Embedded Files
After my Phi Mai dig, I yearned to go back to Thailand and did, early in 1999. I chose a new expedition which was to take me from Chiang Mai south into some pretty remote areas. We were to stay In the Om Koi wildlife sanctuary/ tree farm and take day trips up into the nearby mountains. The objective was to document the wildlife In this sanctuary, and also to see how their migration patterns were obstructed by villages, often built by hill tribe people who had migrated from northern Thailand and Laos.
Dr. Philip Dearden was the PI but was not there; his graduate students Anak and Robin were our supervisors but It wasn't very clear what we were supposed to do to begin with. I was, of course, assigned to set up some databases to record the Information. There wasn't a lot to do on that front. There were only four of us from Earthwatch and one of those was a staff member. Everyone but me was 40 or under. I was 62! We stayed with Pat, a Thai sociologist who lived with other Thai staffers at the sanctuary. For the first time I encountered someone who could read English perfectly well but not be able to speak It, or to understand much!
We took seven hours to get to the sanctuary from Chiang Mai because we had to stop for supplies and more supplies, so the extra woman who came (Thai, name unknown, works at center) could go to a doctor, etc. We went higher and higher into the foothills of the range, and along ridges, on a surprisingly good paved road for quite a long way, but eventually the paving ran out. It's still good, wide, oiled dirt that has been paved at bad spots, all the way to the sanctuary headquarters and beyond, though there are definitely rough spots. Stopping on the ridge we could see mountain ranges in both directions - one set is the remains of the Himalayas but I don't know what the other set is. Beautiful country, and much more prosperous than the rural areas around Phi Mai.
Where to put us was complicated. It emerged over the evening hours that we would stay in Pat's house, where we had stopped, for "the next few days" - and I think it's unlikely in the extreme that we will move. The house has two bedrooms but a good-sized living area and two bathrooms. Tile floor. Little furniture, no kitchen. The three women of the team were all set up in one bedroom, on the thin mattresses Thais favor, but with blankets and pillows and individual mosquito nets, so we are quite comfortable, except that we don't really have any place to unpack anything so we live out of the suitcases.
The sanctuary is in a bit of an upset because the Queen is coming. It is not clear WHEN the queen is coming but soon. Probably on the 6th. The project is in a bit of an upset because Phil Dearden apparently gave no thought whatsoever as to what volunteers would do other than go up into the mountains camping with Anak, who is trying to get some baseline data on what animals and birds inhabit the higher elevations (6000' or so up). None of us had expected this to be a full camping trip, and indeed it is planned that there be visits to hilltribe villages, but the main thing is to go up in the mountains and get data for Anak.
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The first morning Robin laid out some of the research papers Dearden has done, and took us on a walk to the "captive breeding project" which is on the Sanctuary headquarters grounds. This is a zoo of Thai animals. A few are being bred but most of them are lone animals acquired as poachers were arrested, or thereafter. The sun bears are rescued from gall bladder tappers. The cages are like those in zoos in the '40s in the US - small and cramped. Three English young men (not there when we arrived, but turned up since) are here with some project to try to help captive animals and they're building better cages and layouts for the bears, anyhow. There are no elephant or tiger, thank heavens, but several civets, some wild pig, several of the large and small deer and cow species. Not terribly interesting. By the time we returned it was VERY hot and we rested, then went to the other part of the breeding project, which was not much more interesting than the first but had monkeys and birds.
We also saw the Center which is getting ready for the Queen's visit. The Queen comes every year, and buys fabric woven by the women, and takes it back to Bangkok for it to be made into items appealing to westerners. The hilltribe people - the Karen - have apparently come down the hill from their village (which is on a nearby road, though I'm not sure all of them live in the village) - and are camped out waiting to see the Queen. They will wait until she comes. The rice harvest is over, so they have time on their hands, I guess. [The queen never came. There had been an accident not long before in which her helicopter went down and some of her entourage had been killed.]
We eat lunch and dinner at a dining hall (outdoors, of course) not far above Pat's house, and we make our own tea and toast at the house. There's plenty of soda and beer and so on at the house.
