all over the neighborhood poking his stick in the trees. How he manages not to get severally bitten is beyond me...these ants are nasty and he goes about his work so non-chalantly. Though he does not sell the fruits of his labors, one can find them at the market where they are expensive (so i've been told). I wonder if I could get him to invite me over for dinner one night?

Still Fighting On

2007-03-04T00:38:00.001+07:00

I met a man on a Sunday afternoon while he was drinking and relaxing at the grounds of Laura's organization. He introduced himself and asked for my name and with impeccable English told me a bit about his story. He is the head of a political organization in the area which works for democracy, self-determination and freedom from the oppressive regime in Burma. This man in from Southern Shan State and has to be in his 50’s or 60’s. He has been in Thailand for 12 years which he enjoys and is grateful to the Thai royalty, as he puts it, for allowing him to be here. I think life here for him is just a bit better than it was for him in Burma.

He was a part of the political movements in the 1960’s before General U Ne Win took control of government. When the military took control, he still worked for political freedom but that was not exactly a safe way of working. He was imprisoned six times in Burma, many times for stints of over 2 years. In prison the conditions are some of the worst in the world and prisoners are often tormented and tortured. He finally decided that he could not take it anymore and fled to Thailand. It was probably a good idea since one of his close friends and political allies in now in prison with a 100 year sentence. Even while living in Thailand, he feels that he can still help his people in Burma, and perhaps to a bigger extent, while living a relatively safe life.

Since he has been in Thailand he has been imprisoned six times as well (since he is here illegally) but he says that all the Thai authorities know him now and since he is an old man, he will no longer be imprisoned. That is nice of them. The first time he was picked up by Thai authorities, they almost sent him back to Burma but he begged them not to and told them it would be better for them just to shoot him there rather than go back to Burma.

His organization works at trying to spread democracy in the country as well as unifying the ethnic minorities in Burma. He is also a member of another major political organization which represents many different minority groups and is working with the major opposition group in Burma headed by Aung San Su Kyi and continually trying to figure out best way to achieve ‘final destination’ of freedom, unification and democracy. He states that it is extremely important to unify the Shan State, with its many ethnic groups and if this occurs, the unification of Burma will be easy. He also says that it is not a good idea to rely on the Burmese (i.e. perhaps the major opposition group to the regime that is headed by Su Kyi) to provide salvation for aunified Burma as the Burmese have not shown that they can be trusted. History has shown that the Burmese have been pretty shitty to ethnic minorities.

The strength of his words, character and determination are inspirational. He is here all alone in Mae Hong Song. His wife divorced him due to his political situation and his sons have their own life in Burma. He has committed himself to the cause and even though it has caused him innumerable hardships, he stays on course. This deserves admiration. I know that I could not do this. He is happy to still be living (luckily a bit better he in Thailand) and working for his people and ideals.

He was also a wealth of information although after numerous questions he asked to be left at peace with his drink. It was after all a Sunday afternoon and time for relaxation. So I thanked him for his time and left this strong, old man in a felt hat with his drink.

A Dedicated Man

2007-03-04T00:36:00.000+07:00

Names and places have been omitted for security reasons.

In my first week here I met a 44 year old Pa-O man from Southern Shan State who has been in Thailand since 1989 or 1990 after fleeing Burma during the uprising in 1988. He was part of the movement to overthrow government at this time and lived in the jungle in Eastern Burma after the uprising. While on the run, he attended the Jungle University at this time for one year. The Jungle University was run by foreign teachers who taught strictly in English about a variety of topics. During this time, this man met the author of The Land of Green Ghosts Pascal Khoo The (this is a great book from the perspective of a man from the Paduang ethnic group whose women wear neck rings which you may have seen pictures of before). In the jungle, conditions were certainly not ideal with many people dying of malaria and malnourishment, not to mention the conflict with the brutal military.

He has only had contact with his family remaining in Burma two times in past 20 years. The first time was shortly after arriving in Thailand. He crossed the border and it took him half a month to walk to his home. He had to always watch out and travel secretly in fear that the government might catch wind of him. When he got close to home he met his mother and brother near his town, but in an outlying village. His mother told the authorities that she was going to visit family (you must tell government if you go anywhere overnight) but they found out that ex-rebel leader was there and the meeting only lasted 2 hours. He was informed that the government was on the way and he had to flee back to the border. This is the only time that he has seen any of his family in past twenty years. He contacted them one other time by phone a few years ago but has not done so since because he fears for their safety. When I heard this whole story, it nearly made me cry.

He lived in a refugee camp in near the border for about 6 years where life was never easy. Some of these refugee camps are quite large (the biggest is about 100,000 people) and the living conditions are not so nice. Most families do not have enough to eat or other adequate neccessities and currently it is prohibited for them to look for ork outside the camps. At this time he did however get work (hard labor) but got paid extremely low wages. Thai business people and contractors take advantage of the situation by paying Burmese who do not have work permit much lower wages than their Thai counterparts (sounds familiar no?). While in the camp he was involved in community groups and worked as a translator for organizations who came to give trainings. He knows about 6 languages which were learned through his time in the jungle and staying as a guest in many communities. He also worked as a tour guide for one month but still not being paid anywhere near as much as Thai counterparts. Other Thai tourist guides were still mad though as he was a better tour guide than them and could communicate with the hill tribes in the area and explain the Burmese situation better than them. This resulted in many tourists requesting his services which angered the Thais and led them to report his status as a refugee to the Thailand Authority of Tourism. Eventually there was an opening in an international NGO that worked in the camps and he was taken on as a translator and community worker. He moved out of camp in 1996 and one month later it was attacked by Burmese military, killing a few refugees. This link tells about a similar attack.

At the NGO he worked his way up and now holds a decent position (as high as he can go working as a person from Burma without official Thai residency or citizenship). He has relationships with many of the NGOs working in the area and tries as hard as possible to help his people (Pa-O and other people from Burma) to improve their lives here and inside Burma. He has a good head on his shoulders and good ideas about how development work should really work (not forcing it upon people but supporting them to help themselves).

I have only been here one week but already learned so much from him. He is so eager to share information about his life (as hard as it has been) and about the situation in Burma. He is a wealth of knowledge and information and just in general a top notch person. He has a good relationship with the organziation that I work with so I see him quite often I look forward to getting to know him better and learn more from this man who is a mentor not only to people in my organization but now also to me.

A Little About Burma

2007-03-04T00:35:00.001+07:00

Our Quaint Life

So we have moved into our new home here in a nice little serene town in Northern Thailand along the Thai-Burma border. It is much more quiet and peaceful here than Mae Sot, the weather is more agreeable and the scenery is much more beautiful. It is not quite as interesting a town as Mae Sot but all in all it is a great placement. Both of our organizations are filled with great people who have really made us feel welcome. The living situation is nicer than expected and we even have internet hookup so no longer need to pay for internet cafes and can get some more updates on world news, music and everything else which is very nice. The food has been absolutely spectacular so far with tons of fresh veggies and spicy chilies. We already both feel quite at home and have settled into teaching at our respective organizations.

It is really gorgeous around here in the small village where we live and last week it was still quite cold (I could see my breath one morning). But summer is on its way and it has really begun to warm up this week. During March and April it can get really hot here which I am not exactly looking forward to it but I am used to it from the Philippines. The weather has been so nice this past month or so here in Thailand so far though it will be a little hard to get used to again. There are also lots of birds in the village and we have gone out a few times birding.

The classes that we are teaching are mostly people in their twenties and they are all very eager to learn which makes for a nice teaching environment. The classes are also small and some of the students really had basically no knowledge of English before. We were not exactly expecting this and did not know how to start at first but quickly figured it out how to teach and are hopefully doing a decent job. We are both enjoying it a lot and Casey much more so than he anticipated. I think the three months will fly by and perhaps we will wish we could stay longer (although I am not sure if this is a possibility with our visa situation).

As far as the people, they often have many interesting stories, especially those people in their 40's and 50's. I have met an extremely nice man who is originally from Burma and who works for the an international non-governmental organization that works with refugees and migrants all around the world. They have quite a large office in this town working with refugees and other organizations in the area who work with Burmese people. Most Burmese in this area are from the ethnic minorities that are found mainly in Eastern Burma and there are 135 of them in Burma. This man is from the same ethnic group that most of the people in the organizations that we work at, Pa-O. He came over in 1988 after the uprising and was in a refugee camp for about 6 years before getting a job at the NGO. He is still not a citizen or even a resident in Thailand and cannot leave this small area where he lives. He is an extremely kind man who always has time to share his story and information about the situation in Burma. He is an absolute wealth of information. He could probably give up his job here and actually get citizenship in a third country (some things are restrictive about living here and in some ways people from Burma living in Thailand are controlled by the Thai government as much as they are controlled by the Burmese government in Burma and Burmese are also heavily discriminated against here in Thailand) but he chooses to stay and do the most he can to help his people.

In the past few months preparing for our time here we did a little bit of reading up on Burma. Before this I really did not know much about the country or the situation. Since being here we have learned even more and from every angle the situation is pretty messed up. I know that things are messed up in many places in the world but I am here now so if you are interested in a little history lesson please read on. One thing that we have noticed is people that we have met are extremely ready and eager to talk about Burma, even if it sometimes hard to tell their sad stories, in order to get the message out about the situation there. Please read on and learn a little bit. For more reading check out this excellent series of articles and timeline done by the BBC.

Just a little history of Burma

Burma was independent until the mid 1800's when it was colonized by England extending from India because they felt that the Burmese were 'too uncivilized' to rule themselves. You see the nice British were doing them a favor. Even before this time I think that it was hard for Burma to be held together as a country due to the high number of ethnic groups all with different cultures, languages and ideas. While the Burmans are the majority and are found in the center of the country, the other ethnic groups have often been at odds with them. It has been said by certain ethnic groups that they actually liked the British colonization period because they were treated better than when the Burmans were in control. Before WW II, while Japan was on its quest to take over the world, they trained a group of 30 Burmese young soldiers to lead the revolution against England. While this worked in some ways, the Burmese soon realized the true aims of Japan and joined the allies to stop Japan domination in Asia. After the war, Burma was finally given its independence and all of the minorities were placed under the control of one central government even though they were not very happy about this.

In the 1950's I believe, the leader of the group that was trained in Japan and a leader in its fight for independence and democracy was in a position to become the new prime minister. This leader was the father of Aung San Su Kyi (the female nobel peace prize winner who is still under house arrest in Burma and who is the leader of the National League for Democracy, which is the main opposition to the military regime). Some people in the military had other ideas about him becoming the leader of a democracy and assasinated him along with his cabinet and seized control of power. Since that time Burma has been under a military dictatorship who does not like to give up any power or allow any form of democracy and rights for its citizens. The human rights violations of the regime make me sick and some are unthinkable.

So that has been 50 years and not a whole lot has changed in that time. Burma was once one of the most prosperous countries in SE Asia and it has now been crippled by the military regime. It was once the world's largest rice exporter and now it has to import rice and many farmers must sell their rice to the government for ridiculously low prices so that they do not have enough rice for themselves. They in turn have to buy rice at ridiculously high prices. The infrastructure of the country is terrible except for those places that the government and military use. The military outposts have 24 hour electricity and have used forced labor to build the dams to provide while most of the country is not provided with electricity. Many of the roads and transportation are poor but the military officials drive around in expensive cars with fancy gadgets from the West. The country is extremely rich in natural resources and therefore it should be able to provide better for its people but instead they have sold them off to China, Thailand and India raping the environment and causing associated problems for the people and using the money only for military purposes to further persecute the people. During the 1980's the government demonitized the currency not once but twice so that any savings that people held was basically useless. There are extremely high rates of inflation and goods are extremely expensive compared to what people earn. The black market system which is looked after by the government ensures that only a few people get rich while most of the common people remain very poor and without essential needs (clothing, food, shelter, etc...)

There have been two attempted uprisings by the people, both time led by students in Rangoon, the largest city and previous capital. These peaceful demonstrations have been crushed by the military with extreme brutality and force. Many times the military fired into crowds of unarmed students and even monks (this in a Buddhist country) and there are estimates of thousands of people being killed. In 1988 this uprising stirred lots of things up in the country and many students were eventually forced to leave because they were hunted by the military. Many fled to the jungle in Eastern border along Thailand and took up arms to fight the military regime here. These students joined local ethnic groups who already were in armed conflict with the Burmese along the border. The Burmese had continued their persecution of these ethnic groups, many of which want their own autonomy and state. As a result many of these ethnic groups have armies of their own to fight the Burmese military which treats them as no one should be treated, especially those which are supposed to be a part of the same country (more on that later).The uprising also stirred up many things in other areas of the country as there was a push to overthrow the regime not only in Rangoon but also in other places. Many of the students and other political leaders were forced to flee to the jungle and many died here through malnutrition, malaria or fighting. I have already met a few people who were a part of this and who eventually came to Thailand as a result of this situation.

Life for anyone in Burma who is not associated with the regime maybe is not the best but the ethnic minorities have gotten the worst end of the deal perhaps. It seems that the military wants to hold control of the land that they occupy but they do not want the people there. So as part of an ethnic cleansing they continually raid villages (raping, burning and pillaging) in the process. The people are often displaced and live the rest of their days in the jungle or at least until they can find another place to settle only to fear a similar situation in the future. The government instigates conflicts between different armed ethnic groups so that they do not have to do the work themselves. People are often captured while they are away from their village and then used as 'voluntary' porters for the army who have to be the frontlines while fighting (basically just to be a human shield) or are used as landmine locaters. The war crimes of these people are absolutely deplorable and it just makes me mad. It gives war is hell another meaning and this has been going on for 50 years and continues today. Just recently the military has been relocating Karen villages (raiding them and forcing them to move) in order to pave way for a dam of the Salawin River, one of SE Asia's longest so that it can provide electricity not for people in Burma but instead for Thais. This will wreck the environment of the area and only give more money to the regime to continue its abuses. I hold Thailand accountable for this shitty proposal as well.

There is perhaps some hope for Burma but sometimes I just see the situation as bleak. There is Aung Sun Su Kyi, the leader of the NLD and the work that she and many others have been doing to work for democracy. She lived in England and has a British husband and children in England. In the 80's around the time of the uprising, she returned to Burma to help her dying mother. At this point, she felt that she could no longer sit idle and made a speech which really unified the country against the regime. Her party gained in recognition and many people began to publicly show support, even though this support means the risk of one's life. After the uprising in 88 the head general of the government resigned and it was decided that there should be elections since it seemed like the people were a 'bit unhappy' with the government. This was a time when many people thought things were changing and there was excitement in the air. The NLD and many other parties campaigned and many people showed support for the possibility of democracy. The military regime and their party (SLORC) did not think much of it and thought that they would still win the election. They were a bit wrong and NLD won around 90% of the votes I believe. So it was pretty obvious people wanted a change but the military then said the election was just a test and not really valid. So instead they just changed a few things in the current government system and continued on screwing the country and its people over except now they got even stricter. Since that time Aung Sun Su Kyi has been under house arrest 4 times for numerous years even though if she wanted she could go back to England. This is quite inspirational as she could give up after twenty years and go home (she cannot leave her house and her family is seldom even allowed to visit) but she chooses to stay and fight on. He husband recently died of cancer and she was unable to attend to him and he was unable to visit.

Many people who have been involved in politics have been imprisoned on false charges and many remain in prison today. The prisons in Burma are reported as some of the worst in the world with tons of torment and torture. Many people have died in these prisons as a result of brutality, starvation and diseases (they force them to share needles for injections so HIV / AIDS runs rampant). I have met a number of people who have been in the prisons and it does not sound like a whole lot of fun. The prisoners are also used for forced labor and work 12 hours a day or more to build projects for the government.

There are spies everywhere in Burma and people are afraid to talk about things for the most part because who knows if your friend down at the store is actually a spy. People are not allowed to leave their homes for the evening unless they tell the government where they are going and why. Many people can just not take it anymore and run across the border to either live illegally in Thailand and always worry about being sent back or live in refugee camps where life is sometimes not that much better or even worse than in Burma.

There are still many people who fight on though for democracy and freedom from this deplorable situation. This is what is inspirational. Some are here on the border working to help their people inside the country. Others face greater risks in the country and continue to try to buck the system. Unfortunately I don't know how long it is going to take and I'm not sure if it going to happen.

I am happy to be here though to learn about this and do a little part (very little indeed). For me it is more of a learning experience though and these people here are doing the best they can to help themselves and their fellow people.

So sorry about this long, depressing blog. But I want to share the situation as I think it is important to know. I did not know anything about it until a few months ago. I know there are many similar situations around the world with people trapped and persecuted by their government but by being here I have learned a lot more about this one.

Burma Inside Thailand

2007-03-04T00:34:00.000+07:00

February 10 - 20

Vacation is Over...Sort of

After our time in Doi Inthanon and a one night layover in Chiang Mai, we headed back to Bangkok to see Laura's mother off for the States. It had been an enjoyable trip for her even though Thailand was not exactly what she had expected. It had been nice for Laura as well to catch up and we had all enjoyed our month together traveling in Siam. While in Bangkok we visited the National Museum which turned out to have a very well laid out display on Thai history and also many other not so nicely laid out galleries of Thai artifacts. The volume of amazing things in this museum is outstanding however they are not very well labeled or cared for. Unfortunately it seems that much of it has fallen victim to a lack of funding and care and will soon fall further victim to the tropical climate.

We only spent one night in Bangkok and then headed off to the town of Mae Sot (a town in Western Thailand), the location of an organization, where we would hope to work for the next three months. We had been planning on volunteering in Thailand for three months from the beginning of our trip. However as we began looking further into the visa situation of Thailand and recent reports from other foreigners staying in the country, we were starting to wonder if this was going to be possible. In the past Thailand has been fairly lax about letting foreigners stay in the country as long as they want, just crossing the border every time their visa runs out and returning to the country just a few hours later. But after the recent coup in late 2006 and also the nabbing of the accused killer of Jean Bonnet Ramsey in Thailand, their policy has begun to change. Some say that it is to get rid of the sex tourists and others say it is to get rid of the long term visitors that spend very little money in the country (i.e. backpacker like us). While it has changed it is hard to really get a straight answer as to how it has changed and the how it has changed seems to further change depending on who you ask and when you ask them. But from what we ascertained it seemed that they are now only allowing foreigners to stay in the country for a period of 90 days for every six months. So since we had already been in Thailand for nearly a month and the minimum requirement for the volunteer position that we wanted to get was three months, we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle.

We still however wanted to go to Mae Sot, check out the volunteer position and see what other people's experiences were so that if we could not do it at this time maybe we could do it later. In the meantime, we began to search the internet for any other possible volunteer positions in the area that might want two ex-Peace Corps volunteers. There are actually quite a few volunteer opportunities but many of them are short term and require you to pay an exhorbant amount of money (in the thousands of dollars) in order for you to work for them. I assume this money does go to a good cause but still for anyone, like us, who does not have a large bank account, these programs are quite prohibitive. We did however find one in Cambodia that sounded interesting and required us only providing for our own lodging and food which was agreeable. So we contacted them and have been shooting e-mails back and forth since.

Luckily the volunteer position did work out in Mae Sot and we just hope that we do not run into any problems when we try to get a new visa after our three month stay here. From what we hear now, since we applied and paid for a visa we should be exempt from the 90 day rule which only applies to those who get the free 30 day visa and subsequently do a border run two more times. But we are still not positive and will find out soon enough.

After arriving in Mae Sot, we met with the coordinator of the organization that we are volunteering with and we had a three day orientation on their policies and were briefed on the work that we would be doing. We would be teaching English to the members of an organization of people from Burma (well actually two: one for each of us) who carry out projects along the Thai-Burma border. When we first heard about this position and applied we were not exactly sure what it entailed and who we would be teaching but once further reviewing with the coordinator the goals of the volunteer organization and the job of volunteers, we were excited to get started. The idea is to build the capacity of the Burmese organizations so that the members cannot only improve their own lives (English does help for schooling, employment, etc…) but also the lives of the people in the communities that these organizations assist (both inside Burma and in Thailand along the border (i.e. writing proposals and grants to fund projects, getting the message about Burma out to the international community). We were excited about the potential here and even though our experience is limited for teaching English we were ready to accept the challenge.

A Different Breed of Town

While hanging out for orientation and awaiting our eventual assignment to our respective organizations we had some time to take in a bit of Mae Sot. It is a town like no other town in Thailand, or at least any other ones that we have been to. It is only a few kilometers from the Burma border and many Burmese come over for the day to buy and sell goods and many others stay for a lot longer (both legally and illegally). It is estimated in fact that the majority of the population in town is Burmese (at least 60%) but there are also many other people from many places that call this place home or at least a transitory one. There is not only the large Burmese Buddhist population with Burmese style wats which are common near the border but also a decent sized Muslim community with a mosque and many delectable tea shops which serve up somosas and roti and make their mark on Mae Sot. This town as we would soon find out is a hotbed for human, drug and gem trafficking and a base for many of the political groups fighting for freedom from the Burmese government. It is certainly not your typical town and we would only gloss the very surface of this strange but probably my favorite town of Thailand.

One of the first things that we did upon arriving in town is something that we usually do when arriving in a new place: hit up the market. We think that it was market day as the place was packed and traffic was sometimes a standstill. There were folks on motorcycles, bicycles and on foot all trying to push their way through a 6 foot wide alleyway lined on all sides by stalls selling everything imaginable. Of course you had your usual fish, meat, vegetables, fruits and many delicious looking snacks on display for those who passed by. There were even some yummy looking frogs, forest roaches, turtles and eels for sale. There were many dry goods stalls selling your usual rice and cosmetic products selection but also a few book stores and some places selling aromatic spices and lots of beans.

As an outsider I would have maybe not been able to tell from their faces that most of these people were Burmese but they made it quite obvious by the powder cream that they place on their faces (we think for sun protection and healthy skin) and the longyis that were so prevalent (Burmese national dress like a sarong). It was a fun place to be in the morning and after we satisfied our appetite for people-watching we satisfied the hunger of our stomachs with some fried rice in the market. We came back to this market every morning just to walk around and I can honestly say that it is a top five market for me.

During our time in Mae Sot we had a chance to just relax a bit in between the orientation. It was nice just to chill out and our guesthouse had a nice little courtyard to read and just enjoy some peace and quiet. It had been a good number of months now that we had just sat and rested and had not had our schedule jam packed with things to do and places to see. It was a bit of a vacation from our vacation. This was certainly welcome and the low key town of Mae Sot offered a nice respite from our fast paced travel. We caught up on sleep, some of e-mails and blog and also prepared ourselves for the next adventure of teaching.

Off Again

We had originally expected to be staying in Mae Sot for our three months but it turns out that the coordinator of the volunteer program had an assignment in another border town quite a ways north of here that she thought would fit us perfectly. Two organizations whose offices were within a 30 minute walk of each other and who both associated with the same minority group were requesting a volunteer to teach English. The coordinator seemed excited about this placement and she said that it seemed like the groups were also doing interesting development work in nearby communities and that we would possibly be able to visit some of their project sites. This sounded interesting to us and the town where the groups were also sounded nice, peaceful and beautiful. So we packed up our bags again checked out a bunch of teaching resources from the volunteer library and headed on our way a week after we had arrived. While in Mae Sot we had met some of the other volunteers in Mae Sot and even sat in on one of their classes. It sounded like they all liked their work and we were excited about getting started with our own classes.

It's really freaking COLD!!!

