September 7, 2007

Hi all, remember me? Well my summer travels have just come to an end and I must say, being back at home is absolutely delightful after a long absence. I will warn you, I have been up to many many things since you last heard from me, and, therefore, have a lot to write. Feel free to scroll down at any point, I just feel like sharing everything.

Let’s start from the beginning…

A: Madagascar Part II

You may or may not be aware that my first trip to Madagascar was mentally exhausting and it was really hard for me to motivate myself into returning this year. Nonetheless, the day of my departure arrived, and off I flew to South Africa, and then on to Madagascar. I traveled to Africa because I attended a lovely little conference at Ithala Game Reserve, which is roughly 5 hours East of Johannesburg. I have never been to mainland Africa before, and this trip did not disappoint as a first introduction. I spent a week hiking, attending talks, and meeting some fantastic other scientists at the meeting. I believe that I made some great contacts that will be useful in my future anthropology career. The reserve also offers game drives and I found that going out with the early morning/dawn drive allowed me to see a lot of interesting wildlife including giraffe, zebra, rhino, antelope of various shapes and sizes, warthogs, and birds.

After my stay at Ithala, I headed back to the Johannesburg area for a night. The lady who organized the conference also organized a side trip to two very anthropologically important cave sites, Swartkrans and Sterkfontein. I have read about these caves – they hold the remains of many species of Australopithecus and Paranthropus, two early hominid species. During our visit, we were given very nice personal tours and it was great to see the excavation sites and preservation conditions first-hand. I never imagined I would ever get to see these sites and this was so much more than I could ever have asked for.

And then it was time to fly to Madagascar. I met my colleague, Laurie Godfrey, at the airport and off we flew over the Mozambique Channel, towards Antananarivo. We stayed with Gisèle, an old graduate student of Laurie’s who rents out rooms to fellow scientists. She and her family were very pleasant and jovial and it was so much nicer to stay with a family than to stay in a hotel all alone. We spent the first half of our three-week trip in Tana, dealing with paperwork and inventorying the subfossil lemur collection in the University’s paleontological collection. Then we headed down to Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve in southwestern Madagascar.

Beza is not the easiest location to get to and it took a two-day drive to reach it from Tana. Our driver, Joachim, ended up being one of the nicest people I have ever met and he safely bore us the entire way without a hitch. We spent our first night in Fianarantsoa (very reminiscent of my last trip to Beza, when I stayed in Fianar and then took a Taxibrousse westward towards Tulear). However, unlike last time, this time we stayed at an eclectic hotel, the Hotel Soafia, which reminds me somewhat of an art deco version of the hotel in The Shining.

The last 5+ hours or so of the trip to Beza are on a dirt road that leaves you feeling like something was loosened in your head after bouncing around in the car. We reached Betioke, which is the closest town to Beza, at dark and decided to stop for the night and drive the last hour in the early morning, when it would be light out. We ate at a little hotely (Malagasy restaurant) and I ordered my usual rice and tomatoes. It was a bit challenging being a vegetarian in Madagascar but rice and tomatoes is easy and actually very tasty, especially when it is tomato season.  We arrived at Beza the following morning and I immediately got organized to begin my field research. I had been preparing for this field expedition since March and it turned out that we only had 5 days at Beza, so I had to act fast and modify my game plan a bit. We put together a team and headed out into the forest to collect plants. Our driver, Joachim, wanted to join us and he, the volunteer, was probably the most helpful of all of my field assistants. I am greatly indebted to him because I would never have been able to pull off the data collection that we managed to pull off without his help. The other field help was indispensable as well and we quickly developed a routine that can only be compared to a complex and precise machine. I collected plant samples from lower down on each tree and Joachim collected leaves from higher up using a nifty extendable clipper I purchased, Laurie wrote down all of the data, Elahavelo found trees of the right species, estimated tree height and measured tree diameter, Olivier labeled and flagged all the trees, and I recorded GPS coordinates. Then it was on to the next tree. In all, I collected about 600 samples from 400 trees. That should keep me busy for a bit… And then I had just enough time to organize and press herbarium samples for each of my plant species.