After dinner Anak showed us his slides of what he wants to do and where he wants to do the tracking, and what he's seen so far. The whole mountain area looks lovely but I had grave doubts about my being able to manage going up there. Very hot, and high altitude. And a too-large backpack which I'd have to carry myself. We'd been told day hikes; this was planned to be a several day one. So I opted out.
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This morning Pat took me up to the breeding center, where I wandered around looking and listening to birds, peacefully, while Pat got harangued again; finally we went to the center where her office is and I wandered around there, eventually walking back for lunch, and now it's just past naptime. I'm going to work on Anak's computer which he left with me; there is some recording of the observations made on the camping trip so far to do.
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The data recording on Anak's computer is all done; I set up a couple of simple databases and a few rules to follow in entering the data; there's really very little, alas, of any use because there have only been I guess four trips up the ridge. Maybe three. Elephants seen at great distance here; tiger tracks there. No really exciting stuff except being there, I guess. I do wish I could have gone, but my knees are giving me hell. Plain going up and down steps is painful!
Caught up on my work, and on my journal, I was dropped off by Pat to eat dinner with the guys at the Plantation last night. The plantation is the plant nursery, really, tiny teak and bamboo and dipterocarp seedlings, and it's where a lot of the guys apparently get together to have dinner and drink. I guess I was flattered to be included - there were nine of them and one of me - but Pat, as I say, dropped me off. The guys, some of them, can speak English but obviously don't want to have to try, so I pretty much just sat and ate and said aroy when asked how good the food was. When Pat came back I asked her to take me to the house so I could read instead of sitting in the buggy porch listening to Thai laughter!
Sunday, as I understand it, there is to be a cockfight in the village and maybe, just maybe, our resident alarm clock will be entered. I do sincerely hope so. I'd really like to SEE it even. He starts at about four and wakes all the others, and then crows ALL DAY!!! He's quiet now, but 7:30 does seem a bit early for bed.
One keeps arms and legs covered at all times, and wears socks. Mosquitoes are everywhere, and a lot of bug juice is used. I needn't have brought Kleenex: we have toilet paper. TP, which outside of the bathroom is kept in little domes with a hole in them through which the paper is stuck, is used for napkins, for Kleenex, and for toilet paper. All purpose. In the villages no one seems to use much of anything. Just sorta rub your fingers together!
The bathroom is that in Pat's house, not just a toilet. Shower and sink and toilet all together at one end of the room. It's impossible to shower without getting the room sopping wet, of course, which may not be dried out by the next time you go in, so there are flip-flops available inside the bathroom for this purpose. Like the Japanese toilet shoes, but these have a real purpose. There is also a big jug with water in it, and a bowl in it. Pat simply pours water over herself to shower or wash her hair. The water thereby is slightly less frigid than that coming out the tap. Slightly. There is no hot water, so you use a lot of soap. Glad I had my hair cut short before I came. You do get used to the cold water, amazingly!
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The last two and a half days have been very quiet indeed, for the most part. Pat didn't leave until Sunday for Bangkok; she worked all day and I wandered around looking for birds, got all caught up on the map copying (copying sanctuary boundaries onto topographical maps that Robin had acquired) and writing instructions to Robin on how to use the excel databases. I made up my mind to return to Chiang Mai with Anak when he returned here and from here the next day (which would be Tuesday), feeling that I just didn't have anything to do here, and wouldn't once the others got back, and I'd already seen my native village.
But then I heard that Anak wouldn't have to go to CM after all, but that the Englishmen would be going. So I walked up to them and asked if they would take me with THEM, on Monday. And all that day, Saturday, walked around thinking well, it's the last time I'll see THIS part of the grounds, or look for that bird. Which made me melancholy. Pat left, more or less, for the ridge (she forgets stuff and returns) and Andrew came and got me and walked me around the area where they plan to put the bear "cage" - enclose a part of the forest between two roads, but pretty untouched - with an electric fence powered by solar power and turn bears loose in it! It's kind of a nutty scheme but I guess harmless. Gary will get the money from his Sources and eventually the bears might even be releasable, so why not try! While we were there Flossie, the gibbon in a cage downhill from us gave her whoops and was ANSWERED by a wild gibbon - maybe more than one - on the ridge up above us. WOW! this was interesting.