2007-03-02T12:31:00.003+07:00

February 7 - 9

After a few days in Chiang Mai, we were ready to move on to greener pastures. I think we all enjoyed the ‘Rose of the North’ but it was time to go and Laura’s mother’s trip was almost up. Our original plan was to end the trip with Sukothai, which much like Ayutthaya, that we had visited before has many ruins of an ancient kingdom. This is actually known as the first kingdom of Thailand even though it started roughly about the same time as Ayutthaya. It does get less visitors as it is further from Bangkok and less accessible but we had heard that it was nicer, with more intact structures since it was not destroyed in an attack, and also that it was in a much more forested landscape. This was our plan but when we started to weigh things: we would have to take a long bus ride there and then another long bus ride the day before Kathy flew out and the fact that we were a bit watted out, we decided against it.

Then Casey started to read more about Doi Inthanon National Park and it not only being beautiful but also a birder’s dream come true. He has become a bit obsessed with birding lately, you see. From reading a bit up on the park, it seemed like the best way to visit it was by renting a vehicle and low and behold we were in Chiang Mai where they rent lots of vehicles for reasonable prices. So we decided to go for it even though it had been awhile since we had driven and on the left side of the road and using a stick with your left hand no less. This is always a fun idea especially when starting off in the busy city of Chiang Mai with crazy Thai drivers (although I may have been the craziest one out there). We actually had the car the day before we left for Doi Inthanon and used it to visit Doi Suthep and the national park near there which made for a gorgeous but bumpy day transversing dirt roads. Luckily we had our cute little beat up Suziki 4WD to navigate.

You Did What? Sorry, I Left the Door Unlocked.

So Casey was very excited about our plan to visit Doi Inthanon and could hardly sleep thinking about all the birds that we might see. The night before leaving we had to do laundry and came back late and Casey, after living in the Philippines for two years and forgetting that people are not always so innocent and nice, forgot to lock the door. Well it turns out that was not such a good idea and when he awoke in the morning to look for Laura’s purse to get some money to buy food to take on the trip, he could not find it. Laura was sure it had to be there but it was not and we soon realized after tearing the room apart that it was not there. Someone had come in the evening while we were asleep and evidently snatched the purse along with our passports and Laura’s credit cards which were inside. Luckily they did not grab the camera which was also very close to the door. Kind of scary that someone came in while we were sleeping and glad nothing worse happened. So lesson learned by Casey: lock the door, especially in a large city.

So we told the front desk and asked if they could call the police. They responded by saying, “oh maybe you should look in your room for the purse.” I love service in SE Asia. So understanding, fast and efficient. We tried to make them realize that we were pretty sure it was not there and eventually we did get in touch with the tourist police (these are found in every major tourist town in Thailand). They came and were nice enough and we told them what had happened and how Casey had stupidly not locked the door. The worst thing was not so much the money or even the credit cards but the fact that our passports were in there. We had been good for the first few months about separating them but we had needed them recently and Laura had just left them in her purse as we all get lazy and had not had any problems. We were worried about getting new passports from the embassy and then also having to deal with Thai immigration. This was not a good start to the morning and Casey was pissed because it meant no birding.

So we told the sorry to the cops and then for some reason Casey decided to check outside the room again. We had looked in some of the trash cans but then Casey remembered there was a little alleyway to the right of our room and sure enough the purse had been thrown under a bush there. They had taken the money (about $140 worth) but the credit cards and the important passports were still there which we were extremely thrilled about. The cops were a little confused by this but they soon understood what had happened and then we went with them to make a statement at the station. We learned that they had caught someone in the area who had done similar things in other nearby hotels and they thought that she had done the same to us. So we then went to the real cops to make another statement so the tourist cops could actually do a real investigation. I do not understand how this system works and what qualifies you for a tourist cop or a real cop but whatever. There had been a video camera in our hotel so the tourist police needed our statement to look at this video and see if they had the thief on tape. We never heard the end of it but hopefully they caught the perpertrator. So we left for Doi Inthanon in the early afternoon a few thousand Baht poorer and a bit more wary.

Finally Back to the Birding Adventure
We got in our little Suziki and headed the hour and a half to Doi Inthanon. Doi in northern Thai means mountain and this is no little mountain. It is the highest in Thailand and at around over 9,000 feet (2,655m), it is nearly 1000 feet higher than any other mountain in the country. The elevation range within the park is fairly spectacular and as a result of this you get many different ecosystem types and also a wide variety of associated plants and wildlife (especially birds). There are a number of endemic species in the park (mostly at the highest elevations) and other species which are found other places in the world but only in this park in Thailand. Also because this mountain is so high it gets pretty damn cold and we had come at pretty much the coldest time of the year. We were certainly in for a chilling experience.

At the gates of the park there is a gorgeous waterfall, Mae Klang, which is formed by a beautiful rushing river which runs right past the visitor’s center. We soon found out that there are many waterfalls in Doi Inthanon and all of the ones that we visited were pretty spectacular. I do not think that I have ever been to a place that has packed so many wonderful waterfalls per area. Many of the falls run all year and almost all of them are multiple tiered. This is certainly one thing we have noticed about Thailand: the multi-tiered waterfall. Brochures will often proclaim that a park has stats like this: three waterfalls, one having seven tiers while another has thirteen and another three. What exactly makes up a tier and how spread out can they be to be considered a tier. In one park you had to hike a kilometer between tiers. Is this really a tier or a totally separate waterfall? I am just waiting for the 127-tiered waterfall. Now then I will really be impressed.

After viewing these falls, we stopped quickly at the visitor’s center for a map and then began heading up the mountain. At the base of the mountain everything was brown, dry and hot but as we slowly headed up and up the vegetation got greener and the air got cooler. It took us about 30 minutes or more before we finally reached headquarters and where we found a small cottage right nearby to stay in. The temperature was incredibly pleasant and there were birds twitching in the parking lot. Casey decided to head over to Mr. Daeng’s, a little restaurant that he had heard about where birders go to get info on birding, while Laura and Kathy just rested and enjoyed the pleasant surroundings.

In the early evening Casey and Laura went to go see if the could find a special bird, an endangered crake, near a marshy area of the campground. We sat and waited for awhile but nothing showed up and we learned later that they have not been seen there in years. However while waiting for the bird we were met by a small group of Hmong (one of the hill tribes in this region of SE Asia) children with bunches of flowers. These kids were intent on making their sale and came up to us muttering 5 Baht, 5 Baht. We continually said no but they had no desire to leave us alone. Then one of them had a bright idea. Maybe 5 Baht is too low. We will try 10 Baht, 10 Baht, 10 Baht. We found this quite amusing but still would not budge on our position. The kids would also not budge on their wanting to offload these flowers. I assume their parents had sent them out to sell those flowers, hell or high water. So they came up with the best idea, “free, free, free" and tried to hand them to us. We still did not really want them and were expecting if we did take them they would then demand money. So we again said no. But they started to lay the flowers at our feet and then began to runoff without any payment. We thought it quite odd, a bit annoying for the first 10 minutes but by the end, an interesting and cute ending to our day.

The next morning we had decided to get up in time for the sunrise. When we awoke and got out from underneath our heavy blankets we realized just how cold it was. It was nearly freezing and for two people who have not been in the cold for three years, this is quite stifling. Casey did a bit better with the cold in the next two days but Laura’s thin blood had a little trouble handling it. We loaded in the car with our 5 layers of clothes, gloves and hats and even brought the blankets with us. Then we slowly made our way up the mountain in our low powered car and by the time we had reached the top the sun had already risen but we got the nice view of the early light.

We were in fact the second folks at the top and we slowly got out of the car, bared the cold and made our way to the nature trail. On the top of the mountain there is a unique mossy forest and also a bog environment found nowhere else in Thailand. This is the place that many people come, especially birders to see this special environment and the rare birds that live here. We were one of the first ones here but soon birders began to come in groups and make the boardwalk in the bog a bit crowded. I was surprised to find that most of the birders were not foreigners and in fact we were the only Westerners that I saw up here. While watching the bog we got a view of many of the species that people come here to see (the beautiful Green and Mrs. Guold’s Sunbird, Chesnut Headed Minla and Chesnut Capped Laughing thrush to name a few) and we were extremely delighted. It was a bit cold and our feet froze in the morning (there was even frost on the boardwalk), but no harm done. The mossy forest here really was quite beautiful and it was worth getting here early in the morning to catch the first sights of the special birds here.

We actually decided to stay here longer than expected and did not realize that we had spent the whole morning until we got back to the car. Our next stop was a spot where two cheddis or stupas have been built, of course to honor the King and Queen. We decided to make a quick detour here as we had heard the gardens were nice and there might be some birds here as well. What we did not expect was them charging us more money to enter this area. We reluctantly handed over our Baht but complained a little bit to the guard although it is not his fault. Our only issue was that we had already paid a large entrance fee to get into the park. It really is quite high for foreigners (about $12 which is not that much but is more than many national parks in the States). Now when you consider the fact that you are in Thailand and things should be cheaper than in the States and also consider that Thais only pay 1/10 of that price, it is a bit high. I am certainly willing to pay more than Thais but I do hold a bit of an issue with paying that much more, especially knowing that it is highly unlikely that much of it is going to conservation but instead is being used to line someone’s pockets. But hopefully I am wrong and am just too cynical. Well anyway the gardens were nice and it was a good way to spend the not really good birding hours of midday.

After this we headed down to a group of waterfalls near Mae La that we had heard were nice and hoped to find a few birds. This area actually turned out to be a highlight for our birding in the park and we saw a number of things we did not expect. Upon arriving at one of the falls we quickly found a Slaty-Backed Forktail, a Blue Whistling Thrush, A Plumbous Tailed Redstart and a gorgeous River Chat. The first falls were nice and high and then we hiked up the road to see another group that was very nearby. These falls were even more impressive with nearly 2,486 tiers (not quite but they were highly tiered). One our way hiking back to the car from here, we saw the bird of the day and probably the trip, a nice Long-Tailed Broadbill, what we think is a Small Niltava (pictured here) and also what we think was a flock of Mrs. Gould’s Sunbirds.

Once we got back to the car we saw another sign for a waterfall and decided to see where it was. We ended up going for quite a while on a dirt road and never saw the waterfall. We think we did however go outside of the park and into the outskirts of the nearby town. It was entirely different landscape with hardly any trees and very dry and brown again. Amazing what a difference the forest makes. But it was quite beautiful in its own right with very large rice terraces, that were beautiful now but I am sure are absolutely spectacular during the green, wet season. They reminded us of other terraces of Northern Philippines and Southern Sulawesi. This was an unexpected side trip but another very nice way to end the day. While we were here we even saw an amazing Black Shouldered Kite as it hovered in the air looking for its prey.

The next morning we rose again early to get some more birding in. We tried to head to one of the suggested birding spots and although we heard a lot of birds, many of them were high in the canopy and the forest was pretty dense here. We are still novice birders and this was a bit difficult for us so we decided to head to another spot that was supposed to be easier to locate birds. We walked around at this spot for a few hours and saw a few things: a nice woodpecker and some shrike babblers and parrotbills. Overall the morning was not as fruitful as the day before but nice nonetheless.

We headed back in the later morning to our lodging to pack up and then headed over to the Royal Project Area near headquarters. The King and Queen have assisted with a number of projects in the park it seems in order to help the local hill tribe population that calls this park home. There are about 3,000 Hmong and Karen that live within the park boundaries and in the past one of their major forms of livelihood was growing opium. In order to curb this, the King has introduced a number of projects in the area including cut flowers which are sold throughout Thailand (much like the ones which were pawned off on us by those cute but pesky kids the first evening). So we decided to check out the gardens and while nothing spectacular it made for an interesting enough walk and we were able to get a view of some of the green houses used for the flowers and vegetable production. We also headed over to the Royal Gardens which was a beautifully landscaped area at the foot of another huge waterfall. It is weird to have landscaping and whole communities inside a national park but it is what it is.

After our stroll in the gardens, we had a nice lunch and started to head down the mountain. But first we went to the nice market near headquarters where many of the Hmong residents of the park were selling a variety of products, ranging from the cut flowers to handicrafts to preserved fruit. Along the way down the mountain, we hit up two more gorgeous waterfalls and eventually got back to the dry, hot lowlands. We planned to then go to another waterfall outside of the park (supposedly one of the highest in Thailand) but got detoured by a Buddhist procession and caught in the traffic caused by it for awhile. So we nixed the waterfall and just headed back to Chiang Mai having been content with our lovely, cold time at Doi.

Chiang Mai

2007-03-02T12:31:00.001+07:00

February 3 - 7

We had tried desperately to have our trip to Chiang Mai coincide with the Flower Festival. Chi'en in Kuching had said he might be up to get some pictures and other things we had read sounded like it was pretty cool. Of all the things we read about the Flower Festival, however, the one thing we couldn't ascertain for certain was the actual DATES of the festival. Everyone seemed to have a different story and most Thai tourist info people had no idea the festival even existed. We were exasperated and decided to just run with one flyer we had seen. So, here we were.

We arrived from Pai by cramped bus (the norm) and went directly to our hotel. Casey and I had agonized over which urban though seemingly rural hotel we should choose and since our first two choices where unavailable and/or extremely overpriced we picked what we thought would be the next best option - Karinthip Village. It was located close to the tourist center but the grounds were green and inviting. The rooms, however, we a different story all together. Apparently, the owners spent all of their money on the shell and thought that people would not want to spend time in their rooms. This was evident by the horrible paint jobs, lack of lighting and horrible views of wall. We were not impressed.

After checking in we decided to head over to the Hill tribe museum in hopes of finding out a little more about the tribes we incountered in Mae Hong Son. It was a small but informative museum out in the the middle of nowhere. I tried to write information down to post later, but i'm not sure where it is now...I will look at get it up in a bit.

The next morning, we were hoping, there would be a parade for the flower festival. We ready then asked the front destk attendant where the parade would be. Not surprisingly, they had no idea what we were talking about. Somewhere though, we found a route and decided to head in that direction. Only a few blocks from our hotel (and they still didn't know about it!) we ran smack dap in the middle of the parade. It was a huge event and there were tons of locals as well as foreign tourists all trying to snap some pictures. This made for some very annoying games of who can step in front of who the quickest in order to monopolize the best picture taking view. Ugh.

With that aside, the parade was an incredible event. By far the best parade I've seen since arrive in SE Asia. The numerous floats were reminiscent of the Rose Bowl Parade floats. They were covered in vegetable matter which included everythin from colored rice to large, red bell peppers to gorgeous orchids. Most floats also included a Thai beauty or two with hair as tall as Marge Simpson and an inch of makeup caked onto their faces. Between floats, groups where showcased. There were many ethnic groups dressed in their traditional costumes (funny, these costumes looked very different from the touristy ones we saw in Mae Hong Son) as well as high school bands. The bands were amazing! They consisted of a wide range of intruments and their songs were not just awful pop tunes. This made for an extremely pleasant listening experience and kept me wondering why Filipino bands think all they need are horrific metal xylophones and drums and why they think the Sex Bomb Girls are the only singers to replicate.

After the parade we followed the hordes down to the parade finish line. The parade ended at a small park in the corner of the old walled quarter of Chiang Mai. Once there we were able to view all of the floats, which were lined along the street. There were also beautifully crafted displays from various flower and orchid clubs. The park was filled with food stalls and walking food vendors. Many parties had rented woven mats and the grass was covered with people lounging in the shade (Thais are not as sun-loving as N. Americans are, rightly so). We stayed for a few hours, people watching and tasting the yummy treats.

One night, we went to the night market. This was also within walking distance from our hotel. Once we arrived at the market, I was surprised to see all of the usual local products...delicious native fruits, the local cuisine as well as cheap clothes and accessories. Strange, I thought, this wasn't what I had expected. Of course not! Only then did I realize that this market WAS the local night market and the touristy night market was still a couple of blocks away. When we arrived at that one, we knew right away where we were. Stalls were piled high with the same souvenirs we had seen in Mae Hong Son. At first, it was excited to go through the items, but it didn't take long for it all to start to look the same. Every once in a while, a stall would have some unique pieces on sale, but these were far and rew between and often not worth the effort of searching thriough the myriad of identical junk. There was one store, that caught all of our attention - a wood carving shop. The artist had intricately carved the most beautiful designs, much inspired by Buddhism and common Thai symbols. My favorite piece was an aquarium full of wooden turtles, fish, crabs and a gorgeous mermaid.

We continued to agonize over where to go next. We thought about Sukothai to see more great ruins, but ruins didn't seem to interest mother so much and frankly, I was beginning to think that all temples of worship were the same. There are only so many golden Buddha images one can see before they all look like cookie-cutter images. Don't get me wrong, I think the temples are gorgeous, but to the untrained eye (ie my untrained eye) the small differences in detail between one style and the next was lost. Finally, after much discussion we decided to head to the tallest mountain in Thailnd, Doi Inthanon. We thought it might be a good opportunity for birding and it would be cool enough for mom.

As sort of a last minute decission, we opted to rent a car for the drive to Doi Inthanon (why we hadn't thought of this before ie Khao Yai, I don't know). On our way to Doi Suthep, the day before our departure for Doi Inthanon, we stumbled across a car rental agency and decided, why not get the car a day early and use it to roam around Doi Suthep.

So we did. It was great! We rented an old manual four wheel drive. Casey was kind enough to drive it out of the city since both mom and I were to afraid to try driving, much less with stick in the suicidal traffic. Once safely outside of the city, we relaxed as we drove to Doi Suthep.

In case you haven't noticed, "doi" means mountain in the Northern Thai dialect. "Khao" is mountain in the central Thai dialect. We were heading the Doi Suthep to see one of the most famed monasteries of the north. It was built on the hill after an elephant carrying a relic of the Buddha died on that very spot. It was thought that the elephant would know the appropriate place for the temple and would stop (aka die) when it reached the location.

We wandered around the temple grounds, taking pictures and asorbing the peacefulness of the place. We read up on Buddhism in the little library and also received information on their meditation classes. Laura and Casey have been interested in taking a meditation class ever since they first heard about other PCV's doing so while on vacation from the Philippines. They heard many stories about what a life altering experience not speaking, eating on 2 vegetarian meals a day and meditating for hours for one week was. We thought the program at Doi Suthep was nice, it was run by donation only and you could start anytime. You may be reading more about our meditation exploits in a few months, should our plans pan out.

After battling the steep and numerous steps of the wat (ok, so maybe only Casey battles the steps while the rest of us opted for the elevator), we stopped into a small jade shop. Unbeknownst to us, this was no ordinary jade shop. Upon entering, we were provided with refreshments, a free tour and even a short video detailing the different types of jade. We also had a chance to see the master carvers at work in the workshop behind the store. Most of the jade was from Burma, which made me wonder if it was such a good idea to be supporting the Burmese jade trade. I had questions: Who harvested the jade? What were the working conditions, pay, benefits (haha, benefits)? Who owned the jade before it was sold to Thailand? I wondered this, because I wanted to know how involved the military junta was in the jade trade and if they used forced labor for its extraction...I never did find out these answers.

Since we had the use of our own personal car and driver we decided to explore Doi Suthep a little more in detail. We had heard of a few hill tribe villages in the area and so we set off. The road was windy and narrow but the scenery was breathtaking as we twisted and turned up the mountain. We arrived at a very touristy Hmong village that was more like a mini bizzare where my mother found story quilts that depicted the history of the Hmong and how they travelled from China through Laos before winding up in Thailand. We wandered through an opium garden and admired the clean, cool mountain air.

We wandered around a bit more and ended up in an extremely un-touristy hill tribe village that we found fascinating, but a little embarrased at showing up unannounced and so we drove slowly to the school and then left. On the way down the mountain we stopped at a little cafe that served fresh mountain coffee homegrown on the hillside next to the cafe.

Upon our return to Chiang Mai we headed to the host monastery of Monk Chat. This novel idea was thought up by someone to help the novices and monks improve their English while at the same time increasing the tourists knowledge of the intricacies of Buddhism. We spoke with several monks and asked them all sorts of questions. If I have time, I would visit them every week.

On one of our many wanderings through the city, we came across a large wat where many novices were having a lesson in drawing the Buddha. They were using the old images painted on the walls of the temple as a template and we couldn't resist snapping a few blurry pictures.

This slice of PAI is not so sweet

2007-03-02T12:30:00.000+07:00

February 1 - 3

What is so special about Pai? From our estimation we really cannot figure it out. Many people rave above this place and love it. It is really just not our cup of tea. We came, we saw and we left. Now what is Pai you may ask. It is a small town in Northern Thailand on the Mae Hong Son loop that has been overrun by farang. Pai is a town known for being Pai. It is known for its high percentage of farang population that hang out with each other, stay for extended periods of time, enjoy Western food with imported Western ingredients and listen to Western music. Not to say that I don’t enjoy a good pizza every once and awhile or even some good blues that Pai has on offer. We even indulged in these things while we were here but two days was certainly enough for us. I will not judge people (well maybe I will judge a bit but it is up to people to travel and live their lives) but I just do not really understand why people come to a foreign land to be surrounded by solely foreigners and eat imported food and do farang things. Maybe we have just been away from Western society for too long to really long and desire the sole company of other Westerners. Maybe we are just the weird ones because sometimes it certainly seems like we are in the minority rather than the majority as far as what our idea of traveling is about.

Maybe it says something about Pai that I have no pictures of it. Maybe that does not say anything about it. Who knows? It is billed as a sleepy town beside a small river valley that has attracted the attention of so many long term farang guests in Thailand. It certainly has sucked them in like a black hole and for some people we met it seems like they just cannot get out. But many seem happy so that is good for them.

The area surrounding the town is pretty though and I am sure that during wet season it is beautiful, lush and green. When we went it was dry, dusty and brown (but that is what happens). We stayed a bit out of town and walked around town just trying to figure out what Pai is about. We could not figure it out and it still remains a huge mystery. We continually asked each other, “what is going on here?” or making comments like this place is just odd. So that it is our impression: take it or leave it.

Odd things about Pai include the fact that the name Pai is used continually on signs, postcards, advertisement, etc… to try to include it is witty sayings such as the title of this blog. What are other examples you may ask? "Pai in the Sky", "Easy as Pai" and "InsPAIrastional" are just a few. The funny thing is that the name of this town is not pronounced like ‘pie’ in the local dialect but instead is pronounced ‘bye.’ Those funny farang. Another observation includes the proliferation of restaurants of “thai food” meaning that they solely serve pad thai, which from the look of it seems to be the only ‘Thai dish’ that many farang try during their time here. This I do not really understand. Sure pad thai is great and I will order it occasionally and it is a safe bet, but for God sakes branch out a bit and try some of the other wonderful things that the Thai menu can offer! Just point to something and try it. I love the sign in Pai which said we serve Pad Thai and Thai Food. Pad Thai now has its whole own category in many of the farang overrun places (i.e. Khao San Rd and Pai).

What did we do in Pai? We walked around town and just watched how this town runs. Again we cannot figure it out. Like I said we did indulge in some pizza which was good and we even went to the blues bar one night (Pai is known for its music season) and that was also quite good. It is nice to do these things every once and awhile. It reminds you of home and the things you miss. For us it usually means once a month of every few months (although while Laura’s mother was here we did splurge a bit and had Western food quite a few times), but for many this is life in Pai. If people miss the Western comforts so much, maybe they should just go home. I know I am harsh in saying some of this stuff and please take it with a grain of salt. Maybe our life overseas has made us too cynical in some ways. It is fine with me for people to live their life and spend their time traveling this way. I have just discovered that I do not want much part of it. So I am sure that the slice of Pai will taste good for many years to come for many people but for us it was just a bit bland.

Tribes on Hills

2007-03-02T12:29:00.000+07:00

January 26 - 31

Ode to a Tick
This is why I should not be allowed to write poetry.