We bid Beza Mahafaly adieu after a very quick trip and returned to Tana. I was able to identify most of my plant specimens and I put together an exit report for the Missouri Botanical Gardens, who are helping me with export (the paperwork behind collection, exportation and importation of specimens is one of the most painful things I have ever had to deal with. Unfortunately, this is what any field scientist has to deal with any time they do any research so I guess I’ll have to get used to it). During this time, I got really sick and lost my voice for several days so you can imagine how interesting it was trying to ask about details for export and talk to people about bureaucracy in French when all I could do was squeak. I am quite happy that this is not something I have to deal with every day and I am glad that my voice eventually returned. We said our farewells to Joachim and Gisèle’s family. Then Laurie and I boarded our return plane to South Africa, and I settled in for my long flight home. What I have forgotten to mention is that I had a very, very short layover in Johannesburg and I had to go through customs AND switch airlines. I was petrified that I would miss my flight, and you really don’t want to miss a flight from Africa to the US since they are expensive, long, and don’t leave every hour on the hour. Laurie very generously offered to take one of my bags back with her to Massachusetts, and I left the rest of my belongings in Madagascar. This was a bit sad since I had to leave a bunch of things last year and I was delighted to see them again. Luckily, I know that my things are safe and they should be waiting for me when I return next year. I will retrieve my suitcase from Laurie when I visit her in December.

Back in California, a very sleepy Brooke was picked up by Matt and taken to the Argonaut Hotel, on Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco. This is where the annual Bay Area Institute meeting is held. This education-based conference is one of my favorite conferences to attend because it is small and is not filled with people who only speak science. Plus, the conference coordinators take very good care of the conference attendees and give us excellent food. After sleeping, I quickly returned to normal and got a lot out of my time at the conference.

I was very excited to return home after the conference. I hadn’t been back since my trip to Africa and I had a lot of things I wanted to deal with, not the least of which involved saying hello to our housemate and our chameleon, and doing some laundry.  Unfortunately, I had to do these things rather quickly since we had a wedding party to attend over the weekend and then we were leaving for Thailand. We had a day back in Santa Cruz, just enough time to put together a list of how to feed the fish and water the plants for our dear friends who helped us out while we were away, drop off the chameleon and frogs at the babysitters’, and pack for our next expedition. Whew!

The wedding celebration was lots of fun. Our friends, Peter and Laura, were married at the end of last year and have been planning a big party since then. They rented a big, open house with a sprawling deck and we all headed down to eat some good food, visit some friends, and tell them congrats. The house is located in the middle of some fields, on the coast of Monterey Bay, just west of Watsonville (which is southeast of Santa Cruz). The bride and groom threw a smashing party, which lasted for two days, and I was very happy to touch base with all of the people I hadn’t seen in awhile. After the party, Matt and I returned home, gathered our wits about us, and prepared ourselves for our trip to Thailand….

B: Thailand!

This trip, which was my first real vacation in quite some time, proved to be a very memorable holiday. The original purpose of the trip was to attend our friends’ wedding.

Firas and Amy have been a central part of my graduate social circle and Firas is in Matt’s department. Most of Matt’s department ended up attending the wedding and it was really just a big party with a bunch of our friends – only it was in Thailand. The wedding was held in Aonang, which is in the Krabi Province of southwestern Thailand. This is a really beautiful place, very lush with soft, white beaches, awesome limestone cliffs, islands, and caves, and exquisite coral reefs. They could not have picked a better place.  I was initially concerned because we were scheduled to visit smack dab in the middle of the rainy season of the “wettest place in Thailand.” Luckily, the weather decided to take pity on us and we were greeted with enough sun to all get sufficiently toasted.

