Hello, sa-wat-dee. Enough time has passed that I have fallen into a well-set routine. And, I'll even admit that being hot and sweaty and trudging up and down and around hills all day makes me look forward to a cold shower. The days are getting hotter (the rainy season is expected to begin in late April with a peak in June). It's usually around 70F by seven in the morning and must reach mid-nineties by mid-afternoon. I'm happy to report that the motorbike driving is getting better although I am still not comfortable driving with a passenger. So, what do I see hiking all day in the forest? I have to admit that the majority of my time is not spent hiking, but sitting on the ground. We often see no visible monkeys, not even visible movement, but we just know which tree they are in and stick to it until they move. I've logged enough hours in the forest now to come across a few cool critters. I have seen one guar (a large water-buffalo looking animal), but no elephants yet. We do see plenty of their plant destruction and footprints. Of course, the highest percentage of everything I run into, so they can't be overlooked, (ticks I mentioned before), but now I am quite familiar with LEECHES. It isn't the rainy season yet, however, we've had a week of uncharacteristic daily rains. The bad news: this means I pull at least thirty leeches off my clothes during the day. If you stand in one spot in the forest you can literally watch them inch forward - "smelling" to locate you - the target of an invasion from a bad horror flick. We wear leech socks, tubes of material that go over your regular socks and tie tight at the knee, keeping out intruders. But, when I remove my boots I also remove balls of ten to twenty leeches from my heel area and under my arch or packed around the shoe edges. The good news: It doesn't hurt when they bite (they inject something to numb the area which makes them difficult to detect); you just deal with an annoying amount of blood because they also inject something to prevent clotting.
But, enough about that fun subject, how about snakes? Yep, just four days ago I was almost bitten by a snake - a viper (potentially venomous) judging by the triangular shape of the head. It was small, about 25-30cm, with a dark red stripe down the center back with yellow and black specks along the sides, and a beautiful rust color that was perfect camouflage for the wet leaf litter. I was just about to step over it when I spotted it, and as I withdrew my foot it struck at and hit the inside of my hiking boot. Luckily the second aggressive attempt at a strike hit air. Lek, the ranger I was with for the day, was ahead of me on the trail and must have stepped right over the thing. I wasn't able to identify it from the small reptile field guide we have here. A stunning sight, but it did get my heart pumping :)
More than the snake story, our encounter with an Asiatic Black Bear was the story that spread throughout the sanctuary in a couple of hours. Carola and I were out walking the transect (a 4000 meter trail running at a set angle - meaning it goes down into valleys, through rivers, and up slopes). We take three minutes to walk 50 meters. This is slow. At all times you are scanning looking for any monkey sightings and at the trail ahead to avoid obstacles and be as quiet as possible. In total, the transect takes about four hours to walk (if there are no interruptions) and this does not count the half-hour hike in (in the dark before sunrise) and one and a half hour hike out. Did I mention it is slow and exhausting? Anyway, so you get the idea that we were walking slow and quiet, which meant we were within 30 feet of the bear when we saw it and before it saw us. Carola was startled and started to back away/ half push me down the trail. The only time I felt my heart beat faster was when I thought she was going to run. As Carola turned her back on the bear it turned to stare at us. He then took a step toward us. For a split second I thought he was going to continue advancing. I was thinking to myself, "um, where would be the best place to go if he decides to charge," but other than that I was much more fascinated to get a clear view of his face than I was scared. The big story that everyone got a kick out of was that I stood there trying to get a better look with my binoculars (even though we were much too close to need binoculars), while Carola was ready to hit it with bear spray or her machete. But there was no incident, it turned and ploughed off in the opposite direction.