O wee thing. You look so sweet and innocent.
So small and translucent.
And then you sneak under the skin
- not completely -
But you wedge your head in just enough
To make removing you impossible.
There you set up a small head-house
Where you begin feasting on the delicacies of my blood.
The more I stare at your headless back against my skin,
The more revolted I become.
I WANT YOU OUT!
By all means, I will free my arm from your grasp:
Sunscreen, insect repellent, peroxide and more.
Everything from the medicine bag gets tested,
Nothing seems to work.
FIRE!
That should do the trick.
Right, do the trick of burning
And frustrating myself,
While your bum is kept nice and cozy warm.
Seems like hours, then
FINALLY you fall off in my hands.
I feel so proud,
Something I did must have killed you,
Or were you just full?

Another Overnight Train
From Ayutthaya, we caught an overnight train to Chiang Mai. We had planned on doing this, but we were unsure of the dates. We thought it would be fine to buy the tickets the day of departure. We were wrong, but lucky. Since mom was with us, we wanted a bed for the journey and Laura was interested in trying it out, hoping she would get a better night's rest laying supine rather than slumped in a chair. When we inquired about the trip, we were informed that there were ONLY 4 beds left on the train. Silly us, we had forgotten how TOURISTY Thailand is! Apparently, tour companies book sleeper cars just in case they have a full tour. To make matters worse for Casey, the only beds left were in super duper luxury class (he was not happy about paying $30 when he would be content sitting on a bench in the lowest class the whole night). But, what could we do. So we "treated" ourselves to the extreme a/c boxes, which were first class. The beds were large which was nice. I wished they would let the hawkers come down the 1st class train to sell their cheap and delicious snacks, but alas, we were expected to eat over-priced train food instead.

During the train ride, mom and I both discovered that we had ticks embedded under our skin. This made neither of us happy. Being the desert type, we were not accustomed to such creatures and frankly, they grossed us out. We tried everything to get them out, which only succeeded in poisoning, burning and irritating my skin, but doing little to the tick. We had heard that during the dry season, there were ticks at Khao Yai and that they were worse than the leeches. I would have to agree. Leeches are pleasant company compared with ticks, they're easier to get off and they don't spread diseases.

The train ride was uneventful and when we got off the next day, we made our way to the bus station as we would not being staying in Chiang Mai just yet. So, this would be our 2nd day spent traveling. We had planned on first stopping in Mae Sariang, a small less touristy town then any of the others we planned on visiting. Unfortunately, on the train ride, we realized that we had goofed on dates and we wouldn't have enough time to visit the little hamlet. Still, we decided to travel the long way through Mae Sariang to Mae Hong Son, our next destination. The bus was supposed to be nicer than the bus via Pai and we thought it would be nice to see a different view, since we would be returning to Chiang Mai via Pai in about a week.

The bus was more comfortable, and air conditioned. Though it was still your typical Asian public transportation with the aisles filled with packages from the post office. Apparently, this is how the mail travels in Thailand, via public buses not via postal vans. As I watched everyone step on the boxes on their way in and out of the bus, I couldn't help cringe, hoping that there wasn't anything which could be broken inside.

The road was windy and scenic, though it was the dry season. Some of the scenery was breathtaking.

We arrived in Mae Hong Son around 8pm and had our lodging pick us up. We had decided on the Fern Resort after reading their website which claims it is the "ecofriendly resort for nature lovers." This was a bit of a stretch, but it was a gorgeous place set on the hills. There were free shuttles into town, which was nice and there was a national park within walking distance. Many of the employees were from the surrounding villages and they were exceptionally friendly. They upgraded our room for free and when we stayed an extra night, they were kind enough to charge us the rate we found on the Internet instead of their published rate.

We had come to Mae Hong Son because mom's one request during the vacation was to visit the hill tribes of Thailand. She has always been interested in the hill tribes, especially their traditional arts and crafts. We had heard that Mae Hong Son was less touristy than Chiang Mai, in this respect, and so, here we were.

We signed up for a couple of day tours through the resort. They weren't the cheapest option (as mentioned by the hotel staff) but we thought it would be easier. Our tour guide was a beautiful and friendly woman named Nuie. Like many of the people of Mae Hong Son, she spoke Shan, which is an ethnic language from the Shan people of Shan State in Burma. Though she was not very knowledgeable about the hill tribes, she was willing to answer what she could and she was enthusiastic about sharing Shan culture and traditions. She was also eager to hear about life in America. Overall, she was a wonderful person to spend the next two days with.

Day 1: Soppong
Soppong (aka Pang Ma Pha) is the municipality half way between Mae Hong Son and Pai. Nuie explained that Soppong used to be crawling with tourists until Pai was discovered. Then, slowly all of the tourist accommodations and attractions left Soppong.

We were there to visit Tham Lod (Lod Cave), a popular tourist spot. The cave is quite large and has a river running through it. To reach the chambers, we travelled on small bamboo rafts. In addition to Nuie, we also hired a local guide with a lantern. Once inside the cave, there are chambers on both sides of the river. The caverns are named after the formations found within. For instance, Column Cave is so named because of the large stalactites and stalagmites that from columns. Likewise, someone thought the formations in Doll Cave looked like a doll collection. Our local guide, would stop at each of the formations she deemed "significant" and point out what they resembled. "crocodile," "breasts," "an elephant's ear."

The caves also contain wooden coffins. We didn't know this at the time, but the caves and the surrounding areas are very important to archaeology of the region. The coffins are at least 2000 years old, but there is also evidence that there has been activities in the cave since over 20,000 years ago. Much of what used to be in the caves have since been moved to the national museum in Bangkok, but there are still a few remnants. Also inside the caves are some cave drawings, which were pointed out to us. Unfortunately, there is little in the way of protection and these paintings have been rubbed out by the hands of various tourists. For more information click here.

The current tribes of the area believe that the coffins were left behind by "The Pee" which means spirits. Since the coffins are long and thin, they have concluded that the Pee were also tall and very skinny. The locals do not like the Pee and they can get a little nervous about being in the caves.

After Tham Lod, we visited a few local tribes in the area. This is the part that Casey and I were not to sure we would like. We had heard various stories about the exploitation of the hill tribes by tourist companies and the Thai government. We noted that although we were fond of our guide, she was not contributing any of our hefty tour fee to any of the villages we encountered. I was also not sure how I felt about our intrusion in the daily lives of the villagers. Mom, however, had different opinions and after some lengthy discussions, we decided to visit the hill tribes, which she has longed to do for so long.

For the most part, there wasn't anything exceptional about the villages. They were your typical far flung farming villages we've seen all over SE Asia. The only difference is that some of the women and children were dressed in traditional garments. Casey has since been informed that the Thai Tourism Authority pays these women to wear their traditional dress.

At the first village we visited, a few of the women ran to us with sacks full of souvenirs, which they had sewn, for us to buy. At one house, a woman suggested that we try on her traditional dress and have our pictures taken, for a small fee.

At the last village of the day, a group of 3 SUV's came barrelling past us as we were getting out of the car. We slowly made our way down to where these cars had parked, where we discovered that one foreigner was holding free goodies above their heads while a large swarm of children clamored about him. This act of begging for free junk and the tourist who was obviously relishing in his "kindness" was so disturbing. This scene was the epitome of everything we hate about being tourists. It also made me think about the damage good-intentioned but ill-thought handouts have on the recipients.

Afterwards, we went to a lovely little park, which is very popular with the tourists. It is referred to as "Fish Cave" in English because of the massive amounts of fish which are stuck in a small underwater cave. These fish are looked after by a Buddha Statue and because this is a place of worship, the fish are forbidden to eat. It is encouraged, however, to feed the fish and there are many vendors selling "fish food." Imagine my surprise when I discovered that carp are fond of lettuce and oranges! The fish inside the cave travel from the nearby river when they are small. Then they feast of the food kindly donated by the locals until they are too fat to leave the cave. They area surrounding the cave is peaceful and pretty. It would make a nice picnicking spot.

Day 2: Padaung, Chinese, Hmong and Swiss Mountain Villages
Our second day of The Hill tribe Tour took us first to the famous "Long-Neck Karen." The Padaung tribe (which the Thais named the Long-Neck Karen) is originally from Burma. The "village" where they live is set up by the Thai Tourism Authority. The Padaung have the choice of either living in the refugee camp, where they are not allowed to work, or they can live in the Padaung village just outside of the refugee camp. At the village they are allowed to make money selling souvenirs. We have also heard that the women get paid by the Thai government around 1500 Baht to wear their neck rings. The family will also get the money if they have their little girl wear the rings. The rings are made of copper and are imported from Burma. Traditionally (according the the book From the Land of the Green Ghosts), only girls who are born on auspicious days are privileged to wear the rings, which they begin wearing when they are 8 or so years old. The women change the ring, which is actually a coiled piece of copper, to "lengthen" their neck. The tradition is dying in Burma, where very few young Padaung women wear the rings. Although, I have been told that the Burmese authorities are trying to revive the tradition for the benefit of tourists. In Thailand, almost all the Padaung women wear the rings, regardless of whether or not they were born on auspicious days.

The "village" was built by the Thai government. It consists of bamboo houses and an elementary school. The Padaung are not considered a hill tribe, nor are they Thai citizens. They are not allowed to move out of the village. The children cannot receive an education higher than elementary school because they do not have Thai ID cards and thus they are not allowed to attend the Thai high schools in the neighboring villages. Why would it really matter if they received an education or not, when they are imprisoned in their village with no hope of ever making a living off of anything except farming and tourism? The Padaung are also not treated the same as the other Burmese ethnic minorities who have travelled across the border. In my opinion, the Padaung have left one oppressive regime to live in a land where they are again oppressed and treated as commodities instead of human beings.

The great and wonderful Lonely Planet has a blurb about the Padaung. While they present both sides of the story (there is a good side of the story? you may ask), I think they are still extremely biased. During our time in Mae Hong Son, we heard several people use the LP's blurb as an excuse to indulge in the "cultural tourism." Besides being biased, the Lonely Planet also gives false information regarding the Padaung Village and the money they receive from the tourists. Writing this reminds me I would like to write a scathing note to the guidebook explaining their falsehoods.

Though Casey and I weren't too sure about visiting the Padaung, we were not fully aware of their situation until after our travel adventures. Again, mom was eager to see them and after explaining how we felt about the village it was decided that we would go.

The vibe I received from visiting the Padaung Village was much less weird that the vibe I got from the other hill tribes. I think this is becuase it was set up more like a business. Every house was equiped with a souvenir stand where they women sold hand-woven scarves and other cheap knick-knacks. We were able to visit the school, which was a small bamboo shack. One of the children was assigned to postcard duty, and she tried to get us to buy from her. As I said before, I guess an education isn't that important when all you'll be doing is selling souvenirs for the rest of your life. We were allowed to go into the classrooms, which seems to me not to be a very good idea. Each classroom we went in, we interrupted the session, even when we tried not to. In one classroom, the teacher seemed to be missing and a group of tiny students were teaching themselves.

Alongside the Padaung live the "Big-Earred Karen." This tribe is also originally from Burma. They are famous for their large earring holes.

My favorite part of the village was a group of small toddlers who were playing outside their houses. They were all dirty and adorable and it was only then that I took out the camera to snap a few pictures.

After the Padaung, we made our way to a small Chinese village located high in the hills. The weather here was much more pleasant than in Mae Hong Son and village, though touristy, had a much more laidback feel to it. The Chinese....

At the village, we ate some of the best Chinese Yunnan-style chinese food I have ever tasted. It was spicy and delicious. In fact, it was one of the best meals we had during our entire trip in Thailand. After the meal, we walked to a small shop, where we were able to sample a wide range of teas for free. They even gave us snacks of preserved fruit to nibble on while we drank tea. Most of the tea we tried was grown in the village. The tea was so good and the proprietess so kind, we decided to buy some locally grown Oolong tea.

From there, we headed to the "Little Switzerland" of Mae Hong Son. This is a small, quite community high in the hills. It used to be home of large opium poppy plantations, but they have since been destroyed and in their place are stand of pine trees. There is a large lake in the town and someone was kind enough to put some swans in it. It was very cool up here and it seemed like a nice place to relax away from the hectic life of the rest of Thailand (it is a popular spot among local tourists). On the way out of town, we stopped at a little coffee shop that grew and processed it's own coffee. As we waited for our cups, we toured the coffe plantation and the processing room. We drank our coffee on a hill overlooking the plantation with a cool breeze blowing in our direction.

On the way back to Mae Hong Son, we stopped at a Hmong village. Again, it was hard to tell one rural village from the next. I do not think that this village is as touristy as the others we visited because noone was wearing their traditional dress. We stopped at the school to watch some boys playing with large wooden tops. We watched some women talking in the street and sewing. They were preparing garments for the upcoming Hmong New Year's festival. We inspected a large stone rice mill which was located outside another house. We commented on the funny looking chickens running around everywhere and then we got back into the van and headed back to the resort.

A Little on Mae Hong Son
Like I said before, Mae Hong Son is a small town, which is the capital of the small Mae Hong Son Province. It is located fairly close to the Thai-Burma border and the majority of the people who live in the town are Shan. There are many different hill tribes in the area. All in all, the Thai government recognizes 6 or so hill tribes, though some of these designations are made of several tribes. These hill tribes have all been in Thailand for the past couple of hundred of years. They do not have the same rights as Thai citizens and they have a different ID card then the ethnic Thai's. One thing that sets them apart is the fact that they are not allowed to get jobs with the government. In the area of Mae Hong Son there are the Hmong, which are originally from Southern China but came to Thailand via Laos. There is also the Lahu and Lisu. Tribes such as the Padaung are not considered "hill tribes" because they arrived to Thailand just recently. Even if someone is say a Hmong, but they moved from Laos then they would not be considered one of the hill tribes either.

There are two markets in Mae Hong Son, the day market, which as far as we could tell was the most anti-touristy thing in Mae Hong Son...it seemed strictly for the locals (which made it all the more fun to roam around). There is also a night market, which is the extreme antithesis of the day market. Most of the vendors at the night market are hill tribe women dressed in their traditional garb and selling their hand made products. When we first arrived up north, I was very fond of looking at all of the nice "traditional" handicrafts. I was fond until I realized that EVERYONE makes the same handicrafts. It doesn't matter what hill tribe they are from, the products are so commercialized now that everyone just makes what the tourists will buy with the result that every product looks the same (well, the colors may be a little different). I know my mother wanted to come here to find some traditional Hmong designs that they no longer make in the United States. Of all the "hmong" wears that we saw, we only ran into a few that made what she was looking for. The night market was a nice place to people watch, however. We would order food from a stand near the monastery and sit on mat next to the lake and watch the people pass by. It was a wonderful setting with the golden monastery lit in soft lighting that reflected off of the lake.

Of all the tourists at the market, we were usually the only ones to sit back with a local dish on the outside tables. It seems like everyone is afraid of catching some communicable disease from the street vendors. It is such a shame too, because of all the places we've eaten in Thailand, I would say that the vendor food beat out the upscale restaurant food anyday. When we first arrived to Mae Hong Son, we tried a few of the restaurants "recommended" by Lonely Planet. It didn't take us long to realize that these restaurants were HORRIBLE! They took everything that was Thai out of their Thai cuisine, so all that was left was a terribly bland mess of meat and rice or noodles. Needless to say, we did NOT trust the LP after that. Basically, I decided that if the Lonely Planet recommended something in this region is was best to avoid it AT ALL COSTS.

In Mae Hong Son there is a little monastery on a hill. It is a quaint little place with a nice view of the valley below, and all that is the provincial town. There is also a monastery near the lake in the center of town. This monastery if famed for it's ancient paintings on glass of the life of the Buddha. When I heard of these paintings, I made note to see the monastery. The monastery was nice, there were a couple of buildings in the complex that were from different areas and the contrast made for an interesting site. The paintings were a dud. Too Bad.

Overall, I think that the town of Mae Hong Son is a nice little respite set among some gorgeous mountains. I wasn't a big fan of visiting the hill tribes, but they too were set in gorgeous locations and visiting these areas was definitely a learning experience.

Big Mountain, Large Animals

2007-02-16T19:47:00.000+07:00

January 22 - 25
We got into Pak Chong train station and were immediately surrounded by tour guides all wanting to whisk us away to their accommodation and tour package of Khao Yai National Park. We were planning on going "solo"(as usual) but mom was caught up in the action and I thought it would be a good way for her to see the park since she's not the hiking-all-day-in-the-sun type. So, we sattled up with Wildlife Safari Tours for a 1.5 day tour for 1500 Baht per person.

Day 1. The 1/2 day:
We went to the local mineral spring (not I did not say hot). The water was too cool for comfortable winter bathing.

Next was the Buddhist temple where our guide Tuk (a darling woman) taught us very enthusiastically about Buddhism. Then we went to the Buddhist cave where we saw some horseshoe bats and little meditation alters. The cave was very odd and was strung with fluorescent bulbs which lit it up in an eerie glow. There were also many shrines to Buddha in different chambers of the cave. Tuk informed us that sometimes the monks go down there to practice meditation.

Just before dusk we headed to the Bat Cave with Tuk. As we, along with a couple dozen other tourists, craned our necks to see the cave a small stream of wrinkle lipped bats started drifting out. Slowly and steadily the ribbon of bats became thicker and darker as the concentration of bats soared. It was incredible watching MILLIONS of bats flow out of the cave like a slow motion cyclone. We watched for a good half hour before our necks hurt and the sky began to darken.

Day 2: Wildlife Safari
We had requested the night before that we leave early on our tour in order to take advantage of prime bird-watching hours. Our guide was eager to please, though he seemed a little nervous since he's no bird expert. We assured him that we are also novice birders and we would be excited about seeing any birds. This seemed to please him and he began calling some of his birder guide friends who gave him a few pointers on where to find some of the birds Casey was eager to see. We made our first stop on the road outside of the park, where we found some brightly colored birds that for some reason, aren't in the park itself.

Once inside the park, we took are time driving along the road. Apparently this used to be a TERRIFIC way to see wildlife, but because the park has become so popular in recent years, the wildlife around the road has fled further inside. Even still, we managed to see an array of animals in between the cars that were flashing past us. Some of the animals included: pig-tailed macaques, which we ogled at first, but which were so abundant that they eventually were considered pests (especially after they stole some of our delicious oranges straight off of our lunch table), a muntjac (a small deerish creature with a cool name) and jungle fowl (picture a rooster in the wild).

After the slow driving, we began our slow hiking. From the road, we could hear the calls of the gibbons, which sounded as if they were just beyond the first stand of trees. Quickly and as quietly as possible we wormed our way off of the trail until we were standing directly under the gibbon-laden tree. It was breathtaking! Unlike the gibbons of Borneo, the White-Handed Gibbons live with their families in the tree tops. Parents and children swinging from branch to branch and calling to distant relatives together each morning. During this hike, we were be privileged to watch four separate groups of White-Handed Gibbons as well as partake in some excellent bird watching (which bored mom).

After going to the famed waterfall of the movie "The Beach" (there was a waterfall in "The Beach"?) we went to a small pond to watch birds and relax during the hottest part of the day. Aside from some cool looking birds, we also had an up close and personal look at a large male Sambar Deer. As we were milling about, he sauntered directly past mom and Casey. He got so close I began to have visions of a deer encounter gone awry and found myself wondering how far the nearest hospital was. The only thing on his mind, however, were the fruits from the low hanging branches of a nearby tree. We watched him heave himself off his two front legs as his head disappeared into the foliage above.

Then we went on a long drive in search of an elusive, monsterous beast: the Asian Elephant. These elephants are very closley related to the one we saw in Borneo, but they reach larger heights than their island cousins. We have seen them in Ayutthaya, but they were always dressed up for the tourists and not running free in their natural environs. We were all excited to see these large creatures and I was especially eager to share the experience with mum. Unfortunately, it was not our day. But we did run into (almost literally) quite a few pig tailed macaques who were playing in the road.

After our failed expedition, we climbed to the top of the highest peak in the park, with the help of our truck of course. We went there to hopefully catch a glimpse of the elusive Malayan Sun Bear we have been tracking since Borneo. The military who live on the mountain feed the bear, so we weren't sure it would count as a "wildlife" spotting, we were excited none-the-less. Apparently the bear's taste for rice wasn't piqued that evening, but as we waited we did get a wonderful view of a gorgeous male Silver pheasant with his harem of 7 females as they crossed the road. On the way home we spotted the threatened Malayan porcupine.

We had decided to spend some time in the park without the assistance of a guide. We rented out an entire cabin, complete with 3 rooms of 3 beds each and 3 bathrooms. This seemed a might ridiculous, since we could have easily divided the price up into thirds and only occupied 1 of the rooms, but things are never that simple. We picked the location so we were close to the park headquarters and a restaurant. We planned to walk or hitchhike to reach hiking destinations further afield. The room was cozy and it had a nice little porch that mom utilized in full as she waited for us to finish our forays.

That evening we hoped on one of the SIX nightdrive trucks in the hopes to see some amazing night life. We weren't expecting to be in a spotlighting caravan and I'm not sure it made for optimal wildlife viewing, but we took it all in stride. We did get an interesting running commentary from one of the other guests as we strained to look into the dark beyond. Though we were not blessed with gifts of grand elephant herds, we did see some small cat-like creatures (a civet?) and over course, Sambar Deer. Where were the tigers? There was obviously plenty of meat for them to catch. Alas, we learned that there are only 3 known tigers left in this national park.

Day 3: Big Whammy

We hitched a ride to the campsite to refine our birding skills. We also had a grand time chasing pig-tailed macaques away from the food that campers had stupidly left out the night before. Eventually, we made our way down a hiking trail, which bordered a small river. We went excrutiatingly slow for the couple behind us, who were looking for a little alone time. I swear we heard to purr of a tiger amoung all the chatter of the birds. We ran into a million hornbills, but none of them were of the "Great" variety we had hoped to see. As I was frantically searching for otters in the river, Casey came across a Siamese Crocodile about to heave itself up onto a log. No wonder there were no otters around! We snapped a thousand pics and watch the highly endangered animal sun itself.

As we began walking along the road, on the way back from our morning hike, we were greeted by a passing car with "Beware, elephant ahead." Beware? I thought as I quickened my pace to meet the giant face to face. I, obviously hadn't thought this completely through and though I was stoked, I was beginning to have my doubts about the brillance of meeting a 2 ton wild animal.

Just when we were beginning to discuss the pros and cons of trying to pet a wild elephant, a car pulled up with 3 Germans who were willing to give us a ride. Gladly we accepted the chance to cruise past the elephant in the relative safety of a car. Little did we know what kind of elephant we were about to face. This was no gentle mother. On the contrary, it was a large male, who was fond of fighting (as was evident by the missing tusk). He was creating a rukus in the middle of the road and had caused a traffic jam. But the German's weren't afraid and they reved ahead in their small compact car, with the elephant towering over us. To assist us in getting the perfect closeup, made the mistake of slowing the car down just as we past the creature. In retaliation, he made a mini charge at the back of the car. I will be honest here...this really freaked me out. I imagined the headlines "Death by Elephant" in a car no less. But, the driver craftly sped away before the elephant could do any damage.

The German's kindly allowed us to tag along as they drove south to the highest waterfalls in the park. I say waterfalls here, but the park service likes to think of them as one unit "one 3-tiered waterfall." This, of course, makes it seem like the waterfall is much taller than it actually is, since it really consists of 3 separate waterfalls, but we won't get into technicalities. Anyway, regardless of whether it was 3 waterfalls or one tiered waterfall was immaterial as it was one of the most impressive sites involving falling water that I have ever seen. In three large turns (each about 100-150 meters high), a great expanse of water rushed down the edge of a plateau.