Our flight was not too much of a hassle. I resented the size of my seat on the 12-hour flight from San Francisco to Taiwan, but there was nothing I could do about it. Our layover in Taiwan (the Taipei airport) made up for any hard feelings I may have been harboring. It was the cleanest and most serene airport I have ever seen, complete with nature galleries and an official Hello Kitty gate (Gate C3). From Taipei we traveled to Singapore, another great airport, which boasts all sorts of entertainment for the en route traveler. We had about six hours to kill and were thrilled to discover that the airport offers free city tours. It’s quite the setup – they write down your passport info and give you a ticket, you leave the airport but after you pass through customs, you give the tour guide your ticket (they wouldn’t want you getting loose in Singapore). Then you get on an air conditioned bus and drive around for two hours, looking at points of interest and dozing. This definitely beats sitting in the airport waiting for the next flight. It is because of this tour that I now know that Singapore was named for its lions….which no longer exist. After our tour, we transferred to the budget terminal and were more than surprised to come across friends of ours. We had assumed that everyone we knew had arrived days earlier. But we were wrong. We spent the rest of our layover time catching up and psyching ourselves up for our vacation.

Thailand, what a beautiful place! Our first full day, we hired a long tail boat to Ko Hong, a quiet little island near Aonang with some nice, lush forest, good fish and reefs, and perfect cove beaches. We snorkeled, enjoying the aggressive sergeant major fish, and kayaked to the back side of the island, where a narrow pass through the cliffs leads to a nice little lagoon. It was a perfect. The long tail boats are rather handsome vessels, with a deep keel and a nice bow. I noticed that the boatmen liked to tie colored scarves and flags to the bows of their boats and found this rather charming.

On Day 2, we traveled to Thanboke Khoranee National Park. This is actually quite an extensive park and may, or may not include the offshore island Ko Hong. We meandered along a little nature trail, raised above the flooded forest floor. Other than the close to unbearable heat and humidity, it was a forest out of a fairy tail. We passed some folks swimming in a waterfall and I yearned to join them, but decided against it on account of the wet ride I would have to endure on the way back to our hotel. After the nature trail, we visited two caves that are only accessible by boat, Pee Hua Toe, which is full of prehistoric cave paintings, and Tham Lot, which is a cave that one can only drift through. Neither of these caves disappointed, and I was thrilled to see some nice Thai speleology. We returned to our resort and prepared for the wedding. It was a lovely and very rapid ceremony. Much to our surprise, the bride and groom have actually been a legal couple for almost 2 years! They put together a little show for us, complete with some pretty exciting fireworks, and then we celebrated. Congratulations to them!

The next day we were all treated to a trip on a very nice boat that was sort of a mixture between a yacht and a pirate ship. The entire wedding party set out and spent the day cruising about the shallow waters surrounding the Aonang/Krabi area. We were fed good food, took some solid naps, kayaked, and snorkeled. I was blown away but the sea life we encountered. Despite the decreased visibility resulting from the monsoon season, it was hands down some of the best snorkeling I have ever done. I could hardly believe it.

Moving on, the morning of our final day in Aonang was spent riding an elephant named Watna, and visiting Tiger Cave Temple, which is a large temple partly built into a limestone cave. I was enamored with the design and we enjoyed looking at the Buddha statues sitting under stalactites, and watching the temple macaques swim in the fountain. The temple is famous for a mighty staircase, which leads to the top of the small mountain into which the temple is built. We did not have time to hike up these thousands of stairs. However, we DID have time to climb a much small staircase to view the backside of the hill. Here we were confronted with one of the strangest and eeriest noises I have ever heard. It must have been insects, but it sounded like a mixture between high-pitched horns that were tuned slightly sharp, and a band saw. I felt like I was in a suspense scene in a horror movie. What an unearthly noise.

We rushed back from the temple so as not to miss checking out from our hotel on time. Then after dealing with these mundane details, we hired a long tail boat to visit Railey Beach, reportedly one of the most beautiful beaches in the whole world, and only accessible by boat since it is surrounded by steep limestone cliffs. I could not agree more with this claim. Immediately upon our arrival, we were greeted with some breathtaking views, not to mention an intense soccer match on the beach. What we did not know is that Railey is actually divided up into three pieces and we almost missed the best part. It was only due to a series of fortuitous events that we finally stumbled upon the right place, where we settled into a nice snorkel (where we saw a sea snake) and an extreme cave expedition. Most excellent! And then it was time to leave, say goodbye to our friends, and strike out on our own adventure in Thailand.