The week of 23rd of March Carola and Andreas ran a five-day lecture/lab workshop, Primate Ecology and Conservation in Thailand - A Teaching Workshop at Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary. Officially fifteen employees of the Royal Forestry Department and three university students were asked to attend. Unofficially, we had about thirty people. After every power-point slide presented we sat through a full Thai translation, making the lecture pace slow for everyone. My role in the workshop was to help out during the daily labs. I had the most fun teaching a group of chiefs (high-ranking managers of various sanctuaries) how to use a range-finder and compass. At one point I gestured to one of the flagged trees for them to estimate distance saying, "blue blue." Apparently, I also pointed toward one of the gentlemen and the group thought I was saying "luung luung" (or uncle in Thai). It's one of those things where you had to be there, but they got a huge laugh out of it and every time they saw me afterward they called out "blue uncle." The lab was cut short because it turned noon and noon means lunch for Thais - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. So, they said, "ah, enough of this, we go lunch." The end. Traditionally Thais are afraid of the forest and you would never see them hiking/camping. For example, when school groups come to Phu Khieo we only see them bird watching, scanning the trees from the road.
My favorite lunch during the workshop was the result of being called over to a group of Thais sitting around bowls of fish, chicken, beans, pineapple, and sticky rice. We ate with our fingers and masses of rice and shared laughs (about what I do not know). I was the only farang (foreigner) and it felt good (even if I was a little self conscious about eating fruit - they kept watching what I ate and warned me not to each so much pineapple or I would get fat). At the end of the workshop we finished off with a typical Thai party-starting early at five pm. The custom is to drink beer before dinner, eat, then bring out the sound system for karaoke and hard liquor. Basically by dinner people are on their way to being drunk. I ate dinner with Guillaume and in the second it took him to step out to grab more beer I was surrounded by older guys - including the boss of the chief of our sanctuary. They tried to question me to the extent of their English. The big joke was that I was surrounded by a Laotian, Thai, and Cambodian man, I could have my pick. Right. Luckily I was "rescued" by some female students who would intercept and dance between the guys and me. I looked like a fool dancing (in Thai it consists of swaying/hopping and moving your hands "mixing" the air), but so did everyone else. I was actually relieved to dance because it meant I wasn't doing karaoke. (Every ten minutes I was asked if I would get up to sing). By the end of the night everyone was drunk and this seems to be typical and accepted. I got (too close) hugs on the way out and passed others who could barely stand.
Despite a party every once in a while, our usual nighttime entertainment is far more basic and unique. I mean, you have to be creative when you have no TV. We have watched Guillaume and Stephan shake mentholated talcum powder down their pants (think icy/hot sensation), analyzed tarot cards (I pulled the "strength" card), and laughed as Kitty (one of the sanctuary workers) and Andreas cheered on an old senile pelican carefully climbing the steps to our porch to get out of the rain). If we happen to have two days off in a row sometimes we go to the town of Khon Kaen where we can get a hot shower. Actually, last time in Khon Kaen I tried a traditional Thai massage (300baht or about $7 for two hours). They come right to your hotel room. The massage started with the lady cracking all of my toes and progressed to nice kneading of the muscles in my legs and back with some hip stretching thrown in. Ended with her stretching my back over her knees. Overall, very relaxing body-wise. Not mentally so, however. At the beginning she wanted to ask me questions all in Thai and I caught only about 5% of the conversation which takes a lot of mental concentration. But, going to Khon Kaen is a luxury because it means driving the motorbike 1 hour from the sanctuary to Loui Lai (a small village). Next, taking a slow moving, small open-air bus 1 hour to Cham Phae (a larger town where we usually buy groceries and do email). And finally, being ushered to a "ceiling fan" two-hour bus ride to Khon Kaen (keep in mind all the buses are packed to the gills with people sitting/standing in the aisles). By the time you arrive you are battered by wind and sun and questions in Thai and utterly exhausted. But, you get pizza for lunch. We maybe maybe see a handful of foreigners in Khon Kaen and usually none in Cham Phae. Yeah, so that's what we do for fun. Contrasted with the long days in the forest it all sums up what I'm up to these days.
Bacteria, Giardia, or Worms?