As we played among the edge of the top tier, the driver told us an interesting story of a herd of elephants, which got washed away in the rush of the river during a flood. The elephants were thrown over the cliff onto the top of the 2nd tier. A rescus operation tried to save 2 of the elephants, but the waters were too strong and they soon were swept away to the lowest tier. It is unfathomable to me to imagine rushes of water strong enough to wipe out an entire elephant herd! (keep in mind, i'm a native Arizonan).

Day 4: More heart-ache
We woke up bright and early, not really bright since the sun hadn't risen yet. Our plan was to hike to a watchtower, where we would see dholes (wild dogs) running alongside the elephants and deer. From the last sentence you should know that our plan was flawed. For one thing, when have we ever seen so much wildlife all at once? Also, we were forgetting our luck. We misjudged the distance to the watchtower and arrived long after all of the animals had run back to the coolness of the forest (that is, if they were ever frolicking on the pastures).

Disheartened from a relatively animal-free morning, we hitched back to our cabin, where we packed up and hitched back into town. Then we caught the train to Ayutthaya where we waited for the train to Chiang Mai.

More Wats But A Bit Older This Time

2007-02-16T19:43:00.000+07:00

January 20 - 22

One of the things that Casey really wanted to do in Thailand was go to a famous National Park, Khao Yai, which is only a few hours northwest of Bangkok. The only problem with this was that when we finished our touring in Bangkok, it was the weekend and we had heard that it was not the best idea to visit the park on the weekend since hoards of locals also visit at this timing making it a bit overrun. Since the main purpose of visiting the park was to spot wildlife and birds and since lots of people do not make for the best wildlife spotting opportunities we figured that we would have to figure out how to spend a few days in the meantime.

So we decided on Ayutthaya which turned out to be an interesting and worthwhile short side trip. Today Ayutthaya is a modern city with the traffic, 7-11's and internet stations of other modern Thai cities but it is littered with the ruins of the past. Ayutthaya was the 'second' major kingdom in Thai history which ruled over a large swath of land starting around 1350. The Burmese came through in the 1767 and conquered the capital and also destroyed many of the temples, buildings and other structures. The ruins have been left as they were, some have been minimally restored and the most centrally located ones have been designated as an historical park. Other ruins have been built around and they are just left as part of the landscape. It is a bit odd to be walking down a busy street and catch a glimpse of an old ruin that it seems there has been little effort to restore or improve but also no attempt to tear down.

We arrived by train from Bangkok and got Ayutthaya in the later afternoon. After the traveling and a long morning, Laura's mom decided to rest but Casey was raring to go (as usual) see what the town was all about. The old town where most of the ruins are concentrated is actually separated from the new town (which is busier) by a river which actually was made into a moat like structure for protection of the city (although it did not work so well against the invading Burmese). While the old town is still fairly busy, most of the 'must-see' ruins are within easy walking or biking distance from anywhere else in this square grid inside the moat. We were at first just going to walk around before it got dark and then maybe rent a bike the following day to go farther afield. But as we walked down the street a bike rental shop was still open and we decided why not just rent it now so we could have it in the evening and also early in the morning. Bikes were also very cheap to rent as they are most places in Thailand ($1 or $2 a day) which is very nice and unlike the Philippines where they are $10 or more a day if they even have any. So we started pedaling and were soon struck with the amazing views of the huge structures of Wat Phra Mahathat and Wat Ratburana (more Cambodian style temple). These were extensive complexes within the park with many ruins which were quite beautiful in the late afternoon light. We decided to bike in the historical park a bit but it turned out this was not such a good idea since Casey's wheel soon got a flat due to the thorns (the wheels were very thin). Luckily the bike guy was still around and he had no problems changing bikes and he just asked us to stay on the road which we did in the future.

Thailand Eats

After exchanging the bike we decided to head back to the hotel, pick up Laura’s mother and head to the night market for dinner. Choosing what to eat in Thailand is always interesting. We usually like to eat at local and cheap places as they have not only the most authentic and cheapest food but also usually the best tasting. I know this may be counterintuitive as this is not always the way that it works in the States (cheap often does not mean good tasting) but from our experiences in SE Asia street food or food from small holes in the wall is often the best. However unlike the other places that we have been, most places in Thailand do not have menus and when they do they are in Thai lettering. This does make sense as we are in Thailand, but it makes hard for people that cannot discern the Thai alphabet. Now in Indonesia for instance, meals at food stalls are not in English either but they do use the Roman alphabet so at least you can read and pronounce the different dishes and soon you learn what each is and if you like it or not. In Thailand this is not the case so you have a few choices. The first one is just point to what someone else has nearby that looks edible and they will dish it out. This works well unless there is no one else eating. Option number two is look through a phrase book and randomly pick out a dish that sounds good and see if they will make it for you. Sometimes they will and sometimes they will not depending on ingredients and such. A third option is to ask some people who have been here for awhile what are some good dishes and have them write them down for you (preferably in Thai alphabet so that you can show them to your cook and Roman alphabet for you). This also works and we have tried all three and have gotten pretty decent food most of the time.

However it seems that some people fall into this last pattern but have only mastered the language of three dishes: som tom (a green papaya salad), tom yam (a hot and sour soup) and the most popular pad thai (fried noodles). While these three are wonderful dishes and I think some of the best, it seems that many farang do not venture out of this list at all. Hey if you want to live on pad thai three meals a day for a month in Thailand, be my guest but you are limiting your palette just a bit. And there is a lot on the Thai menu to offer but I know some people are not used to the spicy and other flavors so whatever floats your boat. Another thing we have found out is to avoid places which cater to tourists for Thai food (such as many of the ones in Lonely Planet) as every time we have been to a place like this the food has been pretty bad. It is not spicy even if you ask for it (I know not all Thai food is spicy but if it says spicy on the menu it should be spicy and not bland), it will certainly cost more and it just does not taste good in general. Sure they will have an English menu and maybe even have a wooden chair instead of plastic but if you are going for food quality I have found it often to be lacking. Now if you are looking for Western food, Lonely Planet does do a decent job there pointing you in the right direction. Hey they are after all Westerners writing it and many Westerners will search high and low for the best restaurant that has food like home.

Anyway (back to Ayutthaya eating at night market) we walked around the market a bit and looked at the food stalls and finally chose one. We were even handed an English menu. It seems that enough foreigners come through Ayutthaya that nearly every place has an English menu even the cheaper stalls and restaurants. During this meal we tried something that said it was a spicy curry soup and we decided to try it with frog. It was one of the spiciest dishes I have ever had and not bad and the frog was good except it was a bit bony. After dinner we had a mango and sticky rice desert and then walked to Wat Rataburana which is one of the four temple complexes that they light up at night. It was even more striking at night than during the day and we stood in awe at this ancient structure for a few minutes. Ayutthaya is still gorgeous today when in ruins but during its heyday (in the 1600’s and 1700’s) it is said that traders, diplomats and travelers from around the world who visited the city proclaimed that it was the illustrious city that they had ever seen.

A Morning of History

The next morning we rose early to get up before the extreme heat hit (in the flat plains of Ayutthaya this heat starts before 10 AM) and started off on our bikes passing a number of temple complexes on the way. Our main stop which we were privileged to be the first at was Wat Phra Si Sanphet which is right next to the old palace grounds. Three spires remain in this complex which is probably one of the most photographed areas of Ayutthaya (both at night and day) and I clicked away a few shots as well. It was nice to be the first people in the complex and have it to ourselves for 20 minutes before the tour buses started rolling in. Being in the presence of these ruins makes the history of the area come alive especially when there are not a hundred loud tourists clicking the cameras (not to say that I am not one of them; at least the camera clicking part sometimes). There were also a lot of birds in the complex and I caught my glimpse of a spectacular Indian Roller (a bird with flouresent blue wings) and also I believe I saw a Hoopee. Unfortunately I did not bring the binos as I had not expected this to be a birding adventure. From now on I will bring them everywhere I go in Thailand as there really are birds everywhere.

Following this complex we headed to Wat Mahathat and went inside (unlike the previous afternoon) which also was very nice. The most interesting thing in this place is the head of a Buddha statue which fell off but got entangled in the roots of a nearby fig tree. This is probably the second most photographed image of Ayutthaya and we also clicked away here. After this one we biked out of the old city and went to a newer temple complex (built during the end of the Ayutthaya kingdom reign I believe or possibly even after the city fell to the Burmese: I cannot remember). This place was Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon which certainly is in better condition as it was not destroyed during the Burmese attack. It has a beautiful courtyard with many Buddha images and a large reclining Buddha. Since it was getting later in the morning and many people had arrived from Bangkok or on other guided tours, this place was quite a bit busier than the other two. This was our last wat of Ayutthaya and they had provided an interesting window into the past but it is still hard to imagine what this city and kingdom must have been like.

In the afternoon we decided to go to an arts center that has been set up by the Queen to provide local people with training and employment in art and handicraft production. We had high expectations for this place but it ended up letting us down a little bit. The handicraft village where we expected some unique things and demonstrations of people making things turned out to be all the same products sold everywhere else in Thailand without much uniqueness in tiny air conditioned stores which was not all that interesting. There were however some neat buildings where people were being trained or working on a variety of different mediums of artwork (glass, sculpture, batik, woodworking, etc…). This was probably the best section of the center. There was also a large store where they sold many goods (again mainly stuff you can find other places) but there was also a gallery upstairs that had some interesting things.

All in all Ayutthaya was an interesting detour which is a good way to get a more concrete picture of Thai history. Unfortunately we did not make it to either of the two museums because they were closed on Monday and we ran out of time on Sunday. Perhaps we will come back here again at a later time to check them out as we have heard they are quite good. We were a bit watted out by now and were raring for some time in the woods and could hear Khao Yai NP calling so we packed up and headed onward west by train the next morning.

The City of Wats

2007-02-12T11:53:00.000+07:00

January 16 - 20

After 3 long days on a train (actually many different trains), we finally arrived in Bangkok, our second big city in a row after quite a long time in small towns and the jungle. The first thing that struck us was that Bangkok was certainly not as clean, sterlie and modern as Singapore (not a big surprise). We also quickly noticed that Bangkok is certainly a travel hub and prime destination for the whole of SE Asia and as such it is certainly crawling with tourists. This is understandable since Thailand has done an excellent job at marketing tourism and it seems that there is something for everyone in this country. From the ancient ruins to the all encompassing Buddhist tradtions, from the beautiful scenery and national parks to the hedonistic beaches, from the smiling, friendly people to the world renowned food: it is many different types of travellers' dreams come true. We were excited about the new country and the many things that it has to offer but were a bit unsure of how the overload of tourism factor would figure in for us. But we were intrigued by the new aspects of travel that Thailand would bring (i.e. Buddhist temples and culture and being off of an island for the first time in a long time). We would also be travelling with Laura's mom during our adventures in Thailand which would certainly change the way we travelled a bit. No more squat toilets, concrete floor beds, cold showers and long treks in the jungle.

The Transformation
Our first day in Bangkok it was still just the two of us however, as Laura's mom would not arrive until midnight. We had some errands to run and wanted to pick up some books. We had heard that there were lots of cheap used books along Khao San Rd, the main backpacker hangout in Bangkok . So we decided to head that way, knowing fukll well that it probably be like a circus for us. We had a chance to gawk at all the white people wearing skimpy clothes and doing funny foreigner things that we had not seen in quite awhile. It was the first time that we had seen so many foreigner in one place in quite awhile and it was a bit of a shock to the system. Probably the most interesting thing was the number of people getting dreadlocks along the street. This is such a thriving market in this area and tons of people are running around with dreads and for the life of us we cannot understand whta the deal is. It's not like dreadlocks are fashionable for Thais. Why do people come to Thaliand and decide, you know what, I really want some dreads. It is obviously not to fit in with Thais but maybe instead it is to fit in with all the other people with dreads. I thought dreads were supposed to be a mark of rebellion to society's norms but here it seems like nothing more than a trendy fashion statement. Laura has developed the hypothesis that most people come here looking normal but upon arriving they get their hair dreaded, buy 'hippie' clothes and decide not to wash themselves anymore which then gives them the label as a dirty farang. Why does this transformation seem to happen to so many people in Thailand? We really have no freaking clue but if someone could enlighten us that would be great.

The Land of Tourists

Laura's mother arrived safely to Thailand and the next morning we arose to start our touring of Bangkok. We decided to start in Chinatown and what better way to start a morning than with a little tour of a temple. Bangkok certainly does have enough of them (over 400) and the day before we had gone to our first (Wat Rajanadda) which was built in the mid 19th century and after climbing up four flight of stairs offered a nice view over the city. Our wat of choice for this morning however was Wat Traimit, temple dating from the 13th century which houses a 10 foot tall, 5 1/2 ton solid gold Buddha image. This golden Buddha was actually 'rediscovered' only about 40 years ago when it fell from a crane and the plaster exterior cracked off. the plaster had most likely been used to hide the gold from invading Burmese hundreds of years ago. It is crazy to think that such a large solid gold structure was forgotten about for so long but today many people come to pay reverence or take pictures of this gleaming image.

After our visit to the wat, we started on a little walk through Chinatown. We had heard somewhere that the Chinatown in Bangkok was one of the largest (outside of China of course) and while walking around it certainly appeared that way. The streets were hectic and crowded and the market was just pandemonium. Tons of shops were selling shark fins and bird's nests and in the market there was everything imaginable and more (sea cucumbers and huge fish from the rivers, dried fruit and roots and of course the odd assortments of Chinese medicines, teapots and tea, etc...)

We continued to wander for a few hours but part of the reason for coming to Chinatown area was to check out Phahurat, which is sort of like a Little India inside Chinatown. It is a place where many textiles are sold and since Laura's mother is very interested in this we decided to head over here. Casey also wanted some Indian food so it was a win-win scenario. So we spent a few hours walking around here purusing the rows and rows of fabric stalls and Laura's mother was in heaven with the wide selection of exotic and inexpensive cloths. After quite a long morning of walking we headed to a restaurant for some good Indian eats and then back to the hotel for a nap.

Casey decided to walk around the city a bit in the evening and got some great views of the palace and surrounding temples which are lit up at night. Unfortunately all the gates are closed but you can peak over a bit here and there. There was also a nice park near the palace where they put on free cultural shows and there was a dance presentation as well as a play, Ramayana which is a Hinddu influences story but still very important in Thai Buddhist culture. It was very interesting to watch with fantastic costumes and music.

Our next day would be a day of wats. Now I have seen pictures of the Grand Palace grounds and Wat Pho and have been told a number of times to go but sometimes things that are hyped up so much do not always meet expectations. This was not one of those times as this section of Bangkok is absolutely amazing and just makes want to sit and gawk a bit. Yes it is a bit extravagant and yes there are more touriststhan probably anywhere else that I have ever been but it still does not spoil it. Luckily we got to the palace early in the morning just as the gates opened before too many tour buses had arrived and before the sun was too high in the sky. As we walked through the gates we were approached by a tour guide and we decided to take her up on her offer to show us around Wat Phra Kew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and the Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace grounds and the associated Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most revered Buddha image and the number one pilgramage destination for Thai Buddhists, were constructed over a 3 year period starting in 1762. The construction was ordered by King Rama I, the first in the line of kings of the current dynasty. He has decided to make Bangkok the new capital of Siam, moving it from Thornburi, which lies across the Chao Phraya River. Thornburi had only lasted for a short time (less than 50 years) as the capital and before this Ayutthaya (about 40 miles upriver of Bangkok) was the capital of the major kingdom in the area which had lasted for more than 400 years (but fell to the Burmese in the early 1700's). When the king ordered the construction of the Grand Palace and the other buildings in the area, he certainly went all out and the area is still a remarkable sight today.

Our tour guide was very good and also very funny. She led us through the gates and one of the first things we noticed were the gigantic guards who permanently watch over the temple and palace grounds. Even though they are big and scary looking, they do not always do a great job at keeping the vandals from taking small pieces of the temple grounds home for themselves. This seemed to be a pet peave for our guide and she continually pointed out small pieces of statues, monuments and temples that were missing as a result of greedy and disrespectful visitors. One of the most prominent sights in the grounds were three beautiful pagodas done in three different styles: Sri Lankan, Burmese and Cambodian. The Emerald Buddha resides within this compound and is actually not emerald but jade has quite a long history and has moved around the region quite a bit. The Buddha image is also not as big as one might expect (only about 3 feet tall) but is raised up on a high goldan pedastal and it has 3 special outfits for each of the three seasons of Thailand which the King himself changes in a special ceremony. The palace itself is no longer used by the King and the grounds are used only for special occasions, but the beauty of the place and the importance that it holds for the Thai people was interesting to see and learn about.

Our next stop was Wat Pho which is right next store to the Grand Palace and inside these grounds there is the huge golden reclining Buddha image that is also a famous sight in Bangkok. We again took up the services of a tour guide who also proved to be informative and a novice and later a monk at Wat Pho before his time as a tour guide. The reclining Buddha is pretty impressive and the other structures in the compound are also pretty amazing especially the many pagodas with ornate porcelain decoration. This temple is guarded by a different group of statues which were brought over in ships from China and there is even one of Marco Polo. Inside the compound also lies a school for Thai massage and of course many Buddha images (even more than other temples though as it seems that this is a collection point for them and there are rows and rows of Buddha statues wherever you look).

After this we were a bit 'watted out' but decided to go for one more since we were in the area. Next on the list was Wat Arun or Temple of the Dawn which lies across the river from the palace and Wat Pho. Wat Arun has the tallest prang or tower in Bangkok at a height of 82 meters which makes it an impressive sight in the day or lit up at night. This tower is actually intracately decorated with tons of Chinese porcelain that was used as weight for the ballasts of ships in the past. Even though we were at the wat limit for the day it was still a very interesting one and the porcelain decoration was really quite amazing.

The next day we met up with Casey's old friend, Rob, who has been teaching English in Thailand for about two years now. It was interesting to get his perspective on Thailand as an outsider who has lived here for quite a while. We had time to catch up and also compare our experiences living in SE Asia which were similar in many ways and different in others. Rob seems to enjoy living in Thailand a lot and it seems like it has done him well. We visited the Teak Mansion in the afternoon where there were some interesting textile and handicraft exhibits. The mansion was built by Rama V and was obviously very influenced by Western design which we were not exactly expecting.

In the evening we headed to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner as it was Laura's birthday the follwing day. We had not had a decent Italian meal in quite awhile so we decided to see if Bangkok would fulfill her wishes and it ended up working splendidly. It really was a good meal and was followed up by some good ice cream at Swenson's (which are everywhere in Bangkok). This was one of our first Western meals in quite awhile and luckily we had done a good job at choosing a good place.

Chugga-Chugga-Chugga-Chugga Choo, CHOO!!

2007-02-12T11:52:00.000+07:00

January 10 - 14

The "Jungle" Train
Our plan after Singapore was a 3 day train ride through Penninsular Malaysia and Southern Thailand to reach Bangkok. Laura had heard that there is a route that starts in Singapore and goes through the "jungles" of western Pen. Malaysia and we were both excited to ride the rails and be stunned by the spectacular scenery.

It had been raining in Penninsular Malaysia for quite a few days before we were set to leave. The morning of our departure we phoned the train station to make sure that the schedule was correct. We were stunned by the information we were given. All trains heading out of Singapore were cancelled due to vast flooding in Malaysia. Since we were going to be meeting Laura's mother in 3 days, this news was a little disheartening, especially because of the situation it caused the locals. Many people lost their homes and their lives in these floods. We thought/hoped it would be ok to stay with Per for a few more days and decided to fly the same day Laura's mother arrived. We left a note because the phones were acting up and went out sight seeing for the day.

At around 5pm, Per gets a hold of us and explains that we are unable to stay at his place because a friend of his will be visiting and needs the room. Shoot! We really don't want to stay in Singapore if we have to pay for an overpriced budget hotel room but we can't take the train! Frantically, we search for a cab to bring us back to Per's apartment. Once inside a cab, the friendly cabbie begins chit-chatting with us and so we tell him our failed plans. But we're mis-informed, he told us. The trains are up and running, he just heard it on the radio. Hoorah! We call the railway station to confirm and rush over to Per's to pack and hurry back to the station just in time to catch the train.

Originally, we had planned to take the day train, in order to take in Malaysia. We were unable to do this, but it was probably for the better as all we would have seen was the horrible damage done by the floods. We arrived at Gemas late in the evening and had to wake the hotel owner up to give us our room.

The next day, was supposed to be THE scenery day. We awoke bright and early to catch the slow 3rd class train, which is really the only option for daytime travel along the line. We excitedly jumped aboard to find the perfect window seats for our viewing pleasure. When the train pulled out our eyes were glued to the window in anticipation for the incredible scenes to come. Three or four hours later we were beginning to wonder if the passengers who had dubbed this line the "jungle" line had ever really seen a jungle. We passed many trees, but most of them composed massive rubber plantations. We saw palm oil plantations, but no jungle!

Nearing the end of daylight and just when the lulling of the train was putting us both to sleep, up from the land rose tall limestone mountains harboring majestic cliffs. We were in awe. At two different stops we watched monkeys playing in the trees behind the train station. It was well worth the monotonous rubber trees and barren fields.

We disembarked at the small town of Dabong. Not far from Dabong is a very large waterfall gushing down the bare limestone rock. It is so large and placed so high on the mountains that it can be seen from the train and from the road in the middle of town. It was a peaceful little village, far from the usual tourist path. We stayed in the only guesthouse in town.

The next morning we got up excessively early to catch the train. We hadn't anticipated this, but we chose to embark on this journey right in the middle of a massive timetable restructuring. When we arrived at the little train station there were a few people sleeping on the benches but otherwise no activity to suggest that a train would be stopping anytime soon. Not even the ticket booth was open. After about an hour, an employee showed up and although we had some miscommunication problems it was finally discovered that there were some issues in the implementation of the new schedule and the first few train would not be arriving. We waited about 3 hours for the first train. This train was nicer and we ended up in a freezing compartment. The scenery was nice but nothing like what we witnessed the day before, all a bit anticlimatic.

After the train, we rode a bus to the border and then hopped across the bridge to Sungai Kolok, Thailand. There we were interrogated by the immigration who finally stamped our 60 day visa and sent us on our way.

Suddenly finding oneself in a new country is always a bit nerve racking at first - especially when the new country speaks an entirely new language and write using a completely different script (ie Thailand). Jumping across the border, we landed in an entirely new world...or so we thought at first. Everything was written in the Thai script and therefore we assumed that everyone would be speaking Thai. But we should have realized from the name of the town, which is Bahasa Melayu, that this would not be the case. Almost everyone we ran into was muslim and after attempting some Bahasa it was clear that they understood. It was your typical mix-match border town!

We had a little scare when someone tried to get us to take the horribly long bus ride to Bangkok by telling us that the trains weren't running because a bomb exploded somewhere. Good thing we decided to check things out for ourselves cuz that turned out to be a load of crap. It took us an EXTREMELY long time deciding what class ticket we should get for the train. Laura had her hopes set on a sleeper car. She had visions of her sleeping in peace on an actual bed. But, we hadn't anticipated the costs of the sleepers and Casey was feeling that double the price might not be worth it, though he doesn't understand the rough sleepless nights spent in a small semi-reclining chair on crowded overnight transportation because he sleeps soundly through anything. In the end, we decided on the second class fan with reclining seats. This was actually not a bad option. We took the later train and thus didn't see much except the low rice paddies of Southern Thailand. It had been a while since we'd seen so much rice and it reminded us both of so many of our travels in the Philippines.