Then Paul showed up to announce to Andrew that they had to go to CM THAT day, not Monday. The appointment they had to get their visas renewed was, it turned out, on Monday, not Tuesday. Meanwhile, I'd pretty well decided that I didn't want to leave yet, and besides their little "tin can" Suzuki jeep was sounding decidedly unhappy, so I said, go without me. And spent last night and today all alone here. Pat's now come back and says she was in radio contact with Anak; that they'll be home tonight.
I don't mind, interestingly, partly because I had a very long book by Gore Vidal, Hollywood, one of his American historical novels, which was good enough to keep me absorbed. It hasn't been that hot, though there are a lot of forest fires set by villagers (to flush out game, I gather) so it's hazy and you can smell the fire. The lady at the dining porch feeds me, and I've been walking the whole length of the sanctuary, binoculars in hand, looking for birds, feeding overripe bananas to the monkeys, moving at my own pace.
The people do not seem lazy at all. They have a structure to their lives, which is that work begins apparently at 8:30 (maybe 9) and they motor-scoot furiously up and down the roads going to work. They break for about two hours mid-day, not too surprisingly, but are back to work by about 2:30 and work until about 4:30. Very relaxed but things do seem to get done. Construction projects do get completed. When we went to the relocation area the road crews working on the highway in were in different places from where they had been the last time around, etc.
There isn't hot water, mostly, nor do they seem to need it, but they furiously clean and sweep and polish. I think that "prosperity"- material stuff!- to most of these people, including the park official families, is futons and blankets, a few clothes (but not too many), a motorbike, electricity to allow a TV to run, and the TV, a single-burner propane stove, a fridge, an electric rice-cooker. And that's about IT. It's like life on Monhegan, only more so, reduced to bare essentials, so you can visit with friends, and eat good food, and watch TV. The Iraq crisis that appears to be looming (more and more pictures of Saddam on TV, and Albright) is as far beyond comprehension as anything could possibly be. Life on Mars. Here is life on Earth!
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The hikers got back from the ridge just in time for dinner Monday night, very tired, very dirty, very pleased that they'd been able to handle the hike. I know I could have managed a couple of days, but five days, no way, and it's been peaceful here.
Yesterday, Tuesday, the first day of all of us together again, we went in to the village - there are several in a string, just south of here down the road and they are called the MaeTuen villages because they are grouped along the MaeTuen river; one of the first is where Pat went to see the monk on her birthday. Among various poking around the postoffice and the villages, we went to a monastery/temple which is still being built by the villagers, sort of a simple hall, not the cookie-cutter prefab type you see everywhere else. The villagers, as they have time, are building a stupa, or tower; they've built a paved road up from the boundary of the temple to the top. It's very affectingly simple.
We had lunch in the village - good tom yam pla; even the fish was good! with cats in attendance. We returned to Pat's for the afternoon snooze, and I showed Anak and Robin the databases I'd devised and how to deal with them. At four or thereabouts we returned to the village, for "roti" which is a very sweet very rich sweet - I've documented its creation on film, I hope. The people were preparing for a "tamboon" - today, Wednesday, is a holiday, so the night before they have dancing and singing and drinking and carrying tamboon towers through the streets. These are bamboo or maybe banana-tree poles with stuff stuck on them - cross-pieces hold money, other parts have other gifts for the monks tied on. I took pictures; there was a loudspeaker going and singing, etc. Anak and Pat don't like to go to these parties so we didn't go to the temple. We were told that tomorrow morning (i.e., this morning) there'd be gifts to the monks before 8, and we dutifully got up early to go see, but the guy who was supposed to accompany us had a "headache" - tr. hangover from last night - so he didn't go.
This morning, while the others went on a last hike, I stayed In camp to finish this up. Half an hour before we were to leave - five people, their gear, and Chalal, all packed into one pickup truck, the village women arrived to say goodbye, and I made up all the balloons I had available and posed with them for pictures, and showed pictures of the family, etc. Gave them the bits and pieces of presents I had - Anak had taken the nature calendars to give to officials! Now I'm writing this on the road to the musser station where we'll pick up Anak and Pat, who've spent the night with a Bangkok official on the ridge. The road is very bumpy so I'll stop!
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