Seems that I wouldn't last too long on Survivor Thailand. You wondered about the cooking? I finally got time to sit and type emails onto Carola's ancient laptop (black and white screen, windows 3.1 in German) because I was sick with stomach flu (diarrhea, fever, chills) for seven days. After five days of being sick and two days of taking a strong antibiotic along with Imodium, with no improvement, Carola and I went to the Cham Phae Hospital. Beforehand I used one of their DNA vials for a stool sample. Drove up to the hospital and saw an entire mob of people waiting - tired and spent looking, but at the same time interesting and full of life and experience. Many rural women in traditional dress of purple sarongs with geometric shapes and hair cut short. To help us out, Carola had her English speaking friend, Maun, from on of the cheapy gold jewelry stores in town, write down my symptoms in Thai. My Thai ID card turned out to be extremely useful for them to fill out a form for me, so now I have a hospital card. We were directed, given a sort of royal "show and tell" treatment, to a room that was bordered by partitioned rooms for examination. After waiting at various numbered rooms, one of which the doctor took one look at me and closed the door in my face, we were finally positioned in a row of four seats leading up to the door. The current patient was clearly visible to me. Even as they ushered me into the examination room, the doctor was still in discussion with another patient. After the prior patient left there were no introductions, I just handed my registration card to the Dr. and mumbled diarrhea 5 days, fever, headache. He had me lay down on a stained mattress and gruffly blurted "excuse me" as he poked at my stomach. No washing his hands or explaining what he was feeling for and found or didn't. This was all in fairly clear view of all the waiting patients who had no embarrassment over watching the whole time. I got down and he sort of patted at me and laughed as if to say "ha ha funny farang (foreigner) only has watery diarrhea and thinks is a problem." So, he told me to continue taking the antibiotics, wrote me a prescription for aspirin and something for pain and sent me to door 20. They took my stool sample after some confusion and embarrassment on my part of having people open an envelope and look at my sh!t. As we waited they looked at the sample under what looked like microscopes from a high-school biology classroom. Found nothing. So they conferred, walked me over to a table and showed me a long cotton swab. And this means? After many directions in Thai from three different people, I finally got a key word "insert." Fine. I found the bathroom, took the swab, and have absolutely no confidence that they will find anything. They told me they will mail me the results. Carola tried to explain we would come back for the results, but they were adamant about mailing. So, it should take them three days to get the results, and probably another week to get the mail at the sanctuary headquarters and a few days after that for the mail to reach me. Basically, I learned nothing. The entire hospital bill (including prescriptions which they gave me there) was something like 65 baht -- less than $2. The whole hospital experience was March 11. On the 12th I took one tablet of Mebendazole for worms. Today, the 14th is the first day that I have eaten regular food. Before this I ate only bread and rice and bananas, and before that, nothing but electrolyte powder drink. But, I do feel better today, and no more diarrhea. I hope to go back out in the forest tomorrow, because it has been six days now that they have had to rearrange the schedule without me working. The most annoying thing is that I have no idea the source of the problem. Could have been any of a number of too much bad bacteria, or giardia, or worms. But, so far so good today...
Phu Khieo First Impressions
I took a field assistant position working for two professors from State University of New York-Stony Brook on a primate behavior project. I have been living in Thailand at the Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary since February 23, 2003 and will stay until March 2004.