Welcome to the Concrete Jungle

2007-02-11T22:06:00.001+07:00

When I read about the city-state of Singapore my mouth began to water. It seemed to contain everything I'd been missing for the past 3 years: concerts, museums, good food and a functioning infrastructure. I expected to be wined, dined and cultured and I was willing to splurge a little in order to do so.

When we arrived, we called up Per, an expat Swede working in Singapore whom we had briefly met in Danum Valley and who so graciously offered his spare room. Thankfully the room was still available and so we set up house in a nice centrally located modern apartment. Per's generosity will not be forgotten as it allowed us to venture around the expensive city without completely blowing our budget. Naturally, we had expected spending more than in Malaysia, but we hadn't anticipated the degree.

Walking around the city here are some things we noticed:

1. Cleanliness: guess people really don't vandalize when the punishment is caning.

2. Efficiency: What happens when the general public learns to queue up.

3. White People: Everywhere! But not all retired men, which was SO refreshing. (pardon the politically in-correctness).

4. Fast-paced Lifestyle: Everyone's in much too much of a hurry. Running to catch the train that arrives in 10 minutes will not make it arrive any quicker.

5. Anonymity: Eyes avert when trying to make friendly how-you-do eye contact to strangers on the street. Since there are so many white people and everyone's so busy, no one cares about the people around them.

6. Fashion, Fashion, Fashion: Dressed to the nines to eat at hawker stalls, honestly, why put up the effort?

7. Upgrading: The city seems to be in a constant state of construction, or "upgrading" as they like to call it. The Singapore motto (in my eyes): If it's not bright, shiny, trendy ad new then get rid of it!

8. Shopping, Shopping: Singapore's motto #2: "Shop til you drop" or "Always keep within eyesight of a mall".

9. Fresh Air: People comply with auto emissions regulations when the punishment is caning.

10. Diversity: Malay, Chinese, Indian and English are all widely spoken and all written on signboards and money.

Reality Check
For the most part, our transition back into modern city life went smoothly, though there were a few hitches along the way:

Eating Western Style
Our host invited us out to dinner with some of his expat friends and their friends. We went to one of the most upscale restaurants I've been in for a very long time. Like many upscale restaurants, the table was set Western Style.

Looking at the place settings I began to think "Ok, a knife, I remember that. How can I avoid using it? Don't order meat, right." Eggplant and veggie kabobs for me, thanks. Then the meal arrives and it's accompanied by...dun, dun, dun...RICE (high pitched scream!). It's a high end Persian restaurant so this isn't Asian rice and the grains are as separate as grains of sand. Everyone pics up their knives and forks and they dig in. Everyone except me. How can they expect me to eat rice with a fork, grain by grain? I assume my usual spoon and fork stance and hope no one realizes how uncouth I am. I'm relieved with KC follows suit after much fork frustration. I realize there's no going back to the knife method. Can I get away with this forever?

To reinforce this thought: We were eating at a delicious local Indian eatery where the meals are served on banana leaves and you're expected to eat with your hands. After finishing our meal a few of the locals some up to compliment KC on his hand to mouth technique. If it works, why dirty the silver?

Keeping Clean
It really should not take 1/2 hour for 2 college graduates to figure out how to operate a washing machine. In our defence, it was covered in funny pictures instead of instructions.

Pushing Buttons
Likewise, it shouldn't take 20 minutes for 2 college grads to operate a TV and DVD player properly...but it did. That's what happens when you're out of practice and the newest models look nothing like the 3 year old editions we had when we were at home.

The Garden City
There is so much to do in Singapore just the thought of trying to plan a day out makes one's head spin. We were here for 5 mights and still didn't get to see all we wanted to. However, we were pleased with what we did see:

Caged Animals: The reputation for the Singapore Zoo is incredible. It's sister zoo, the Night Safari is all the rage among tourists. In light of all of this, we decided to put aside our mixed feelings regarding zoos and spend the day among the animals, especially after discussing the zoos with a tourism officer who mentioned that the idea is to keep cages at a minimum and use psychological barriers to keep the animals int heir places. Apparently, psychological barriers include electrified wires. Actually, these were minimal though it did seem to me that the psychology was geared towards disguising the barriers to make the patrons of the zoo believe the animals weren't caged.

Despite all of this, we were amazed at how close many of the animals are allowed to get and at the number of species which weren't caged at all (mostly monkeys and birds). I was impressed by the zoo's conservation efforts - they support a number of projects mainly throughout SE Asia. Equally impressive is the zeal with which they denounce the exotic pet trade as well as the use of animals as "traditional" medicine. This is especially important in Singapore and Malaysia where many of the specimens for these medicines originate and where at least 1/3 of the population is of Chinese decent, who are most of the middlemen and consumers of these products. Tiger bones are one such popular medicine and in the white tiger exhibit there was a TV only in Chinese about stopping the illegal tiger trade.

I also applaud the zoo for their use of alternative medicines to treat their vet patients - herbs are used to treat irregularity and a number of the animals receive acupuncture to relieve various maladies.

Although we enjoyed the zoo, The Night Safari, on the other hand, we weren't so impressed with. The premise of this park is to see large nocturnal animals in action. Each exhibit is lit with soft lighting that 's supposed to resemble the moon, though i doubt it changes with the phases. Because of it's popularity, this park is more expensive than the zoo. Ti makes no real attempt to educate the public on the animals or conservation. most of the animals on display can also be found at the zoo where they are seen in action during normal daylight hours. For example: the giraffe is shown at both where they can be seen doing giraffe-y things because they only need 1/2hr-4hrs of sleep/day. The highlight of the nocturnal park was the flying squirrel exhibit which is a large aviary where the squirrels fly overhead at close range. The greatest problem I had with the park was with the treatment of the animals by the public Everywhere we looked, there were signs saying not to use flash photography but you know people, if they want a pic of the jaguar feeding they will ignore what they're told. But the flashes are particularly disturbing at night when they blind their subjects.

As I watched people disturbing the animals I was reminded of an episode of the Twilight Zone where a human is abducted by aliens then placed in a facade house where doors don't open and appliances don't function. At the end of the episode the abductee discovers to his horror that there are aliens ogling at him because he is the newest edition to their zoo. If you were a caged specimen, how would you like blinding flashes and annoying finger taps on your window panes?

Civilized Learning
We spend a day wandering around 2 wonderful museums. The Singapore Art Museum has a grand collections of mostly contemporary Singaporean and SE Asian Art work. In some galleries there are even explanations by the artists. Definitely worth a visit and refreshing to see such good artwork coming from a region which is not known for encouraging artistic creativity. The Asian Civilizations Museum is a HUGE museum with extremely detailed information on about 5 different regions of Asia. In three hours we barely finished half of the large gallery on SE Asia. There we learned about everything from the arrival of Buddhism to the origins of rice cultivation. By far one of the best museums I've EVER been to!

Little India
This district is extremely popular with local and foreign tourists as evident by the large number of cute tourist shops selling Indian imports. Because of this, many of the Indian restaurants are pricey, but we discovered a way to get the best food at the best price - flout the foreign filled joints and eat where the local community flocks. We stuffed our faces with delectable Indian breads and veggie dishes all served on a banana leaf and eaten with the right hand. After serving the bread, the waiter comes around with 3 buckets, each filled with its own richly spiced dipping sauce. They ladle a healthy portion onto the banana leaf where the sauces are soaked up by the bread. Anytime you wish, you may ask for more of these dips which you lap up with chunks of bread until you're stuffed to the gills. This experience solidified one thought in both our minds: we MUST make it to India.

Chinatown
Similar concept to Little India at the location of the historical Chinese village, though almost anywhere in Singapore could be considered Chinatown as most of the stores rout Chinese names and wares and by far the most popular hawker stands sell Chinese noodle dishes. What makes Chinatown unique are the many historic building that somehow survived the mass upgrading of Singapore. Most of these are reminiscent of the English colonialist influence. Of course we walked through apothecary stores selling everything the Singapore Zoo was preaching against - there were velvet coated antlers (can't get those by waiting for the deer to shed it's antlers), dried sea cucumbers, shark fins and seahorses plus dried swift spit which is used to make the famous bird's nest soup.

While in Chinatown we stopped off at a small tea cafe called the Tea Chapter. here they serve Chinese tea in the traditional style and if you are an inexperienced tea drinker they plain the difference between the teas as well as teach you how to make a proper cup. We learned the 3 most important factors for making a delicious brew are: the amount of tea leaves used, the temperature of the water (never boiling) and the duration of infusion. We also learned how to appreciate the fragrance of our tea before we appreciate its taste. T he Chinese are so fond of the aroma they've created a special cup specifically designed to concentrate the tea vapor so the drinker may sniff the aroma before transferring the tea into the drinking cup. It was a pleasant and relaxing respite from the bustling city and we sipped tea until our bladders were full.

A Brief and Incomplete History of Singapore
The island of Singapore is located across a small channel at the Southern tip of the Peninsular Malaysia and lays just north of the Indonesian island of Sumatera. At one time it was thick with jungle and was home to many magnificent creatures including the Malay tiger.

The name Singpura is said to have been given to the island be the first king because upon docking at its shores he saw a large animal, resembling a lion, run into the thick brush. Now this of course was impossible to see since lions are only in Africa but the name, meaning "Lion City" stuck.

During the prime of European colonization of SE Asia (or the East Indies and Indochina as much of it was referred to) Singapore was ruled by the British. To encourage growth of the British trading companies, the government encouraged immigration from their nearby colony of India as well as from China. A large number of both ethnic groups came to Singapore where most engaged in blue color jobs such as porters, coolies and rickshaws drivers. Today, like much of Malaysia and the Philippines, many of the shops are owned by the Chinese. I noticed that most of the laborers (ie construction workers) are of Indian decent. One can easily find newspapers and magazines in these 2 languages alongside Malays and English language products. The government even writes in all four on signboards and money.

Singapura was originally grouped under Malaysia when it was randomly formed 50 years ago but this made many Singaporeans unhappy and the island was eventually kicked out of the state of Malay. The now free Singaporean government rules with an iron fist and it's ever presence has lead itself to the nickname of the Nanny state (Big Mama is always watching). Many tourists we've met actually applaud this government as a viable means toward development and low crime rates. Someone even mentioned how their home country should adopt the punishment system in order to deter would-be criminals in order to make their country a safer place for women walking solo at night. Though I'm not sure how the crackdown would fly among those who value their freedom form state induced physical violence and death.

Nice People Abound (Kuching)

2007-02-11T22:04:00.000+07:00

January 1 and 5 - 8
Our New Year's Eve was spent on a bus from Brunei to Kuching. Not really a way to bring it in with a bang but neither of us have many memorable New Years experiences anyways. So, we arrived early New Year's Day in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak (the western province of Malaysian Borneo). While trying to find a place to stay we met a Canadian traveler, Marty. He was an experienced backpacker who traveled 3 months every year when he took time off from work as high end remodeling contractor. He has traveled throughout Latin America and SE Asia for the past 15 years. He became our companion for a few sights in Kuching and our next destination at Bako. Marty was a great source of information for our further travels and also a welcomed 3rd wheel for a few days after spending so much time only the two of us.

Bringing in the New Year
A few days earlier, Marty had met a nice Indonesian architect, Herman, who was living in Kuching and when we arrived Herman was planning to take Marty to the nearby Sarawak Cultural Village and was kind enough to ask if we wanted to join. We decided to tag along for the free ride and extra company. The cultural village is a park where the houses, crafts and traditional lifestyles of the many ethnic groups of Sarawak are displayed. It is sort of a living museum where people belonging to all of the different ethnic groups including Malay, Chinese, Orang Ulu, Penan, Iban and others are employed to teach the visitors a bit about their traditions and culture. It appears that Sarawak as a province has made it a point to foster the arts, crafts and culture of the indigenous people much more than we saw in Sabah or Indonesia. While the park was touristy, it did provide some good background information about the people of the region and did not seem to be exploitative of the people. There was also a well done and enjoyable cultural show which displayed some of the dances of the different groups of people showcased in the village.

After walking around the park for the afternoon, we were treated to dinner by Herman and he provided us with some interesting conversation and ideas. He was raised in Europe by a Indonesian diplomat family and moved back to Indonesia in his twenties. He lived in Jakarta for a number of years but became frustrated with the Indonesian officials who were not interested in a sustainable vision of peace for the future of the country. Herman told us of his dreams of a peaceful world and the work that he has been trying to do in Indonesia and now Malaysia to promote peace through architecture. He moved to Malaysia about 10 years ago and now works for the Kuching government where he feels that some of his ideas are more accepted as compared with Indonesia. It was very interesting hearing his viewpoints and especially his background from both the West and the East. I think that he is doing a good thing and doing his best to promote his dreams of peace in his corner of the world. It was also refreshing hearing some of our thoughts regarding the East being vocalized by an Easterner.

Upon returning from Bako (see previous entry), we met up with some other American expats who are living in Ecuador. They own a fruit farm and run an internet seed selling business and were on a seed gathering expedition in Borneo. They had gone out to the market to find new species of tropical fruit for the their farm. They returned with many varieties of durian, rambutan, lansats (lanzones) and other assorted fruit that we had never seen before and whose names now escape me. They asked for help eating the fruit since they only wanted the seeds for transport and we happily obliged. It was a nice fruit tasting adventure and our snack was topped of by a nice Indian dinner at a local restaurant.

An Interesting History
Sarawak like the rest of Borneo was at one time inhabited and ruled by many different indigenous people, many of which were infamous head hunters. The largest native group in Sarawak is the Iban who live downriver and are known for their extensive longhouses and Pua Kumba textiles. The Orang Ulu (literally 'upriver people') include many groups such as the Kenyah and Kayan (the same tribes as in Long Jelet in Indonesia) and are known for their intricate beadwork costumes and sape music. There are also the Penan who are short nomadic people famous for the poison blow darts that they use for hunting. Unlike the Amazonians, the poison for these darts is made from the sap of a tree. We were told that it won't hurt you to touch it unless it gets under your skin (through a scratch or the like). The Melaniau who live near the coast are known for sago processing and dolls (somewhat like voodoo) used for healing purposes.

Starting early in the last millennium, island of Borneo was influenced by Chinese, Arabic and later European traders. Eventually Malays immigrated to Borneo and at one point Kuching and the rest of Sarawak was under the control of the Brunei sultan. In the 1800's, when the Sultan of Brunei appointed an unpopular governor, the people of Kuching revolted. In order to quell the revolt a British trader, James Brooke, came to the aid of the sultan and was appointed as the Rajah (king) of Sarawak. The Rajah soon became powerful and started claiming more territory for Sarawak from Brunei and increasing European influence in the area. A well organized governmental system was established and Kuching became an important international trading center. Chinese immigrants were lured to the area by Brooke and helped to establish many of the businesses which continue to prosper today. Today the Chinese influence in Sarawak is quite strong and their population is the highest of any ethnic group in the area (about 30%). Two more white Rajahs followed James Brooke, continuing the British influence in the area. Sarawak was later turned over to England as a colony and in the 1950's it joined Sabah and Malaya to form the country of Malaysia. Sarawak and Sabah are quite different from neighboring peninsular Malaysia in a number of areas however. Probably most evident is the difference in population dynamics with Malays holding a minority (only about 25% in Sarawak for instance) and large Chinese and indigenous populations which continues to shape the lifestyle and going-ons of the region.

An Interesting City
Kuching (or cat city) is a nice, clean and ethnically diverse city of about 500,000 with a good, free museum system, a nice riverfront and many natural attractions in the surrounding area. As to why it is called cat city we are not exactly sure but they do have a cat museum with everything about cats you could ever want to know and more (we did not have time to visit unfortunately). We tried to make the most of our short stay and found the city to be a great place. We visited a textile and an art museum that were both well done and each contained many products from the different ethnic groups of the region. The ethnology museum had an extensive collection of carvings, handicrafts and other artifacts from indigenous tribes. We also visited the weekend market, which spread over several blocks and got some great deals on delicious fruit.

Our final day in Kuching was spent with an American biologist and wildlife photographer who has been living in Kuching for the past 11 years, Chi'en, and his girlfriend Madeline, a Kulua Lampur resident who works with women's issues. We met Chi'en and Madeline in the beginning of our trip in Sulawesi and looked them up in Kuching. They took us out for some rock climbing and another friend of theirs, Kate, a British marine biologist, took us caving at Fairy Cave about an hour outside of Kuching. Casey had never been climbing before and Laura only a few times but Chi'en urged us to try and was very patient in showing us how. We both had a bit of a go and while it took us quite a while to get up, Laura made it to the top of one route and Casey most of the way. It was fun and although we were both sore afterwards and had cut up hands, maybe it is something we will try again back in the States. Perhaps we need to work a bit more in the gym first though. After the climb Kate took us through an adventurous cave where we got wet and muddy. She brought her dog along which made for an interesting experience as we had to hoist it over a few walls using a rope but the cave was gorgeous and a nice way to end our adventurous afternoon. One of the most exciting parts of the cave was the "birth canal" where we had to squeeze through a small opening sideways with our hands over our heads like we were being reborn. In the evening we were treated to a great seafood dinner with Chi'en, Madeline and Kate which was nice to talk with some people who were living and working in Borneo. By the end of our time in Kuching and our last night in Borneo we both agreed that the area had been a great place to spend the first week of the New Year and that Borneo had been an amazing island and everything that we could have hoped for and more.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2007-02-11T21:06:00.000+07:00

Jan 2 - Jan 5

So we decided to travel during the rainy season. We did not really do that on purpose. It just worked out that way. We were a bit worried about this before setting off but for the most part there had been few issues to date. In Sulawesi it had been dry and even in Borneo there had been relatively little rain and what rain there was only minimally interfered with our travel. It had actually worked out for the best in Borneo since just a few months earlier (October) during the dry season there had been some of the worst fires in years (as a result of slash and burn farming) covering the region in nasty smoke and haze. Well when we hit Sarawak (the western province of Malaysian Borneo), our luck with the rain wore out. They saw that when it rains it pours, and our trip to Bako National Park about an hour outside the capital city of Kuching was filled with wetness to say the least.

Bako National Park is one of the oldest national parks in Sarawak and also one the most well known. It is on a rocky headland and seven different ecosystems are found with the relatively small park. Bako is also known as a great place to spot birds and other wildlife including the endemic and endangered proboscis monkey. It was the only park that we visited in Malaysia but we were highly impressed by the great trails, the breath-taking scenery and the abundant and highly visible wildlife. Even with the rainy weather, it was certainly a highlight for me.

The only way to enter the park is by boat from the nearby town. On the day we arrived the waves were a bit big and we rode in a very small speedboat. The first part of the ride along the river was fine but as we neared the sea, the waves got larger and our driver angled the boat to be parallel to them (something that seemed a bit counter intuitive to me and the best way to roll the boat). He accelerated and decelerated as necessary and expertly handled the boat in the rough seas. It was quite exhilarating as we pitched and rolled over the little monsters of the sea and although a few times it looked as if we might flip, we came out unscathed and surprisingly dry.

Other than the rough seas, the weather when we arrived at the park was gorgeous. We got there around noon and figured that there were would not be much wildlife out in the heat of the day so we decided to take a nap. Sadly when we awoke it was gray and rainy outside (this nasty weather would be the same for the remainder of our stay). But we decided to try our luck anyway and started on a little stroll and eventually the weather did clear up a bit. We caught our first glimpse of some proboscis monkeys only about 50 meters from our hostel and we watched for awhile as they played in the treetops. We continued on the boardwalk trail and we were awed by the wet lowland forest which was unlike any that we had seen before. Palms and pandans dominated the vegetation with other taller trees forming the canopy. It was strikingly beautiful with many sandstone outcrops dotting the trail. We continued walking until dark and met up with some more proboscis and also two troops of silver leaf monkeys who took little notice of our presence. We hiked up a small hill and the vegetation changed to more typical lowland rainforest type. We were greeted at the top of the hill with a spectacular view of the rainforest, mangroves and ocean spread out below us in the late afternoon.

Our next day proved to be wet. We planned a long hike but around 10 in the morning our walk was interrupted by a downpour that lasted pretty much for the rest of the day. Before the rain we did make it to an interesting arid grassland area dominated by small trees, shrubs and grasses as well as many rocky outcrops. In this region, there were also many pitcher plants and orchids which we spent an hour or so searching for. There are 6 species of pitcher plants in the park and I think we found them all ranging from small ones on the ground which look like jugs to much larger vases (as big as your hand) found attached to viny structures. After awhile it really started to pour though and even though we tried to wait it out for a bit, the rain showed no signs of stopping and so we headed back to the hostel for a bit of rest.

The next two days the rain continued but it let up at times and we decided to make the best of our time so we strapped on our boots and slogged through the flooded forests. We made our way through the grasslands in search of more pitcher plants and were privileged to walk through gorgeous palm forests. We trekked to spectacular rocky headlands overlooking the ocean and through streams to an overflowing waterfall tinted brown by tannins from the palms. We saw many more silver leafs scamper along the beach and watched families of proboscis monkeys scarf down mangrove leaves only feet from us. Overall this park is a gem and a place that we found to be incredibly unique.

The Peaceful Sultanate

2007-02-08T20:12:00.000+07:00

Piece of History
The small Sultanate of Negara Brunei Darrasalem (translation: Brunei country of Peace) or Brunei as it's most commonly referred to is located in Northern Borneo where it's sandwiched between two sides of the Malayan state of Sarawak. This tiny broken country is all that remains of a once great sultanate which used to claim territory from the Southern Philippines to Southern Borneo. The Kingdom was so powerful it was once capable of seizing Manila from the Spanish. Unfortunately for it, one of the sultans was not as adept at ruling the land as his forefathers and during his time he either gave away or lost much of the land until it was whittled down to its current size. Fortunately, in the early 1900s oil was found in the country and since 1932 it has been exporting oil. The slews of black gold have helped to make the Sultan one of the richest people in the world and provides its citizens with some of the best social programs and standard of living of any SE Asia country. Thanks to the oil, and the Halal way of life, much of the forests and wildlife remains intact making Brunei home to one of the largest populations of the Proboscis Monkey of Borneo.

We arrived in the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), where most of the tourist attractions are stationed. We had decided to spend our time in Brunei observing the history and Islam culture, something we hadn't done elsewhere on our trip. We were also confined to BSB largely because of the oil. Because the state owns half of all of the oil companies, they have made sure that all of Brunei's citizens are gas guzzlers by making it relatively cheap and easy to buy a car. As a result public transportation is extremely lacking. This was ok, as there were many mosques and museums for us to see in the capital.

The most impressive mosque was built by the king basically for him. I have never been in a building more humbling. It had huge vaulted ceilings and almost everything was made of marble. Vast chandeliers hung everywhere and the spires were each decorated with elaborate mosaic tiles.

May Peace Be With You
The most interesting thing about this place is how "peaceful" it is, and this is exactly what everyone mentions at the beginning of a conversation. As all good Muslim countries should do, this one also prohibits the sale of alcohol. All of the shops (except for the Coffee Bean) shut down by 10pm. People are so trusting of eachother that they willingly pick up hitchhiking foreigners. They are so polite that drivers actually STOP for pedestrians, even when they're jay walking!

Fine Dining
The most eventful night we had while in BSB was going out for a traditional Brunei dish ambuyat. The people of Brunei have historically been estuarine peoples and the sea and rivers have been more of a focus than the land and agriculture. Remanents of the past is still evident in the vast stilted villages where many of the Bruneians still live suspended over the river. As a result of their lifestyle, rice was not a staple and instead the people relied on sago, which is ground up and boiled to provide the center of the ambuyat. We hadn't heard much about the dish, except that it was pure Brunei and Lora was eager to try it. After much searching, we came across a restaurant where this dish could be ordered.