Our first destination was Pi Pi Island, a larger island that was made famous by “The Beach.” There is a rather glitzy little town where the ferries dock, which is full of tourist shops, travel agencies, and hotels. However, just a half hour walk (or 10 minute boat ride) from this madness lies Hat Yao, a very peaceful and rather dreamy beach. This is where we opted to stay.  We spent a couple of days not doing much of anything other than drinking fruit shakes, snorkeling, sleeping, drinking beer, and walking into town at night for some dinner and people watching. We even got to see some fire dancing. I really appreciated this decompression time and the snorkeling just off shore was unreal. I even got a Thai massage. Mmmm, massage.

After Pi Pi, we headed back to the mainland for a brief stay in Krabi Town before flying up to Bangkok. Unlike the other places we had stayed thus far, Krabi is an actual town that exists for purposes other than tourism. It was very refreshing to walk down the street and see stores other than tourist shops and restaurants. We spent some time walking through a Thai Shopping mall, record store, and markets. We ate at night markets and even found an excellent all-vegetarian restaurant. I bought some beans on a whim, which I noticed were being sold at all off the markets we visited. I still do not know what they were called but they were probably the worst things I have ever, ever tasted. Because flying within Thailand is so cheap and because we really did not have a lot of time to waste, we decided to splurge and fly the long distances. It felt strange waiting at an airport for an hour flight, but it was worth it. We saved several hours and were able to relax and enjoy ourselves a bit more.

And that was the end of the southern portion of our Thailand trip. Upon arrival in Bangkok, we marveled at the number of superfluous taxi information/help desk signs and agents (all that any of them told us was to follow the posted signs to the taxis outside), and we were whisked away to the train station in the heart of Bangkok. What a contrast to where we had spent the previous week. Here we saw industry, and traffic, and fashion. I was rather startled to see that the number of billboards in English greatly outnumbered the number in Thai or Thai and English. I was also awed by the fact that the city skyline stretched out almost as far as I could see in all directions. This has to be the largest city I have ever been to.

However, I didn’t have too much time to ponder this as it grew dark and our train departed in a torrential downpour. We purchased a cold beer and endured the muggy 1.5-hour trip to Ayuthaya. Ayuthaya is an old city and is actually an island surrounded by rivers. Founded in 1350, it remained the capital of Thailand until 1769, when the Burmese sacked it for the second time and the capital was moved, more or less, to Bangkok. The city is full of old Wat (temples) and we spent two days walking long distances and visiting them. One could say: “you’ve seen one temple, you’ve seen ‘em all,” and I agree that this is partially true. However, each Wat actually had its own certain appeal and flavor and I am glad that we visited as many as we did. I will not go into details about each Wat. I will say that it was a great place to spend a few days and I really liked the atmosphere. I will also say that they had good food and that the banana pancakes at the night market were excellent. If you are interested in Ayuthaya, I recommend checking on a website or book on Thai history.

From Ayuthaya, we took the train North to Lobpuri, an even older city with Hindu, rather than Buddhist, roots. Lobpuri is famous for its macaques and boy did we see plenty of macaques! Monkeys walking along the power lines, monkeys picking off the detailing on cars, monkeys crossing the streets in gangs, monkeys stealing belongings from the tourists, you name it. This city loves their macaques. They have monkey playgrounds around some of their temples – complete with jungle gyms, big vats for the monkeys to swim in, lots of fresh fruit, and flower offerings (which the monkeys eat). The city even serves the macaques a formal dinner once a year, complete with waiters and menus. That must be interesting… I was almost enamored but I had enough crazed macaques look like they were about to jump on me and try to steal my sunglasses or camera that I kept my distance. After too many monkeys we wandered through an extremely large market complex – it just kept going and going and going and I imagine it would be quite easy to become lost forever if one lost his or her wits.