On first impression, the forest was not what I expected. It is extremely dry with crunchy leaves that litter the ground; not the lush wetness I imagined. Of course when I arrived it was in the end of the cool winter season, but the plants are indicative of dry areas. The forest is quiet, not like wet rain forest. If you didn't know better, a quick glance looks like Wisconsin because of the pine trees on the outer edge of the forest. One would tend to think of our study site as "forest" not "jungle," if that makes sense. Our living quarters are about a 45 min. drive on a motorbike from the sanctuary entrance. The wood buildings are raised three feet on stilts and look like summer camp cabins for kids (they are even numbered!). Black and white posts on the side of the road remind me of markers for a campsite. I have quite a nice green mosquito net (it is rectangular so easily forms and hangs around the bed). I can see though the planks on the walls and my floor has rather large holes. The bathroom took the most getting used to. It is an Asian-style toilet, just enough room for your feet on each side of a porcelain basin. You "flush" the waste with water you scoop out of a large holding tank. A second holding tank supplies water for washing your hands. You shower with a hand-held nozzle, cold only. All of the water is discarded onto the floor and there is little drainage. When we first arrived the floor was soaking wet and reminded me of an overflowing toilet in a bus station restroom. We take off our shoes before we step onto the porch, and because I had no flip-flops to wear I had to walk bare-foot into the water. Now I have gotten myself a pair of sandals to wear in the bathroom, but I still have trouble with the concept of no sink and constant wet floors. Typically I work seven or eight days and then have two days off (one to go into Chum Phae, the nearest town for supplies-about an hour distant by car; and one day to rest). I start the days I am scheduled to look for a monkey group (we are studying monkeys called langurs) with a dawn (4 A.M.) breakfast by candlelight (we only have electricity from six to ten in the evening), usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with instant coffee. Then it's off on the motorbike to pick up the ranger assigned to me for the day followed by a 20-minute drive the study site trail entrance. The majority of the day we spend slowly hiking trails until we find a group of langurs. One group of 22 (named PA) is already habituated, which means that our walking around and staring at them through binoculars doesn't cause them to freak out and flee. When we spend a day with PA we record their location every half hour based on a grid system of marked trees and we note down all of the individuals present. I am still learning how to identify individuals by their muzzle shape, hair crest, or white eye rings. The infants are bright orange, and their gender is difficult to determine. Non-habituated groups are a different story. We practically have to sneak up on them, and then slowly follow until they(invariably) decide they've had enough and flee. Think slow steps, no noise, much stealth. We usually leave the forest between 2 P.M. and 6 P.M., depending on how long we can follow the langurs. The schedule usually allows just enough time to catch a shower and maybe a quick snack of a Nutella sandwich and hot tang. Dinner is at 7 P.M., cooked by a local woman whose name is Ba-tong. We have our meals in sort of a central place near the headquarters with three large tables and benches where visitors and rangers eat. The venue even has a T.V. for movies. The food, however, is not even close to what I was eating in Bangkok. We always have tons of rice of course, and then a side dish of vegetables and meat/tofu. The side dish is always spicy and usually curry. Unfortunately, it often looks unappetizing. So I have to force myself to eat every night, in part because I know the food sits out for days (non-refrigerated of course) in a cabinet that keeps the ants out. Our routine after dinner is to sit on the porch, watch the Sambar deer attempt to eat our garbage, and drink beer (well, hot tang for me). Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to practice Thai much at all because I'm out in the forest all day and we try to be quiet. But, I am working on it. I bring my flashcards everywhere. And, when I work with the rangers, Lek or Wichian, I do try to learn new words. But so far we have only gone through a couple words related to the forest. They both speak a little English, though it took me time to grow accustomed to their pronunciation. A field guide to birds helped me "break the ice" with them. Lek loves to learn English bird names. So, I pronounce a name for him and he writes it in his language book. Then, he writes the bird's name in my book in Thai and repeats it so I can spell it phonetically. We also got into an involved discussion on the diversity of animal noises. For example, I insist that American pigs "oink," but Lek contends a Thai pig says "uut-uut-eeee." A U.S. frog goes "ribbit-ribbit," but the language of Thai frogs, says Lek, is "gop-gop." My favorite difference, which sounds more accurate than the others, is the Thai gecko, which says "tok gay" rather than "gec-ko." The conversations are simple and tedious, but friendly and fun. I go everywhere in flip-flops or hiking boots. And of course, there are tons of ticks, leeches and critters to deal with.