Boy were we suprised when the meal came out! The centerpiece of this odd meal was a large bowl filled with a pearly jelly like mass that KC thought most closely resembled snot. To eat with, we were only furnished with a pair of chopstick with which we tried to attack the gack-y mess. It came with a extremely pungent durian dip that had a very "strong" flavor not all that pleasing to durian neophytes. It was one of the interesting meals, if not the most pleasant, of the entire trip.

Walking on Water
As mentioned previously, a large percentage of BSB's population lives above the water in huge stilted water villages. Each of the houses are connected to eachother by wooden boardwalks upkept for free by the government. The houses have running water and electricity. The taxies are all small speedboats which jet along the river from the capital to the villages. There are even stilted mosques and schools. My main question when rambling up and down the boarwalks was "what about sewage disposal?" I'd look into the situation before jumping into the murky waters. The disappointing thing about the villages was the lack of activity going on outside. People were not chatting on the front stoop or gathering at the local mini-store. Perhaps for safety reasons, none of the children were running around the planks. This is very out of character for a SE Asian neighborhood. It made Brunei seem almost dead.

Brunei: The Little Philippines

2007-01-25T18:31:00.002+07:00

As many of you are aware the southern Philippines butts up against northern Borneo with the closest distance between major islands being from Mindanao, Philippines to the Malaysian state of Sabah in NE Borneo. Ever since arriving in Borneo we were constantly hearing about all the Filipinos. It sounded like the place was crawling with them! They work in the oil palm plantations, the fishers illegally cross the border and steal fish, terrorists sneak across the border and steal tourists, they created Filipino markets in many of the cities, etc, etc. I was excited to try out my rusty Kinaray-a again as I hoped that some of the Filipinos would be Visayan natives. Too my surprise, it seemed like we hardly ran into any Filipinos and much to my disappointment the ones we did run into were born and raised in Zamboanga and didn't know a lick of Visayan.

However, upon entering the island of Labuan aka the gateway to Brunei, we were surrounded by the sounds of Tagalog and laughter. One of the first things I realized was that Filipinos, Filipinas especially are LOUD. Much louder than their Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts. And they laugh...a lot. These familiar sounds followed us all the way through the great Sultanate of Brunei. On the bus: a small group of Filipinas chatting away, in the photo shop: both cashiers jabbering Tagalog, and biggest gas of all in the cybercafe: Completely overrun by Filipinos chicka-ing (IMing) friends, family and foreigners; Filipino music was blaring from the speakers.

My question is this: why all of the Filipino imports? Does everyone in Brunei already have a job? Are they not willing to work for the wages offered by the service industry?

We met a nice Indonesian woman on her way back home after working for 7 months in Brunei. She said that many Indonesians, as well as Filipinos make there way to the Sultanate in hopes of make some decent money. She also said that many of them leave after working only a short while because the working conditions were so terrible. She herself was leaving and not looking back.

Orchids Galore

2007-01-25T18:31:00.001+07:00

Dec 25 - 27

After 'roughing' it in the woods, Laura decided to splurge for Christmas and reserve a night at the Hyatt in Kota Kinabalu (KK). After living pretty modestly for the past 3 months and always searching for the cheapest option, this was a shock to the system, but a nice one. Comfy beds instead of a wood floor and bed bug infested mattress, a hot shower and tub instead of a cold bucket of water, a sit down toilet instead of a hole in the floor and a scrumptious breakfast buffet instead of a piece of toast was just all too much for us. Casey was a bit reluctant at first about the splurge but in the end, it was enjoyed immensely by both. KK was also a decent small city with a proper bookstore and many small handicraft shops which was nice for the day that we passed through.

Our next stop was Tenom, a small inland town reached by train where we planned to visit an agricultural park. Unfortunately the train ride was later than we had expected and so what we had been told was a nice scenic ride was almost entirely in the dark. On the way back we would see the scenery and it was in fact quite nice as we meandered along the river and through the mountains. We arrived in Tenom in the evening and left early the next day towards the Agricultural Park which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We were the first visitors and we thought that maybe we would be tho only ones all day. Later there were many more people who visited the park but we had the place pretty much to ourselves in the early morning. It was a large place and we had hoped to learn a bit more about some the plants in the area, especially the rainforest species. This ended up not being the case as the park did not focus on these species very much (I guess we should have guessed this since it is an ag park).

However some of the exhibits were done quite well and the park was a nice place to wander amongst the gardens for a day. The park boasts one of the largest orchid gardens in the world or so they claim, and many of these beautiful flowers were in bloom. The native orchid gardens had many gorgeous specimens ranging from minuscule, cute blooms to much larger flowers such as the rare black and lady-slipper orchids. It was very well laid out and nicely landscaped; however, the standing water in some of the garden pools provided a nice mosquito breeding habitat and these annoying pests proved unbearable at times. Across the way was another impressive hybrid orchid garden where over a thousand different types were displayed. It seemed like all of them were in bloom during our visit and these big, bold colored flowers standing out against the blue backdrop of the sky provided for some great photos. We also wandered through the orchard with hundreds of fruit species and sampled many of them (many of which we had never heard of or seen before) including rambutans, mangosteens and passionfruit. Other gardens in the park displayed pitcher plants, hibiscus, gingers and even cactus. Overall it was very well done and a nice place to explore.
Although it was not exactly what we expected and our knowledge of rainforest plants is still basically non-existent, it was still a decent little side trip.

Still On the Hunt

2007-01-25T18:29:00.000+07:00

Dec 20-25, 2006

Our next stop after Kinabatangan was a place called Danum Valley which is found in the interior of eastern Sabah (Malaysian Borneo). We had first heard of the place in Lonely Planet and had also heard rave reviews of it from other travellers and people in the area as a great place for wildlife and intact lowland rainforest. We still had a long list of animals we wanted to see including those elephants and our plan was to camp out in Danum for about 5 days.

Danum Valley is actually a conservation area within a much larger logging concession awarded to the Sabah Foundation. The purpose of the concession is to use the money from 'sustainable' logging in the area to improve the health and education services for the citizens of Sabah. It is an interesting concept and I am not sure the logging is always sustainable or how well the overall scheme works but it is better than the indiscriminate and illegal logging we have seen in many other areas. The concession is broken up into many plots and many international corporations have stake in the area including IKEA. At least the Sabah Foundation has had the foresight to set aside a number of conservation areas where biodiversity has been found to be especially high such as in Danum Valley. Within Danum, the Foundation has also forged a relationship with the Royal Society in Britian to set up a research station which has become internationally recognized as an important location for lowland rainforest research.

This research station is the place where we wanted to stay since they have a large complex for for use by international and Malaysian researchers as well as 'keen naturalists.' The only other option for staying in Danum is a prohibitively priced rainforest lodge so we opted for the research station.We had heard of some travellers staying at the station but had also heard of others having a bit of trouble getting in the place. So before heading to the Kinabatangan we had gone to the office of the research station to check it out and get things sorted out with reservations and transport. When we arrived we were met with a bit of resistance as the receptionist informed us that Danum Valley was not for tourists and only limited to researchers despite the fact that their website and brochures billed the center as a venue for small scale nature tourism. We talked with her a bit longer and told her that we had heard of other travellers visiting the area and also about our background as biologists and conservation work. Slowly she softened up and told us that it would probably be OK but we still needed the clearance from the main office in another city. So we spent the rest of the day trying to e-mail and phone the office and when we finally got in touch, they told us that it was no problem and seemed surprised that we were asking permission. It seems like there is a bit of a lack of coordination and as we found later it seems that these folks cannot decide if they really want tourists in the area or not. It is understandable since the main purpose of the station is for research but it is a bit confusing since they have spent time and money to advertise the area as a tourist destination. So in the end we had wasted a day for bureaucracy and were still unsure if we were really wanted but we were excited about going nonetheless.

So upon returning from the Kinabatangan, we took the afternoon shuttle to the research station along with an older Swedish couple and an American family who was checking out the area as a potential research site. They also had similar problems with coordinations with the station but we were all excited to be headed there. We arrived in the evening and when we said we wanted to camp we were met with a bit more resistance. We insisted and found out that the resistance was probably because they had not cleaned the camping area and it seemed like it was seldom in use. But it turned out to work very well. It was a covered area set up wtih hammock, electricity, water, a kitchen are and even Western toilets (a bit dirty, but functional).

The next morning we woke up to rain and decided to sleep in a bit longer. It ended up being an overall wet day with light rain interspersed with downpours and a bit of sunshine. This is not great for wildlife spotting but we went hiking a bit on some of the trails including a trail to some 400 year old coffins and imported Chinese pottery left by indigenous people. We were lucky to spot the endangered Bornean Horn Frog in midday as well as a cool frill headed lizard in the late afternoon. From the nice research station veranda where we rested during the hottest hours of the day, we spotted a pig tailed macaque, a giant squirrel (these are as big as cats) and a number of gorgeous rhino hornbills. This spot ended up being one of our favorite resting places and amazingly a great spot for wildlife viewing. Later in the week we would see pigs feeding below us, a gibbon swinging silently by and a white-fronted falconet catching butterflies.

During the evening, the rain let up a bit and we had arranged to go on a night drive to spotlight some wildlife. We had heard that sometimes these drives can be great with many animals spotted along the roadway or in the trees (clouded leopards and slow lorises among this list). Unfortunately we were not so lucky and the only animals we saw were the bearded pigs, sambar deer and Buffy Fish Owls that had made a residence near the research station. On our drive we saw nothing else outside the station proper but upon returning and after we had dropped off the other visitors at the hostel and headed towards the campground, we did see a small leopard car in the garden and a civet crossing the road. So no clouded leopard or slow loris that we had been after but at least we did not come up totally empty handed.

The next morning we got a bit of a late start again since we were tired from the late night spotlighting. But it proved to work well since we were lucky to spot our first troop of red leaf monkeys very close to the station. We watched these strange looking guys (they look like old men with furry beards) for more than an hour as they climbed and swung from tree to tree. We also found a family of pig tailed macaques and these provided us with further entertainment as well as a bit of a scare. Macaques are very social and are fun to watch as they groom or wrestle with each other. We were highly content just following this particular family from a distance. We noticed that there was the large patriarch watching us as well and making sure that we did not get too close. Long tailed macaques are pretty small and while they can be pesky at times and have a tendency to steal food, I do not they could do too much damage if they went after you. Pig tails, like these, on the other hand and males in particular get quite large, look pretty mean and have large fangs. We were a bit wary and when this male made aggressive territorial motions of pacing and raising his eyebrows, we tried to keep our distance. We still enjoyed watching the family though and they eventually crossed the road and headed out of sight and into the forest.

Or so we thought. They had actually turned when they hit the treeline and when we started to walk down the road where they had been, the male determined that we had come too close to his family. He rushed out at us and to say the least we got a bit worried. We did not know the best protocol but began to slowly back up. He continued to chase us very aggressively and got within a few feet. We hoped that he would not attack as we did not have any way to fight him off other than with our hands. Luckily he did not attack but he did chase us about 50 meters until we reached the safety of a nearby building. With our hearts thumping, we decided to stay indoors for a bit and make certain the monkeys had passed from our path. Lesson learned: do not get too close to potentially dangerous animals even if they are nice and cute. After our excitement for the day, we took it easy and did spot orang number 12, a small juvenile male that was very low in the trees and near the station.

The next few days were spent hiking in the nearby forest in search of more wildlife and marvelling at the huge trees. The forest around the station was quite good with the biggest trees that we had seen yet. It was green and wet with many vines and butresses and every bit as beautiful as we had hoped. As for wildlife, we found the best place to be in very close proximity to the station complex. Furthermore many of the trails were not very clear so we ended up staying near the station. In our time at Danum we saw some more red leafs and macaques, a monitor near the river, many hornbills and on our last day our last orangutan for this trip (number 13). This large female was our best view from just a few feet away. She was not disturbed by our presence at all and we watched here eating just feet from the ground but without touching it for about an hour and then watched as she climbed the tree to build her nest for the evening. In the nighttime we saw many spiders, another leopard cat, a cool tree frog and a number of unidentified civets. Our elephant searching was in vain although we did see signs of their presence along the road and we were told that they had just passed through the area. It always seems that we just miss them. Oh well. Some of our other most sought after species (slow loris, sun bear, pangolin) also were absent from our spotted list but after 5 days our food was gone and it was time to move on.

So on Christmas morning, we hopped in the van to head back to civilization. Along the way we were hoping to spot an elephant and our wishes were granted. This was a nice Christmas present for us both and it was a big bull with tusks to boot. We only caught a short glimpse before it headed into the forest but it was nice way to end our trip to Danum.

On the Hunt

2007-01-16T19:29:00.000+07:00

On our next day we arranged for an all day excursion on the river with the main purpose of trying to find elephants. Along the Kinabatangan there are a few hundred elephants and they usually stay in fairly large groups which makes them easy to find especially when they come to the river for a drink and bath. Unfortunately a few weeks before we arrived the larger herd split into many smaller groups of just a few individuals each, making any sightings of these big guys a lot more difficult. Our guide told us that he ahd not had any luck the past two trips when he had taken tourists in search of the elephants but we still wanted to try.

So we had planned to start our trip around sunrise to get the most out of the best wildlife viewing hours early in the morning. Unfortunately the rain (which has so far been mostly absent on our trip) foiled our plans and we did not start until about 8. At least it did not rain the whole day (as can be the norm for this time of year) and we were able to go out, even if a bit later than hoped. We began to slowly make our way downriver with Sion, our excellent driver/guide/spotter and his daughter who served as first mate. Just a little ways from our lodge we saw our first sign of elephants which was tall grasses matted down on the side of the river. Our guide told us that it was very fresh (maybe only a few hours old) and we thought we were on the right track. We continued along the river and when our guide saw that we were also interested in birds, his own speciality, he began to point out and identify many birds (many that we could not have seen on our own). We saw many birds of prey (Changeable HAwk Eagles and Brahminy Kites) and waterbirds (the endangered Storm's Stork and darters) and many hornbills just to name a few. Macaques, proboscis monkeys and silver leaf langgurs also made their presence known and we spotted orangutans number 9 and 10. We continued to make our way down the river towards the sea since our destination was the coastal city of Semporna where Sion wanted to be dropped off. After a few hours, the vegetation began to change from lowland rainforest to nipa and mangrove and we realized that our chances for elephant spotting were slim but we would try again on the way back upriver.

After dropping Sion off and taking a bit longer than expected for lunch and refueling, we headed back upstream for a bit more wildlife searching in the late afternoon and our elephants if we were lucky. It turned out that our extended stopover in town on top off our late start in the morning did not leave us much time for animal viewing in the afternoon and our elephant search had been a bust. In the early evening we reached the settlement of Albai and our guide told us that he had an obligation to speak at a workshop there so he turned us over to his brother-in-law. The plan was to take the boat out to look at the abundant fireflies in the area and also do a bit of spotlighting when it got dark. However I guess there had been a bit of miscommunication and there was no light which made it a bit hard to spotlight anything including seeing exactly where our boat was heading (oh well). We were in for a treat with the fireflies though since they gather in thousands on certain trees along the river. As we passed them it certainly looked like the trees were lit up with Christmas lights which coincided with the time of year very nicely. After cruising around for an hour or so and being priviliged to the natural light show, we decided to head back for dinner. They had prepared three dishes for us with the biggest freshwater prawns that I have ever seen (more like miny lobsters in fact). It was absolutely scrumptious and afterwards we relaxed to wait for our guide to finish at the workshop. It ended up being later than expected and after a long day of some unexpected circumstances, we decided to just stay the night and head back to the lodge the next morning. Maybe we would still get a chance to see the elephants on the way back.

The next morning was a foggy one and many of the monkeys slept in. It was funny to see the resting in the trees when they are usually so active and playful. We saw many more birds and a large male orangutan (number 11) right by the river but no elephants. We did hear a gibbon calling in the forest as well and decided to track down this magnificent creature. Gibbons are almost entirely arboreal and are the fastest flightless animal in the forest which makes them amazing to watch but they are also very shy and this on top of their speed makes them very hard to see. Each morning they do make an amazing call like that of a siren which can be heard from far away which enables you to at least figure out where they are and if you are quiet and careful you can track them down. We were lucky and did get a quick glimpse of this guy and along the way Lora got another unexpected gift from the forest. A leech actually attached itself to her eye. Luckily she was wearing her contact and when she pulled it off, the contact came off as well. No harm done but a good story.

We finished this cruise in the later morning and we decided that it was our last. Even though both of us wanted to stay a bit longer, the boat trips were expensive and we had already made reservations at our next destination. So we packed our bags and hitched a ride with the son of an oil palm plantation owner who had just dropped some other travellers off at our B&B. This guy turned out to be another really nice one who went 60 kilometers out of his way to drop us off in the town where we were headed. He also showed us around his father's oil palm plantation. We learned that the palm oil is used not only for cooking but also in many shampoo products in Western countries. He told us also that Shell was cutting down forest and opening a few plantations here to be used for biodiesel fuels (maybe biodiesel is not always the best idea). Palm oil is quite a lucrative business and it is no wonder why so many plantations are springing up especially since the Malaysian government seems to be encouraging the widescale plantation establishment and forest destrcution. I did feel a bit weird riding in this guy's truck after spending days watching wildlife that is threatened because of plantations like his, but such is life.

No Need to Look Very Hard

2006-12-30T18:47:00.000+07:00

When I first started reading about Borneo and all of the wildlife that one can see I got very excited. Well of course everyone knows about the orangutans but it is not only these giant forest men that call Borneo home but also 9 other primate species including proboscis monkeys (funny looking pot bellied fellows with a hot dog nose), tarsiers (the smallest primate in the world that looks like ET) and red leaf monkeys (I think Dr. Seuss got the idea for the Grinch from these guys, he just painted them green) just to name a few. There are also elephants, cloud leopards, rhinos and hundreds of species of fantastic birds. The list goes on and on as should be expected from an island once covered in tropical rainforest and known as one of the most biodiverse places in the world.

With such a long list of potential animal sightings, we were both incredibly excited about our trip to Borneo. But after being in the Philippines for two years (also known as a center for biodiversity) and coming up pretty much empty handed in our search for wildlife, we did not want to be over-confident in our hopes for seeing many animals and then have our hopes dashed. Fortunately our time in Borneo has proven to be much better than the Philippines, as far as wildlife viewing is concerned. From our experiences in Kutai and Kayan Mentarang, we had already seen six orangutan, some gibbons and tons of macaques and hornbills just to name a few. Perhaps it was not the ideal picture that I had of a tropical rainforest as a child with exotic animals running and hiding in every direction, but with a bit of time and effort we had found quite a bit of wildlife. We still had many more animals on our Borneo checklist however and we had been told that eastern Sabah in Malaysian Borneo was the place to go to find them.

We headed to the longest river in Sabah, the Kinabatangan, which is known as a haven for the full range of Bornean wildlife and the animals are relatively easy to spot as well. Unfortunately one of the reasons that the wildlife is so easy to see is the fact that there is not much intact forest left in the area, because much of it has been converted to palm oil plantations much like the rest of Sabah. Another reason that it is easy to spot is the fact that the people who live along the river are generally Muslim in faith and thus do not traditionally hunt the wildlife, which means that the animals do not flee at the first sight or sound of man (this is much different from the wildlife in the Heart of Borneo which is heavily hunted). For these reasons the Kinabatangan has a great reputation for wildlife and there are many tourists that ply the river in search of it. This tourism has brought a good deal of money to the local communities but palm plantations continue to encroach on the area, further threatening the forest and the wildlife that call this area home. There are people working to protect and rehabilitate the forest as well as connecting the fragmented areas but sadly it is hard to say whether or not they will be successful in preserving this amazing area.

We had heard a lot about the Kinabatangan from various sources and were interested to see what it would be like. We knew that it would be a bit different from our usual hiking through the forest relying on our own eyes to spot animals far above and we would instead be paying hefty sums to ride in a boat with a guide to point out wildlife but we were willing to try it out. There are many options for tourists along the Kinabatangan ranging from jungle camps to homestays to swanky river lodges. We chose the Sukau B&B which was suggested to us as one of the cheapest options and we had also heard that it is nestled among some of the highest density of wildlife along the river.

We arrived in the early afternoon after being once again overcharged for transport along a bumpy dirt road and were greeted at the B&B by the son of the owner. This young 17 year old was incredibly personable and his English was exceptional (especially considering he dropped out of school when he was 13). He was knowledgeable and helpful when we asked about the area and what we might see and we found out that he usually helps out the family business by guiding but he had recently broken his leg playing football so he would be unable to take us out. But he did set up a cruise for the afternoon and evening for us with his father (who unfortunately was not so personable).

At around 3PM we started on our trip to the Menonggo River, an area frequented by many tourists from the lodges in the area. We heard that at times there can be 20 boats filled with 10 or more tourists a piece which does not exactly make for ideal wildlife sighting experiences since the noise from so many people has a tendency to disturb the animals. We were lucky though and there were only two other boats besides ours on the river. We were still always trying to jockey ahead of them to make sure we could get the first look at the animals before they fled.

Before even entering the small Menonggo tributary, we found our first troop of proboscis monkeys and were able to watch these strange pot bellied pigs scarf down leafs on a mangrove tree only 20 feet away from where we sat. Once we entered the small tributary, we soon realized why there can sometimes be so many boats and why it is such an attraction. There was wildlife everywhere you turned and they did not at all seem perturbed or frightened by our presence. Our little cruise down the river was greeted by about six groups of proboscis monkeys flinging themselves from tree to tree. We later learned that there are about 15 groups of these endangered primates on the Menonngo, probably making it one of the most densely populated areas on the entire island. We also saw our first silver leaf langurs, which playfully leaped across the river and posed for silhouette photos in the early evening. Many groups of pig-tailed and long-tailed macaques, the most common and social of the primates in Borneo, were also out in full force. Quite a few large monitor lizards swam in front or behind our boat or lazed along the riverbank. A green tree viper was also spotted by another boat and we made our in for a photo op. Casey got a little excited and thought that it was a good idea to get a really good shot by getting very close. Later learning that this snake is highly venomous and it could have easily struck him while trying to get the pic, he realized that maybe the photo op was not the best idea. But hey, he got a decent picture.

Our late afternoon cruise had been amazing and we were highly impressed and surprised with everything that we had seen. We were in 'keen naturalist' heaven. We had arranged to stay out a bit longer into the night in order to do some spotlighting of wildlife. There are just as many animals out at night as during the day and seeing them is a bit more difficult but we had a long list of species and we wanted to try our luck. So we sat for a bit waiting for dark and then our boatman turned on the power spotlight and we continued on our wildlife hunt. We were not quite as lucky as in the afternoon but we saw about 10 Buffy Fish Owls, a sleeping blue collared kingfisher that allowed us to get really close for some nice pics, eyes of at least one crocodile and an unidentified small cat or civet (our guess is a marbled cat). All in all not too bad for a few hours on the river and we decided to head back to the lodge for some rest.