It wasn’t a long trip to Lobpuri, just a couple of hours. Our time was growing short and we still had miles to go and big sites to behold. So, we hopped back on the train and headed to Phitsanaluk, a city that has apparently passed under the tourist radar  and happened to be my favorite city. They have a great river walk lined with little parks. In the parks the children’s playgrounds involve creative animal slides like dragons and  elephants, and they have orbital-like workout machines instead of log exercise stations (needless to say, they were all occupied every time we passed a park). There was also the biggest aerobics session I have ever witnessed in a large park and spilling out into the street. It must have involved a couple hundred people. Apparently Phitsanaluk is full of health-conscious people. We wandered through a market adjacent to the river and drank some nice draft beer in a little beer garden, watched the sun set and the increasing lightning of an approaching storm. It was great. We also got to see “flying vegetables” being served at the market food stalls. This involved someone getting up on a raised platform with a plate, a drum roll, and a swift toss of some green vegetables from the wok up into the air and towards the platform where the plate holder would gracefully catch it amidst the sound of applause. Fascinating. We timed our return to the hotel perfectly and just missed a torrential downpour. This happened to us several times on our trip, quite accidentally. I really don’t know how we timed it so well. I am just glad we did.

The next morning, we miraculously found a bus heading towards the old city of Sukhotai and, relaxing in air-conditioned bliss for an hour, we were amused by the bus’s pink curtains with little pompoms and the cheesy music videos they showed. Sukhotai is similar to Ayuthaya, built at the same time, with similar architecture. However, Sukhotai was abandoned after only 100 or 150 years and all that remains today are the old temple ruins. The old city exists as a serene parkland that makes for a very pleasant bike ride (but rather hellish walk). Again, I will not bother naming everything we saw. Check out the photos if you like and, if you want to know more, I am sure that there is information available on Sukhotai history.

We flew back to Bangkok out of the quaintest and prettiest little airport I have ever seen in my life. They gave us little orchids to pin onto our shirts when we checked in and the “terminal” was an open-air room with hanging flowers and free juice and snacks. I would have dealt with a layover there any day.

I’m almost through with this tale. Last stop, Bangkok. We stayed near Kaosan, the most touristy and craziest street I have ever seen. If you have ever seen a photo where the sky is lit up with neon signs and there are swarms of people EVERYWHERE, it could very well have been Kaosan. We walked up and down, through the action a few times and decided that was about enough of that and went to bed. Our last day in Thailand was spent admiring the grand sites of Bangkok. We started off by visiting Wat Pho – a truly grand temple with towers ornately decorated with tiled mosaics. This wat also houses the giant golden reclining Buddha, something I really wanted to see while in Thailand. It is truly awesome to behold.

From Wat Pho we moved on to the Royal Palace. We actually skirted the entire palace wall before finding the entrance that admitted visitors. All the other entrances were outfitted with unsmiling armed guards. We had one scammer try to tell us that the temple was not accepting visitors until 2 pm, but he could take us to the “Lucky Buddha,” which as “luck” would have it, happened to be open that day, the only day all month. Right… We walked on until we found the main entrance. We borrowed long pants and a long skirt so we could be properly attired to go into the palace grounds, and we entered the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The sites that we beheld inside this temple compound are far beyond description and more than we could even register.  Just imagine being in a place where all building exteriors glitter, all towers are painted gold, giant guardian statues greet you at every entrance and exit, and the most detailed mural you have ever seen lines the entire compound wall. By far one of the most incredible places I have ever been.

After the palace, we were a little bit burned out and over stimulated. However, we still managed a visit to the National Museum, which is full of history, art, and more. It was a nice place to finish up since it informed us about the history of the places we had visited. Afterwards, we enjoyed some 15 Baht Pad Thai from a street vendor (~50 cents). What a steal! Then we spent our last evening wandering about the chaos of Kaosan and discovering less crowded alleys and side streets. This was a nice way to end our trip and I returned the to US feeling happy and relaxed.

So, now you are up to speed. It’s almost time for our fall quarter to start. Until next time!

Brooke