On first impression, the forest was not what I expected. It is extremely dry with crunchy leaves that litter the ground; not the lush wetness I imagined. Of course when I arrived it was in the end of the cool winter season, but the plants are indicative of dry areas. The forest is quiet, not like wet rain forest. If you didn't know better, a quick glance looks like Wisconsin because of the pine trees on the outer edge of the forest. One would tend to think of our study site as "forest" not "jungle," if that makes sense. Our living quarters are about a 45 min. drive on a motorbike from the sanctuary entrance. The wood buildings are raised three feet on stilts and look like summer camp cabins for kids (they are even numbered!). Black and white posts on the side of the road remind me of markers for a campsite. I have quite a nice green mosquito net (it is rectangular so easily forms and hangs around the bed). I can see though the planks on the walls and my floor has rather large holes. The bathroom took the most getting used to. It is an Asian-style toilet, just enough room for your feet on each side of a porcelain basin. You "flush" the waste with water you scoop out of a large holding tank. A second holding tank supplies water for washing your hands. You shower with a hand-held nozzle, cold only. All of the water is discarded onto the floor and there is little drainage. When we first arrived the floor was soaking wet and reminded me of an overflowing toilet in a bus station restroom. We take off our shoes before we step onto the porch, and because I had no flip-flops to wear I had to walk bare-foot into the water. Now I have gotten myself a pair of sandals to wear in the bathroom, but I still have trouble with the concept of no sink and constant wet floors. Typically I work seven or eight days and then have two days off (one to go into Chum Phae, the nearest town for supplies-about an hour distant by car; and one day to rest). I start the days I am scheduled to look for a monkey group (we are studying monkeys called langurs) with a dawn (4 A.M.) breakfast by candlelight (we only have electricity from six to ten in the evening), usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with instant coffee. Then it's off on the motorbike to pick up the ranger assigned to me for the day followed by a 20-minute drive the study site trail entrance. The majority of the day we spend slowly hiking trails until we find a group of langurs. One group of 22 (named PA) is already habituated, which means that our walking around and staring at them through binoculars doesn't cause them to freak out and flee. When we spend a day with PA we record their location every half hour based on a grid system of marked trees and we note down all of the individuals present. I am still learning how to identify individuals by their muzzle shape, hair crest, or white eye rings. The infants are bright orange, and their gender is difficult to determine. Non-habituated groups are a different story. We practically have to sneak up on them, and then slowly follow until they(invariably) decide they've had enough and flee. Think slow steps, no noise, much stealth. We usually leave the forest between 2 P.M. and 6 P.M., depending on how long we can follow the langurs. The schedule usually allows just enough time to catch a shower and maybe a quick snack of a Nutella sandwich and hot tang. Dinner is at 7 P.M., cooked by a local woman whose name is Ba-tong. We have our meals in sort of a central place near the headquarters with three large tables and benches where visitors and rangers eat. The venue even has a T.V. for movies. The food, however, is not even close to what I was eating in Bangkok. We always have tons of rice of course, and then a side dish of vegetables and meat/tofu. The side dish is always spicy and usually curry. Unfortunately, it often looks unappetizing. So I have to force myself to eat every night, in part because I know the food sits out for days (non-refrigerated of course) in a cabinet that keeps the ants out. Our routine after dinner is to sit on the porch, watch the Sambar deer attempt to eat our garbage, and drink beer (well, hot tang for me). Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to practice Thai much at all because I'm out in the forest all day and we try to be quiet. But, I am working on it. I bring my flashcards everywhere. And, when I work with the rangers, Lek or Wichian, I do try to learn new words. But so far we have only gone through a couple words related to the forest. They both speak a little English, though it took me time to grow accustomed to their pronunciation. A field guide to birds helped me "break the ice" with them. Lek loves to learn English bird names. So, I pronounce a name for him and he writes it in his language book. Then, he writes the bird's name in my book in Thai and repeats it so I can spell it phonetically. We also got into an involved discussion on the diversity of animal noises. For example, I insist that American pigs "oink," but Lek contends a Thai pig says "uut-uut-eeee." A U.S. frog goes "ribbit-ribbit," but the language of Thai frogs, says Lek, is "gop-gop." My favorite difference, which sounds more accurate than the others, is the Thai gecko, which says "tok gay" rather than "gec-ko." The conversations are simple and tedious, but friendly and fun. I go everywhere in flip-flops or hiking boots. And of course, there are tons of ticks, leeches and critters to deal with.