When we got back, we met a nice British traveller, Sion, and the brother-in-law of the owner of our accommodation, who had been doing wildlife surveys and guiding on the river for about 10 years. He turned out to be an amazing guide on later river trips and just one of the nicest people that we have met on our travels. We decided that the next day we would not go out on the river since the boat trips were a bit pricey and would instead take a hike with Sion to a nearby cave. Unfortunately the next morning we started a little late and the wildlife was nowhere to be seen which did seem a bit odd after so much on the previous afternoon. The small cave was nice though and the hike was enjoyable (even with the pouring rain on the way home). Along the way we did see many signs of elephants (poo and prints) and bear (claw marks on the trees) and we decided that the next day would be our elephant searching day. In the afternoon we went for another short hike and we spotted a small female orangutan with a very young baby. Casey went to get Sion (since he was not along and he had not seen an orangutan yet) and while he was gone, Laura got to see this beautiful creature swing through the treetops with amazing speed and grace. It is so awesome how such a large beast can move so fast. These were orange creatures number 7 and 8 (after our 6 in Kutai, Indonesia).

Underwater Paradise

2006-12-30T18:38:00.000+07:00

We arrived in Malaysian Borneo via boat from the Indonesian island of Tarakan. We headed immediately for the small seaside town of Semporna. Ironically enough, Semporna is Bahasa Melayu for "perfect". This explains the ocean surrounding the town, but it is the antithesis of the town itself. Luckily, we weren't in Semporna for it's seashore. We had come to feast our eyes on its underwater treasures. The islands off Semporna's shores are reputed to hold some of the best diving spots in the world and the island of Sipadan tops the list. We were heading to this island to try to see the hammerhead sharks, dozens of turtles, large schools of barracuda and other large pelagics which are rumored to ply these waters. Other nearby islands are said to be teeming with strange bottom dwelling creatures of the types we found in Lembeh Strait. We were going to search for these creatures with the help of Scuba Junkies Dive Shop, which came recommended as cheap and good.

Our first day of diving was at the famed island of Sipadan. Sipadan stands out from the rest of the islands much like Sangglaki did in Kalimantan - Sipadan rises from the depths like a grand pillar and the currents whip about it from all directions. Because it is surrounded by an underwater wall and because of the swift currents, many large animals congregate near. Due to this phenomenon, MANY people visit Sipadan year round. Also because of it's spectacular underwater life the Malaysian government has made the waters around the island a reserve and restricts access to 120 people per day and believe me, it does fill up. The government also kicked the resorts off the island in the name of conservation/preservation - or so we thought until we saw the troops of military men housed in the old resorts while keeping an eye out for pirates, terrorists and others who might illegally enter Malaysian waters.

KC finally buckled in to paying for his scuba advanced course long after fulfilling all the requirements but without paying the ridiculous fee for the plastic card. Up until this point, I never realized just how utterly worthless the advanced certification is. I could be a NAUI snob and attribute this observation to the lack of proper instruction PADI offers. After all, I was certified with NAUI and as far as I remember the advanced course was more technical and helped give a better understanding of how to navigate underwater. But the course KC did was a joke! He needed to complete 5 different dives for the certification and so on our first dive in Sipadan, we suited up with four other divers and 1 instructor for the deep dive. The first doubt about our chosen dive outfit came when I jumped in to find that my buoyancy regulator wouldn't stay inflated. No biggie though, just hop out of the sea, change gear and off we go!

Dive 1: Hanging Gardens
We descended down to 32 meters. On the way down we passed all the colorful coral and fish so at depth we were faced with the brown wall on one side and very murky water on the other. Basically, the only thing down here are sharks, including the hammerheads IF you're lucky enough to see them. We weren't. The viz was so awful and it wasn't even the right season to go hammerhead sharking. So instead we watched a lot of nothing for about 15 minutes. At the end of our dive we did see some sharks as we found ourselves floating over a group of about 10 juvenile grey reef sharks. There were also a few turtles, but none in the numbers everyone assured us we would see. Turtles were so common in Derawan and around Sanngalaki that they were no longer as thrilling and not even worth mentioning on subsequent dives. Just assume we saw at least 5 turtles on each dive and leave it at that. (In all seriousness, I don't think I'd ever get tired of turtles, but when searching for other amazing creatures it's a bit tiresome when the guide keeps pointing out the obvious and ubiquitous reptiles).

Dive 2: Turtle Cave to Barracuda Point
The second inkling of doubt about Scuba Junkies came when before descent it was discovered that my emergency regulator (aka octopus) wasn't functioning properly. 2 for 2 on bad gear. During this dive we visited Turtle Cave, which is part of a large cave system under the island. It is so named because the carcasses of turtles who couldn't find there way out before their breathe ran out can be found deep inside. For the super adventurous (and idiotic?) it is said you can tour these caves if you carry along a few extra tanks and are willing to remove your equipment from time to time to squeeze through the small tunnels. We barely scratched the surface of the cave and only went as far as the light.

After leaving the cave we were kicking around with not much to see. Lora The Always Searching decided to turn 180 degrees to see if anything had started swimming behind the group. Sure enough, off in the distance was an enormous swirling school of barracuda. Since we were the last divers of the bunch and the others were speedily sailing through the water in the other direction, they missed the amazing barracuda mass. Ecstatic at the sight, we frantically tried to make noise underwater so the rest of the group could partake in the silvery fish, but it was to no avail. Soon the fish were barely visible in the distance in one direction and our group in the other so we were forced to abandon our efforts of fish gawking to join our blind guide once again. Later on the surface we told the others what they'd miss. Our guide's explanation for his lack of observation was because the great toothy beasts were usually found during a later section of the dive. Goes to show you that by becoming to familiar with a site one can become blind to the unexpected and thus miss out on some great sightings.

Sadly, we trudged on, but it didn't take long before we came across another large school of albeit, less intimidating fish: the trevallies. The flat shimmering fish were wonderful to watch as they circled around each other in almost complete unison. Among the mass was one or two giant trevally which were about 4 feet long and darker in color. We could have stayed among the fish but again, our swift mates had already grown tired of the school and had jetted off in search of other creatures instead of appreciating the ones they'd already found.

Dive 3: MidReef
This dive wasnt' anything to write home about except for the spotted eagle ray. We ended in the shallows over beautiful coral where some yellow finned jacks and some tuna were playing but our guide had had enough and called us to the surface before we could explore further.

Dive 4: Night Dive at Tong's Marker
Great night dive! Except for the claustrophobic feeling one gets when 6 people with flashlights are trying to squeeze around a creature the size of a baby's toenail, it was fabulous! Our dive guide was one of the owners of the dive shop and is an exceptional guide who has logged thousands of dives and has a knack for finding the smallest and most amazing underwater creatures. His eyes are phenomenal and he is the reason that this shop was recommended to us. We had hoped to get him as a guide for more dives but unfortunately this was the only one and the other dive masters that we dove with did not have the anywhere close to as good an eye as he had. We had came to Semporna not only wanting to see the big creatures of Sipidan but also the many small strange ones on other nearby islands and to get your money's worth for macro diving you often need an experienced guide with a great eye who has logged many dives in the area. Scuba Junkies has a program where many new dive masters are trained, which is all fine and good unless you are the unlucky one who gets one of these fresh dive masters in training who has only logged 3 dives in the site and knows it hardly any better than you do. But enough of the complaining and back to the great night dive with the great guide.

As soon as we jumped in we found a small bamboo cat shark which was an interesting looking fellow. We slowly descended a bit deeper along the slope and our guide began pointing out this and that for all of us to see. There were decorator crabs and spider crabs and tons of nudibranchs. We even saw a nudibranch that our guide had never seen before and one which he thought was a species that had not been described ever before. He said that he had already found a number of new species in the area and it certainly seemed like he knew his stuff. When he saw the new interesting creature he took tons of pictures and did a happy dance underwater. After an hour underwater and having seen many new animals we surfaced and headed back into town to warm up and rest our sleepy heads.

Dive 5: Black Coral Garden
We came to the dive shop in the morning and we were informed that we were no longer going to the island where they had told us the night before. We were not entirely happy about this since we had been briefed on this island and had decided that it would suit our interests for macro diving. But we could not do too much about their last minute change and decided to suit up and go dive anyways. We also got one of the dive master trainees as a guide and he was very thorough and good about explaining the dive beforehand (something you do not always get in SE Asia diving) but his knack in finding small things was not so great. We dropped down to about 25 meters and we saw a garden of black coral which actually is not black except for the trunk of it and it actually looks like a large white bush. After this we swam around and saw a number of nudibranchs, a crocodile fish and a few other things. The visibility was really poor here (only about 10 feet or so) and there was not anything else really notable about the dive other than the black coral.

Dive 6: Sibuan Island - Froggies Highway
Once we got up from the black coral dive, we were informed that we had to switch islands because the current was too strong here for the open water diver class that was on the same boat. So we decided to go to the same island that we were originally planning on heading to. Our next dive was supposed to be a place to possibly see some frogfish and luckily we did see a nice big green one that Lora found. We also saw a huge crocodile fish and got some great pics. This dive was better than the last and probably better than our next one but nothing spectacular.

Dive 7: Sibuan Island - Mandarin Point
Our last diver of the day and the last dive for this area we decided to look for some resident mandarin fish. We were told that we would see them in the beginning but when we did not see them in the first twenty minutes I thought that we were not going to get to see them at all. Mandarin fish are really shy and small but extremely colorful (almost like a flouresent blue green pattern on an orange background). Casey had seen one before but Lora had not so we were hoping to have an encounter and we were told that this place was pretty much a certainty. We were getting a bit anzy when we had not seen it, nor anything else interesting in this shallow dive through some fields of broken coral. Luckily at the end of the dive we finally did find quite a few in a patch of sea urchins. They certainly are gorgeous little fish but unfortunately there was nothing else worth taking note of on this dive.

Overall this second day was not so great and our expectation for great macro diving was certainly not met. We found later that the islands that we had visited are not the best places to see the creatures we wanted to see. We decided that our choice of dive company did not really suit us. I guess we are a bit snobby about our diving but we did shell out quite a bit of money and we had hoped for better quality of dive guides. We had not come at the best time of year since the visibility was pretty piss poor and some of the bigger pelagics were not around. Sipidan had been really nice but our expectations had been a bit too big. But we would both like to try it again sometime when we have a bit larger budget to spend more time and do it with a different company.

Long Jelet

2006-12-30T18:35:00.000+07:00

Our short hike ended in the tiny village of Long Jelet. This little kampung consists of approximately 70 people and a few dozen wooden houses. The locals are, by far, the most self-sustaining peoples I've ever met. They produce all their own rice through rotation swidden farming and their protein is caught with nets, shot with guns are speared. They cultivate vegetables in their yards or gather them from the surrounding forest. The materials from their houses come from the forest, even their backpacks are woven from locally gathered rattan. They do buy coffee, tea, sugar and gas for their boat engines and there's the occasional satellite TV. To pay for these items many of the villagers take the 5 day trek which brings them to Malaysia where they generally find work on palm oil plantations and send home the money.

A group of villagers greeted us with strong handshakes and smiles as we entered the village. This was a phenomenal improvement to our experience in Long Pujungan where the people were not overtly happy to see us invading their little haven and we began to wonder if the locals actually wanted tourists. WWF has done a great job with hospitality training in the kampung of Long Jelet. We were then whisked away to our host family's house which was home to a young couple and their adorable one year old son who stumbled about the house with beads wrapped around his calves, arms and neck.

The head of the local ecotourism committee was eager for us to get outside and about an hour after arriving we had already arranged our next excursion. There wasn't many options available to us, since we didn't want to pay around 300,000 Rupiah for a 15 minute boat ride and most of the trips involved riding on a boat, so we decided to head to a nearby waterfall. We were told that this waterfall would be a mere 2 hour, easy trek which tells you how often tourists visit the waterfall. What was suppose to take half a day ended up being a full day of hiking. It's not so much that the waterfall was far away. It took us that long because we hiked along a foot wide path which was hacked out of a very steep sloping mountain. It took all of our energy just not to fall down the mountain as we scampered about trying to keep up with the rest of the crew. Clearly the locals were not used to seeing those who lead a sedentary lifestyle try to balance over slippery moss covered rocks. They pranced over the stones like they were strolling on an even cement sidewalk. We were constantly eating their dust. Exhausted, we arrived at the waterfall where everyone got picture happy. They love posing! My favorite was our grandfather guide who is a skilled rattan weaver. Watching him changing poses next to the waterfall was the highlight of the day. After the picture-picture one of the men persuaded us to join him in a dip in the pool at the base of the waterfall. Then we had to rush back across the mountain in order to make it home before dark.

The Good Life
After the exhausting hike to Long Jelet followed by the harrowing trek to the waterfalls we decided our poor feet deserved a break from the terrible rubber shoes. So, we took a day of rest. We had a leisurely breakfast of extreme fried fish and rice. We lounged around reading a watching the little boy run around with a large grin on his face.

In the afternoon some of the locals took us on a small river tour. They brought along their cast nets and woven rattan backpacks and fished the river. We were also lucky enough to partake in the action. I've seen cast net thrown numerous times, and the men who wield them always do so with such calm and easy composure. But I'll tell you one thing...this is no simple task. The base of the net is strung through metal chain, which is heavy! It took us some time to figure out how exactly to hold the net and it was difficult to keep my chain-laden arms up for so long. A few times during the throw, I thought either one of us would land face first in the water. It was a tough job and though our attempts were entertaining to watch they were by no means fruitful. Thankfully, we had with us a pair of skilled fishermen who filled the woven backpacks with delicious freshwater fish of all shapes and sizes.

We awoke the following day to rain. That's right folks, the rainy season had finally begun, much to our dismay. It was also pouring every night. Ugh.

Because of the rain, we decided to rest again. In the afternoon the village leader took us on a search for some animals. We were hoping to see some monkeys and deer but we're not very good trackers, though our guide was. He saw a deer or two but each time he tried to point them out we failed to see them hidden in the brush. On the way back he stopped to gather some vines for dinner. It was amazing watching him work the machete around the very spiny vines. He worked so smoothly and deftly, quickly removing the out thorns to uncover the white insides. Then he took us on an interesting journey through the ferns back to the village.

Mealtime
Our hostess was amazing. Before every meal she would separate the warm rice into portions and pack them in large leaves. She would also heat up the main dishes, which usually consisted of leftovers, so we always had piping hot food to fill our tummies. She then laid the amazing meaty spread on the floor of the large common room and we would eat our meal with our hands while seated on the wooden floor. Beside the main dishes, she would place a small bowl full of hand crushed fresh chili peppers mixed with salt which we would sprinkle on our food to give added flavor and warmth.

One day, some pork showed up at a meal. It had been boiled so tender that it literally melted in one's mouth. The taste was richer and stronger than any pork we'd ever tasted and the meat was lean. Someone (our host?) had killed the wild pig and brought it to our home (perhaps split it between a number of households?). Subsequently, we ate pig at every meal for the next 3 days. What we didn't finish the first day was put back into the kettle and left near the constantly roaring fire. Just before mealtime our hostess would place the pot over the fire to heat the meat before serving. This was repeated numerous times and the meal became more delicious with each day.

Besides wild boar, we also were served numerous wild plants which had been gathered in the jungle. Once we were served the insides a large, spiky rattan-like vine, which tasted bitter. We also had chopped up leaves and ferns. From the farrow rice paddies we picked unripened pineapple and made a fiery chili pineapple salad.

Undoubtedly one of the staples is deep fried fish. This is because the fish are easier to catch than the forest animals. One day our host took his boat out for about an hour and came home with enough fish to feed us for 2 days. All fish caught were eaten and these included large suckers as well as smaller fish.

The Journey Home
Each day we awoke we were unsure about how long we'd get to stay in the beautiful backwater. We knew we needed to make it out of Long Punjungan by a certain date in order to make it out of the country before our visa expired, but no one could tell us exactly when the downriver boats would be setting sail. Since we'd have to leave Long Jelet a day before the boats left, our length of stay in Long Jelet was dependent on the very loose trip schedule. We were told that there would surely be boats on the weekend, but no boats left. Everyday was a new story and it began to worry us.

We had planned to take a boat from Long Jelet to Long Punjungan to save us the energy of another 1.5 day hike. But, because of the unexpected change in the weather (ie rain) we were told one morning that the river was raging over the rapids with such voracity that the small motor boats were unable to ply its waters. In effect, the people of Long Jelet (us included) were trapped. This was not a new phenomenon and it seemed not to phase the locals in the slightest. The head of the ecotourism committee new of our situation and gave us two options: We could wait out the rain and see if the river dropped enough before the expiry date on our visa or we could return the way we came, on foot and through the hills. Though he gave us the options, it was clear he would rather us hike out of Long Jelet, the much safer of the two options. This meant however, that we would be leaving in just a few hours for another feet-killing journey. This did not make Lora happy, who was content in the warm wooden hut. Soon the rain stopped and two guides were rounded up to take us on our trek.

The first day was up a steep hill and then back down. Again, the guides shot a female barking deer. They cut the meat up nicely and grilled a leg over the fire. The rest of the meat (no inners! Yea!) they through in a pot and boiled.

The next day we got up early and broke down camp. As usual we heard the occasional crash of an animal running away in the distance. When we reach a shoulder in the uphill climb the sounds of gibbons we had been following grew steadily louder. One of the guides, who was skilled at animal mimicry began calling back to the gibbons. We put our bags down and rushed up farther to see if we could catch a glimpse at these graceful creatures. Sure enough, they had been swinging along the path and we had a wonderfully clear view of them as they glided through the trees. We were even lucky enough to watch one of the pair make a u-turn and swing back toward us. Unfortunately, we were both so stunned by the awesomeness of the moment that neither one of us snapped any pictures. Never mind, the pictures could never have turned out as perfect as my memories of the primates.

We had to walk hard and fast the rest of the trip in order to make it all the way back to Long Pujungan before dark. It was imperative that we make it to the town because the next day we needed to be on the boat down river. Exhausted, we made it to town just as it became to dark to see without light. We spent the night in an extremely overpriced guesthouse and got on the same boat that took us upstream. We were sad to leave this place, but happy that the journey had left us with so many good memories.

The Forest Affliction

2006-12-15T18:39:00.000+07:00

When trekking through the tropical rainforest one will generally lose some blood. This is almost completely unavoidable as the swarms of leeches attack from below. The troops gather strength after the rains (which happens often in RAINforest). Then creep across the ground cover silently and can play "twig" was unsuspecting ease. Swiftly but undetectably they attach themselves to whatever appendage come closest to their hiding place: shoe, calf, thigh and even arms are subject to such attacks. Stealthily they worm their way to the most tender skin. They relish the ankles, between the toes and when they can travel so far, between the thighs and buttocks. Their bites are often unnoticed, except for the time they hit the exceptionally tender locations such as the groin or armpit. One may not even notice they're there until satiated, they drop from the body leaving small wounds that gush crimson blood and stain clothing. Later, after the wounds have scabbed over, they will itch incessantly.

The locals, who are forced to live among these merciless creatures have come up with numerous ways to deter them. Almost everyone who travels past their yard equips themselves with leech socks, knee high tightly woven socks that the leeches are unable to penetrate. Those going deep into the recesses of the forest, such as hunters, will rub tobacco on their shoes and legs. Tobacco, suprisingly is a powerful insecticide which will kill leeches who crawl onto its juices. Then, to be extra safe, they spray the insides of their shoes and their socks with Baygon mosquito repellant. This combination works beautifully at killing 90% of all leeches that try to attack. It is wonderful searching one's boots for the number of fatalities still attached. These numbers are always high: 14, 20, 30 fatalities in a few hours. Yet some always manage to slip past the barriers...

Jungle Survival

2006-12-15T18:04:00.000+07:00

Shortly after arriving in Long Pujungan it was decided we would hike the 2-3 hours to the nearby village of Ketaman. Ketaman would only be a pit stop where we would change guides for the 1.5 day journey to Long Jelet - home of the WWF's major ecotourism efforts in the area. We could have cut the travel time to Long Jelet considerably (down to mere hours) but it also would have cost double the price. Besides, we had already seen the forest from the river and we were ready to dive in for a closer look.

We arrived in Ketaman on a Saturday and paid $5/person/night to be fed and sleep on the living room floor of a nice but shy family. We left with our 2 guides (you need 2 for the hike because it's "very difficult" or as we think, Indonesians don't like to be left for long periods of time alone with tourists) on Monday. They are all devoutly Protestant in these parts, thanks to friendly missionaries from the US and Oz and they wouldn't work on God's Day, so we too rested.

As usual, the leading guide plunged far ahead while we struggled to keep up. It was kind of nice that one guide always trailed behind. That way we didn't get too lost when the lead guided got too far ahead. The first few hours of the hike took us through ladang or un-irrigated agricultural ands which is often the product of slash and burn farming. We found this oddly comical: travel for days to the deep, dark depths of Borneo to stroll through rice fields. Soon enough we were surrounded by secondary forests, that is by old ladang sites which have been seized back by the forest. At least we were out of the weeds and surrounded by the trees.

Day one, though uneventful, was a pleasant walk in the woods. Or so we thought as we crossed what we assumed was the last river of the day. But we were very mistaken. During the afternoon we huffed and puffed our way up a large mountain. The forest up high improved and we saw more signs of wildlife such as wild pig baths and civet claw markings. We also heard barking deer and some monkeys as they ran away.

As we began our descent the lead guide rushed even further ahead than usual. Occasionally we would hear him blowing on two blades of grass (remember doing that when you were young?) He was on the hunt for barking deer for dinner. As we approached him we heard the loud bang of his homemade shotgun and then the crying barks of a deer. We rushed to take a look and discovered that he had shot a female deer in the eye. It took her a while to die and only after he banged her on her head, slit her throat and strangled her with rattan rope (they don't have PETA in the heart of darkness). Then we dragged her down the mountain.

At the base of the mountain, on the banks of a river is a permanent campsite. It's a nice set up with a raised sleeping platform and cooking area. Our guides had packed with them 3 tarps, rice sacks and a hammer. They tied the tarps over the platform and the kitchen to keep out the rain. Then two rice sacks were stretched around to sturdy pieces of wood. The wood was then nailed to the frame of the platform to create makeshift hammocks for sleeping. Then two more rice sacks which were sewn together were used as a sleeping bag to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Not a bad set up. Much more comfortable than our 1 person tent which we laid on top of logs of various sizes on the platform.

Once this was done, they set about preparing dinner. They cooked rice and boiled water in metal pots they had packed. I found it hilarious that they packed about 1/2 kilo of sugar for their one night of coffee drinking. They also filled a plastic bag with cartons of cigarettes for the trip - these things I would have thought extraneous but to them it's just the essentials!

At the river they gutted the carcass. The stomach, liver and thigh were cut into chunks and all thrown into a single pot with river water, salt and MSG and set over the wood stove to boil. When cooked the whole pot smelled gamy but the meat was delicious, even if the stomach was not. This was also our breakfast and lunch the following day. We assumed that the guides would take some of the meat with them but this proved impractical since hunting is easy to do around the villages. So we left most of the deer for the birds.

The next day we had another mountain to climb. By this time our feet were blistered and sore from our new rain boots and we were itching from the bug bites. Struggling we made it up the steep slope of the mountain. As in the Philippines, the ideas of back switches is lost here where people prefer to find the most slippery incline straight up the mountain and a no less slippery steep decline to its base. In between the sharp slopes, we had to carefully traverse on a equally slippery and narrow path that cut across the length of the mountain. The descent was more harrowing than the tiring climb and took more time as we tried not to slide on our bums the entire way down the mountain.

We reached our destination tired and barely able to walk. We were welcomed warmly by the village as many people approached us to shake our hands and welcome us to Long Jelet. Our host family was gracious and offered hot, very sweet tea straight away. It was the exact opposite greeting we received in Long Pujungan where we thought perhaps people upriver didn't in fact want ecotourists. The greetings were wonderful and made us feel much more at home in this far away village.

Into the Heart of Darkness

2006-12-15T17:25:00.000+07:00

I hope the literary reference above is correct and the book is about Borneo. Since I haven't actually read it, I have no clue. If I am incorrect please strike "Darkness" and replace it with "Borneo".

Our Plan: Visit the largest National Park in Indonesian Borneo, Kayan Metarang via the village of Long Bawan. We had hear that there was a large area of montane rainforest and some great opportunities for trekking including a loop circuit into Malaysian Borneo where we could visit traditional houses and experience some indigenous culture. It seemed like a great plan and we were both psyched as we headed to the city of Tarakan from where our reserved flight would depart.

Reality: When we arrived in Tarakan we found that our reservations were not held, but that didn't matter because the said flight was cancelled. It seems like a reservation does nt hold much clout and the three weekly flights are often cancelled for varying reasons including high fuel prices, or in our case, the desire for public officials to commandeer the plane for their own personal use. Our visa was going to run out shortly and we could not sit around for another flight which might also be cancelled in the same fashion. We were forced to regroup and think of another plan.

Thankfully, we came across another option to visit Kayan Metarang at an entry point south of our original plan. WWF has been working in Kayan Metarang for the past 10 years or so and one of their more recent endeavours has been to develop ecotourism in the area. Aside from Long Bawan, they are trying to set up ecotourism ventures near Long Pujungan, which may be reached by river boat instead of inadequate air services. It would require us to do a little backtracking but we decided that the river trip would be interesting and it would still give us a chance to get in the "Heart of Borneo" as WWF likes to call its project.

While waiting for our laundry to dry and our boat to leave we did have an opportunity to learn a bit more about the park from some of the amazing books published by way-way-ef and their ten years of experience there.

The park is huge and represents an area which is highly important for biodiversity conservation. Check out this linked article about the 52 new species that were just recently found in the "Heart of Borneo." It is also the traditional land of 12 different indigenous tribes consisting of the Dayak (generic term for swidden farmers) and the Penan (aka hunter-gatherers who are barely 5 feet tall). It was first set up as a completely no take zone. This did not go over so well with the villagers who use the forest for their sustenance and so with the help of WWF they were able to convince the government to change the status to a national park. This change makes it legal for the indigenous tribes to hunt animals within the park limits. Now some of you may think "what's the point in a park if people can hunt there?" But you have to remember that these tribes have been living sustainably in the forest for hundreds of years. It is a result of their keen forest management skills that the forest has remained intact because up until now there are no forest rangers. Much of the forest is secondary growth because the tribes survive off of rice which they grow in the swidden (aka slash and burn) method. We were told that they could only grow one crop on the poor soil before they have to let it go farrow. Slash and burn isn't generally as bad as people make it out to be and it helps to increase the biodiversity of the forest by creating different stages of regrowth in different areas.

We were going to the park mainly to see the forest. We figured it would be difficult to see animals because the hunting pressure would make them very skittish. We were correct. However, the amount of wildlife in the area is mind boggling. There are 6 kinds of monkey, the Bornean Gibbon, 4 types of deer including one that barks like a dog and 2 that are the size of a cat, Malayan sun bears (we saw a pelt on some one's porch), wild pigs, wild cows, many civets and wild cats including an unidentifiable one discovered by WWF scientists recently and hundreds of birds including the rhinoceros hornbill (the mother of all hornbills) and many, many more. There used to be orang-utans but they were all poached by "outsiders" from Sulawesi and Java. There also used to be rhinos and elephants, but they are extremely rare anywhere in Borneo nowadays.

The morning of the river "cruise" we were still unsure exactly what to expect from this trip and we felt a little unprepared but we were ready to get going. We packed in a 40 foot open air longboat with four outboard engines along with 30 other people and various cargo in order to ply upriver for the next day and a half. I cannot say that it was the most comfortable trip as we tried to hide from the rain and sun or find a decent spot to lay in between cargo and people,but I've been on worse (see previous entries). As we rode upriver we saw some vast stretches of decent forest as well as clear cut areas for agriculture and logging concessions. We passed little river towns and logging camps and got sprayed by he waves of the rapids. During the night we set up camp on a rocky beach but when the rain started we went to find shelter in a little hut (and I mean little: a room which was 8 feet by 10 feet) along with ten men who were travelling to the forest in search of "gahru" a type of wood which is sold for very high prices (Rp 10 million/kilo) due to its aromatic quality when burned. Most of them stayed up playing cards all night while we tried to catch a few hours of shut-eye on a makeshift bed. By the time we arrive in Long Pujungan we were glad to get off the boat but it had certainly been an interesting experience reaching our destination...but we weren't' yet to our final destination - that would take another 3 days...

Mantas, Turtles and Sharks, Oh My!

2006-12-12T21:04:00.000+07:00

After being out of the tropical waters and in the forest for a month or so we were ready to dive back in. And what better place than a group of small islands where we heard that people often encounter dozens and even hundreds of manta rays, there is a saltwater lake filled with stingless jellyfish and beaches where turtles lay their eggs nightly. This group of islands is off the coast of Berau in East Kalimantan: Derawan, Sanggalaki and Kakaban, and while we had not heard as much about it as other famous dive spots in the area, we were still very excited about the prospects.

The main attraction for us was, of course the manta rays, which neither of us had seen yet. Mantas are big, harmless stingrays which filter feed on plankton. There are similar ones off the coast of Florida where they are the namesake for the baseball team The Devil Rays. The ones here do not get quite as large as those, but they still reach wingspans of more than 10 feet.

We approached Derawan Island by speedboat and quickly noticed that the island, like so many in the Philippines, was heavily populated. Many houses were situated over the water on stilts, including our accomodation, which made for a very eye-pleasing view out over the ocean. Once we got settled, we decided to survey the small island as well as look for a boat for a snorkeling trip to Sanggalaki Island the next day. On our brief walk we saw a large turtle swimming near shore as well as a fenced off area which served as a sanctuary where turtle eggs were protected until they hatched. We would end up seeing tons more turtles in the water over the next few days, but unfortunately none laying or hatching on the beach (though we searched the beaches at night). Over dinner we talked with a nice Canadian who had been diving in the area the past week. He was one of those divers that has been many places and since he was highly impressed by the underwater world in the area, we felt confident that this would be a great place. He informed us that when he visited Sanggalaki, the famed manta island, he had seen dozens from the boat even before jumping into the water and tons more underneath. We could hardly sleep with anticipation of our trip the next day.

We woke up early, jumped in the boat and prepared oursleves for the 1.5 hour ride to Pulau Sanggalaki. We passed through a rain storm but when we arrived the sun was shining on the white sandy beach. We got off the boat and were able to see turtle tracks and nests in the sand. It is pretty much a deserted island other than one small resort and it was thick with forest. This lack of people on an island was rare to us after living in the Philippines where it sees that every semi-inhabitatble island is jam packed. The lack of people also meant a lack of fishing pressure and therefore, as we were about to see, there remained a wealth of big fish underwater.

Our boatman took us to the other side of the island where the mantas hang out and we were worried that something would be wrong and they would not be here today. We thought our fears were turning into reality since we did not see any as we approached their hangout. Still nervous we jumped in and were immediately whisked away by a rapid current. At first there was not much coral nor many fish and no mantas (our worst nightmares come true!). But this did not last for long. After a few minutes of drifting we were surrounded by schools of large fish. And then our first manta came into view. It was huge and appeared out of the murky water to glide gracefully past. It was a surreal experience.

The current was strong all day and it was fairly bad visibility for tropical waters at about 20 feet. This often doesn't make for ideal leisurely snorkeling conditions, but it did make for a great opportunity to see tons of big fish, mantas and other marine life since many of these creatures prefer the strong currents and the food that is brought in on them. Often times the large mantas would appear out of nowhere from the murky depths and provoke a scream from Lora which would then in turn scare KC. It was all good fun and the mantas provided quite a show for us especially in the PM during low tide when the current got even stronger and even more of them congregated in the feeding area. We had the boat drop us and then we would be whisked by the current past dozens of these gentle giants filter feeding in the shallows.

Each time we were dropped off by our boat, it proved to be a new experience. On one pass we would see tons of mantas, on the next loads of turtles and one the next it was 5 sharks and hige school of sweetlips. By the end of the day we were both pooped but felt that it had been our best day underwater ever. We not only saw dozens of mantas but also more turtles than either one of us had ever seen in all of our diving and snorkeling (more than fifty for the day). We saw about 10 reef sharks and 3 leopard sharks (also a great sighting which neither of us had seen before). To say that big fish were plentiful would be an understatement as schools of huge snappers, sweetlips and jacks were commonplace. For two biologists who love the water it was really nothing short of spectacular and also an uplifting experience after seeing so many fish-depleted waters in the Philippines. By 4 PM our boatman wanted to head home and so we reluctantly hung our snorkels and fins up for the day.

The next day, we planned to visit the island of Kankaban which has a saltwater lake that has four species of stingless jellyfish which inhabit it. The lake has long been cut off from the ocean for so long that the jellyfish trapped inside, in the presence of no predators, have proliferated and evolved to become stingless. I had once seen a program on a similar lake in Palau (small island in Micronesia) and it has always stuck in my memory. I was longing to see this weird phenomenon and once I heard about this place I was certainly excited since it was the next best thing and a whole lot cheaper to visit.

Unfortunately our boatman from the previous day (who had been great) was busy so we had to look for another one. This proved to be more difficult than the first day but we thought that we had one lined up the night before. In the morning they did not show up and we decided to wait for a while since time in Indonesia moves like time in the Philippines (which is not American time). After an hour or so though we were getting worried since it was eating up our snorkeling time and the island was a 2 1/2 hour trip away. We went to look for the boat and found that they had just returned from fishing and did not really seem too ready to take us out. After awhile and agreeing to pay a bit more money than we had agreed upon the night before we eventually headed off. On top of that, this boat was slower than the one the day before and every time you moved on the boat, it felt like it was going to roll over. After such a great and easy experience the day before we were a bit discouraged (Oh well... that's life) but hoped that it would still be a good day.

After finally arriving at Kakaban, we jumped in the lake and found that it was even murkier than the surrounding sea with visibility of only about 10 feet. The jellyfish were certainly there but not exactly in the proportions that I had imagined. I had dreamed of floating through throngs of the pulsing little jellies and having to fight my way through (much like I saw in that program on Palau). It was not exactly like that but it was still pretty neat to be in the presence of so many beautiful but usually irritating little creatures without feeling the bad effects.

What actually turned out to be the best part of the lake was the mangrove fringed shore. Along the shallow edge, the bottom and the mangrove roots in the water had been colonized by a community of strange and very colorful organisms. There were sponges and tunicates of many bright shades of red and orange. There were morays, flatworms, sea cucumbers and fish which were specialized for this very unique environment. It was like nothing we had ever seen before and it made the visit to the lake really worth it even with the problems with our boat (it also broke down on our way home: it was getting dark and we almost thought that we were going to be stuck out at sea all night or worse).

But we got back safe and even decided to try another trip. We decided to go back to Sanggalaki since we loved it so much. Our boat the next day was a different one and much better and our snorkelling while not quite as good as the first day, was still peppered with mantas, turtles and big fish. These islands were probably the most impressive that we have seen for cool marine life so far and we would both head back in a minute and maybe next time we will strap a few tanks on our backs.

Transportation Exploits

2006-12-12T20:19:00.000+07:00

Once again, I feel compelled to mention our transportation exploits in this country. We left Kutai National Park by small motorboat in the afternoon. Surely, we thought, we would have enough time to catch the 5 buses to Berau which we were told about. We were waiting in Sangatta, which did not have its own transportation to Berau and so we were forced to sit on the side of the road (for Sangatta also lacked a bus terminal) until the buses from Samarinda jetted by. All we had to do was watch the road closely and hail down the bus as it flew through town. Simple enough. We should only have to wait a couple of hours. WRONG! We sat by the road from 3pm until 11pm and watched as every single (extremely packed) bus waved us away. We were getting worried. We didn't want to spend the night in this podunk town only to sit through the same scenario tomorrow and we didn't want to spend the extra money and time travelling down to Samarinda only to travel back through Sangatta 3 hours later.

We were just about to give up hope (how could we not when all of the locals were telling us to find a hotel and try tomorrow) when the very last bus drove by. Luckily for us, this bus wasn't stuffed to the gills and though every last seat was filled, they found room on the floor for us and our belongings. KC was kind enough to take the backless child's seat in the aisle while Lora lounged on the steps of the door with the second driver who was trying to get a little shut-eye before his shift.

To make a long story short: We paid the full price of the bus from Samarinda to Berau (though we got on in Sangatta) to spend the night on makeshift seats. This trip might have taken the cake.

A Note on Borneo

2006-12-12T20:07:00.000+07:00

The island of Borneo has long contained connotations of grandeur and mystery. It is one of the most biodiverse areas in the world, which draws both scientists and tourists from around the globe. It is also rich in natural resources, which brings the corporations which, together with the governments, seem hell-bent on sucking the island dry.

In the province of East Kalimantan in Indonesia almost every large city is a product of natural resource exploitation: Balikpapan has the off-shore oil rigs and the international corporations to match, Samarinda collects all of the giant hardwood logs from upriver, Berau is home to coal. Even lazy Sangatta, on the edge of Kutai National Park, thrives because of the large coal mine. It was strange to find ourselves hiking through the forest, searching for organ-utan with the sounds of coal mining machinery in the distance.

Today we just arrived in the Malaysian state of Sabah, where the forest is being logged as rapidly as possible and palm oil plantations are springing up in its wake. We had heard that it was nothing but palms, but we were still shocked to discovery the actual extent of the massive plantations. We took a 2 hour drive today and there weren't any towns or houses along the road, but there were rows upon rows of palms. It almost makes me yearn for the slash and burn destruction we saw in Indonesia. At least then it was local farmers needing the land to feed their families and the forest was never far off in the distance.

Big Hairy Apes

2006-12-11T21:08:00.000+07:00

Kutai National Park is a small patch of forest near the coast of Eastern Borneo. It has an interesting history: it was first set up by the Indonesian government in the 1960s, but soon their greed consumed them and they took away part of the park so it could become a logging concession. Then, as greed begets greed, they decided to give back the already denude area (how environmental of them!)in exchange for virgin forest lands, which were then raped of its trees. All of this means that the national park is in a pretty sorry state vegetation-wise, as far is national parks go. The good news is that there are still plenty of animals around the park and because there aren't many large trees these animals are relatively easy to see in the "natural" habitat. And this is what brought us to Kutai.

The main attraction of the park are some of the biggest and hairiest apes of all: the organ-utan (see bad out of focus pictures here). Some background info on organ-utan: there name translates to "people of the forest" (orang = person, hutan = forest, example: we are Orang American, the apes are Orang Hutan or orang-utan). They are only found on two large islands, both in Indonesia: Sumatera and Borneo. They are an arboreal species and spend most of their time eating the fruits and twigs of trees. They even sleep in the high boughs in a nest they make every night from fresh leaves. Through habitat loss and poaching their numbers have been greatly reduced.

We spent about a week in the park, in various locations. In the first, Sangkima the park service has set up a circular "adventure" trail right off of the busy highway. We call this trail adventure because, well, it is. There are places where its a boardwalk, which is lovely. Then the laborers got tired because the boardwalk turns into 6 in wide wood planks you must balance on about a meter or more in the air. The most adventurous of the adventure are the bridges. Borneo is a very wet place and there are many small creeks and streams. To cross these bodies of water, they park service developed many various bridge devices like the slightly slanting hanging wooden bridge and my person favorite: the tight rope with two wire handrails which all swings in the breeze. We opted to go in the river for that one. While the trail was adventurous, the wildlife viewing was not. We did see a group of macaques, who were not happy we crossed paths. They scared Lora so bad she ran away because she thought they'd attack with their nasty fangs, but they were only foolin'.

One of the best parts of being here was when a group of about 50 local high school students camp to camp in the deep dark jungle. They were very friendly and even offered us some of their dinner. They were also much more quite than 50 American students would EVER be...i was thoroughly impressed.

Then we moved to a place in the park called Prevab (I kept thinking there would be pre-fab housing there...I was wrong). To get there we had to travel to a coal company town and sit on the side of the river for a private boat to pass then convince them they should take us 20 minutes upriver. Of course no one would say no because the amount of money they get is absolutely ridiculous ("the price of gas is very expensive" blah).

Here we stayed on the floor of a once beautiful information center. The WWF helped put up this center and at one time it had electricity, furniture and even a sink, which has all been stolen so now its just a shell of a building. We brought our own food, tent and headlamps. It was like camping in the depths of the jungle only there was a large Japanese orangutan research station with a big generator right next door and every day we could hear sounds from the coal mine.

During our 3 days here we saw 6 orang-utan. The first was a large male who got very upset that we disturbed his lunch. He began grunting,shaking the boughs and throwing down branches at us. We watched him in is anger for a few minutes then decided we better jet before he comes down the tree and really does some harm. He was located a fruiting tree and I took it as a sign that this is where the orang-utan would hang out. We repeatedly went back to the same tree and were hardly ever disappointed. At one time there were three orang-utans eating its fruits. Now usually the apes like to travel in pairs, but we think that the mother was toting around her new baby and its older sibling. It was pretty amazing!

One night we decided to go on a night hike. We didn't get very far because we were exhausted from the 8 hours of trekking during the day, but in the hour hike we did run across 2 mouse deer. Mouse deer are so named because they are very, VERY tiny. Though they are larger than a mouse, they may not be larger than a giant rat. In actuality they are about the size of a house cat.

We saw a few other things such as monkeys and hornbills, but we never got a good view of any of them before they ran or flew off. We thought we'd see gibbons, but we missed them, though we did here their strange calls in the morning which we mistook for noisy morning birds...oops!

Local Transportation

2006-12-11T20:41:00.000+07:00

Our next destination out of Mamasa was also out of the island. As usual, travelling from "object wisata" to "object wisata" (tourist attraction to tourist attraction) in Indonesia is no simple task. Although we would have loved to, we did not have the time to hike out of the valley and there is only one major road that winds itself through the ragged mountains to the coast. This just might have be the mother of all hellish rides. We were told that in the 1920s the Dutch used to keep the road in top condition (they also had a telephone line to the valley, something that didn't exist again until a few years ago), but since they left the local governments are not too keen on the upkeep. It didn't help that Lora's tummy decided to go wacko on her so evertime the bus stopped she had to make a run for the nearest toilet. In total the ride took 12 hours, but this was only the beginning of the journey to our next destination: the Island of Borneo

We lucky to find that a boat was leaving that night for Balikpapan City, Borneo. We were told it would leave at 4pm (we arrived at the port at 3pm) and it would be a 12 hour boat ride. "Great!" We thought, "we'll arrive in time to figure out what we're doing next." But soon it became apparent that we would not be leaving so soon. In the end, the boat didn't leave until almost midnight because it had to load up a dozen semi-trucks. The next day, around 10 am we began to look for signs of land because we thought we must surely be docking soon...but strangely no land was to be found. We began speculating that perhaps Borneo (the island nearest to Sulawesi) was not our first destination and thought we may end up first on Java. Soon we couldn't stand it anymore and began asking around. As it turns out it wasn't a 12 hour boat ride but a 18 hour boat ride and we didn't dock until 7pm (after being on the boat for 24 hours).

I forgot to mention the accomodations on the boat. Our tickets were "non-seat" tickets and it didn't take us long to realize what this meant. There were no sleeping berths, as we were used to on Filipino overnight boats (we miss you Superferry!). What there was plenty of was open floor space. We decided to occupy a small spot on the top deck and even splurged the $2 to rent vinyl lined mattresses (exceptionally better than the hard floor).

Now I wouldn't say that this was unusual transport, by any means. And since we are cheap and like to do as the locals do, we have spent a considerable amount of time in situations similiar to the one accounted above. Out of the 2 months we've spent in the country we've about 1.5 weeks in transport...but the destinations are well worth the effort!

Onto Greener Pastures

2006-11-28T18:24:00.000+07:00

After our interesting funeral experience in Tana Toraja, we headed out for a hike in the surrounding area. We had been looking forward to trekking through the hills and getting splendid views of the 'lush, green countryside' that our guidebook raved about. We had expected serene little farming villages and terraced rice fields of splendid shades of emerald much like we had been privilged to see in the mountains of the northern Philippines. But when we arrived in Tana, we discovered that most of the rice had been harvested already and the fields were caked and dry and since the area had seen a unusually long 4 month dry spell the 'lush, green countryside' was scorched and brown. Oh well. We figured that our hike may not offer as many 'spectacular panoramas' as the maps and books claimed but it would be nice to get out in the villages by way of our own legs.

We had chosen to take the route from the western side of the Tana Toraja region to a neighboring area: Mamasa Valley. The trip was to cover about 60 kilometers and take a total of three days. After three days in Rantepao, the tourist capital of Tana, we were ready to get out of this scorching hot place and took a truck to the little town of Bittuang. When we arrived in Bittuang, we found that our the trail for our hike would once again be plied by cars and motorcycles. Our thoughts of traveling to remote villages only reached by foot would not be exactly what we expected but when is it ever. We headed of in the middle of the day and the sun burned down from above but luckily the higher elevation made the temperature at least bearable.

Our first day was the shortest and we covered about 12 kilometers before arriving at our destination: the small village of Paku. The road to get here reminded both of us of the Western U.S. with pine trees surrounding us and the air as dry as the desert. It was a pretty deserted trail with only a scattering of houses along the way and the occasional Land Cruiser that passed by accompanied by a choking cloud of dust. When we did arrive in Paku we were greeted by a nice little village snuggled in a greener valley and many rice fields that had just been planted. We could only imagine the beauty of this place had it been wetter and greener but it still was not a bad place to rest our tired feet. After checking into the homestay and being served a welcome pot of tea, we decided to explore the small kampung (village).

The next morning we arose and made our way towards the village of Timbaan. This trip was a bit longer and a bit hotter than the previous day and we were greeted by a not so welcome steep hill for the final leg. During the last few miles we also met a young teenager who asked us where we going. He was evidently from the same village we were going to and when we passed his house he insisted that we stay there. It was still a little ways from what looked to be the main part of Timbaan (not to say that the main part of this village was too large) but we decided that it sounded like a good idea. Anyways the irrigated terraced rice field in front of the house offered one of the nicest views that we had seen along the trek and it allowed for the snapping of a few decent pics. Here we traversed the steeply terraced fields to bathe in the river, while the chilren watched and swam, since there was no bathroom at our homestay.

Our final day of the hike would bring us to Mamasa Valley but not before passing over a ridge that did not look so steep or far when we started in the morning. But three hours later when we were still hiking up, we realized that our eyes had deceived us and that we would certainly be sleeping well that evening. Once we finally started to head down we realized that this valley was a bit wetter and as we headed closer towards Mamasa the fields did get greener and the forest surrounding the trail a bit thicker. The last few hours of the hike was even met by a decent rainstorm and the lush, green countryside finally came into view.

The cultural highlight of this trip was a brief stop at a 400 year old boat-shaped house. The owners of the house were gracious hosts and even though their were language barriers, we had a good time trying to discuss the house as well as America. The house was impressive, even in its run down state, with its intricately painted designs and its very large posts (there was no more lumber like that left in the valley).

Mamasa was certainly not as touristy as Rantepao and overall the smaller town suited us better. We had a chance to rest and relax a bit the next day as well as tour around the market. The people of Mamasa share many aspects with the folks in the neighboring Toraja region and have a similar language, architecture and cultural traditions. While this area has not embraced tourism to the extent that Toraja has and their cultural traditions may not be quite as evident, this place was certainly worth a visit and the trek to get here made it even more enjoyable.