About to head out

So these are the last couple of days in Thailand and I am saying my goodbyes and trying to do last minute stuff... In 5 days I will be getting off the plane in America and back in the books at UNC. This trip has been the definition of a whirlwind. I feel that I handled the whirlwind well, however.

I will be posting photos and extras when I get a faster connection and the time to relax and actually do it. Wish me luck!

Best wishes,
NICK

Hello All,

I have come to the mainland for a quick break from life on the island. I can tell you that I am healthy and happy and I will be ready to get back stateside when the time comes.

My work is moving along well.

But, wow I have been out of it. I have been in the middle of NOWHERE(for real this time). My life for the last 12 days has pretty much gone like this:

630 - wake up
700 - breakfast
730 - prepare my bags
800 - get on the Tak-Tak (makeshift car)
830 - Arrive at the Tidal Creek where Naucrates(Now-kra-tes) is doing its transects & species surveys
830 to 1200 - climb through mangroves
1200 - lunch
~1300 - return to climbing in mangroves
1600 - start walking home
1730 - arrive home & shower
1845 - electricity comes on in the village
1900 - dinner
2030 - return to home and furiously work on the computer until the electricity and the lights go out.
2200 - Sleep

Overall, a rough time but I have managed. My research is moving at a snail's pace. It is frustrating but I am going to have to adapt and just tough it out. I have returned to the mainland (to the land of electricity 24 hrs a day) and soon I will be returning to the island to complete my research(or get as far as possible B4 I run out of time).

I will tell you though. I love the island. This place is remote(for sure) but MAN I have never seen nature like this. Its remoteness seems to protect it from all the eye sores and pains-in-the-ass of common tourist traps. Its refreshing.

I believe in what Naucrates is doing. Their work is mainly conservation based. They are fighting an uphill battle and I hope that I can help them. There are plenty of interesting stories (I'm not sure there will be interestuing research but...) to tell you all.

My english is pretty rough right now as I have been hanging around Italians now for 10 days.

I do get to hang out with some cool people. I have really had the Tsunami-contact in the first degree while on the island because the people I was working with had all had friends and family killed by the Tsunami. Hearing their stories really make you shiver. Stories of Tsunami's chasing you up mountains, sweaping you out to sea tearing houses apart, 15m swells, people running around trying to help eachother and save themselves. It makes you appreciate those around you.

Love you all,
NICK

Off to the Island

I have finished up with volunteering(pictures and details will come later) and now my work begins. To all of you who have sent me messages or tried to get updates I have had really poor internet access and when I do get it its dismally slow. So know that I am healthy and very happy with my work and my volunteering.

Now, however, I am about to get more extreme and I wont have internet for some time (~ 3 weeks).

Bye, I've got to go now but I'll be seeing you all soon enough!
NICK

Kra-bi and Fam-ily! - June 30th. 2008

I'm officially in the south now and man its never felt better to get out of Bkk - and THANK HEAVENS.

I surprised my host mother by coming down 12 hrs early (she was eagerly awaiting my arrival) and to accomplish this feat I had to really want it... I mean really want it... I wrestled with Bkk mass transit, taxis, motorcycles, & bumper to bumper traffic which only came about after I was half way there and too far to turn around. Pressing on is rarely a good idea in the city where every one is pressing on.

I ended up walking with 3 heavy bags while bumper to bumper traffic sat and generated heat (needless to say I don't have any photos of this). I was soaked (sweat - eeew...) all the way through by the time I got to a parallel street where traffic was moving. I was afraid I was going to miss the last bus entirely(it left at 8pm) but we arrived at about 8:10pm and I ran (w/3 bags) to buy my ticket and by 8:13 I was on the bus - slept like a baby.

Moral? - No transport is easy in the city of heat and soot.

I was also very relieved and happy to be able to meet my good friends P'pin and P'wa before I left - though all the photos I have of them were deleted accidentally when I moved them over from my camera (sorry - there will be more I'm sure!).

My preparations for my research are moving very slowly but the day of reckoning is coming upon me soon. I will need to be ready to work - and work hard.

It is probably time that I explain more fully what it is that I am doing over here:

Well, I have made contacts with a few people that I hope will assist me with procurring remote sensing imagery for my area of interest (Koh Phra Thong. Phang-Nga, Thailand). One is at the Phuket University Biology department. The goal is to get high resolution imagery from just after the tsunami (My research advisers, Jen Morse and Mirco Boschetti, have already procured pre-tsunami images) that we can use to try and detect change in mangrove location and (hopefully) species makeup from before and after December 26, 2004.

My field work will be extensive species surveys (as opposed to intensive) and ground-truthing exercises. Long story short a lot of time in one of the most hostile (to big soft skinned/fat intruders) ecosystems in the world.

Before all that sweat and mosquitos I just got back from a day trip to Krabi. I've never really BEEN to Krabi proper before so this was a real treat:

OK so this happened about 30 seconds after we got on the boat to go out to the islands. He was very professional about it - Driving the boat while bailing it out. Luckily he didn't need to do this the whole trip long.

Distant view of Nang Bay (Ao Nang).

Coming up on some pretty spots to drift away... The weather today was really perfect - for the wet season.

Men at work...

This is one of the small islands near the big island behind - which is called Chicken Island (Ko Gai). There is a small sand walkway which one could walk from this island and its neighbor all the way to Ko Gai. At low tide the walkway is about 1 ft deep and at high tide it is still walkable.

The change in the water color signals the location of the path. Or you could just snorkel across for the scenic route(recommended).

:-)

My host mother and I snorkeled off of this island(to the right). We saw some soft corals and sea urchins as well as some big heads of hard corals. The visibility was poor but there were quite a few friendly fish that came out to greet us.

So one is tempted to call these anything but islands but they are... This is considered a 4 island tour. A four island tour in chich they knock out 3 islands right off... GENIUS MARKETING... But geez - its beautiful. This whole trip was about $25 per person - including snorkel gear.

The infamous long tail boats. We rented one for the half day and the driver just hung out and waited for us to tell him where we wanted to go... We were pretty happy where we were, however.

Fatty-face pose... It was pretty bright out there... in that sand.

Back in the boat going back to the mainland - we stopped off at Railay. I will be volunteering not far from here beginning tomorrow.

Don't worry... this lady is not lost. It just looks that way. At moments like this I think of you Scott. Bring your kayak when you come brother.

If you look pretty hard you will find a little yellow dot in the center of this photo. Thats a kayak. It is exploring princess cave (where long ago a princess drowned). Scott... once again...

The last beach before home.

Anyone want to be ambitious and findo out how these formations came to be like they are? Any geologists want to leave a quick post and I'll publish it on this blog? I don't know but they are fantastic. They draw people from all over to world to climb them. If you fall, you fall into water... maybe some jagged rocks... but water...

Ahhh... nestled.

And friends to sleep next to when I get home...

Tomorrow I leave for volunteering in Ao Nang(yes I am going back for work now) so we hit up Tai Sai Seafood before leaving - a must for anyone that knows anything about seafood in Phang-Nga. Come and you will find out. My host family re-iterated that you are all welcome for a visit - and by visit they mean anywhere between a week and a couple of months. There is plenty of room and seafood.

:)

Week 1 - June 23rd, 2008

Hello all,

I have arrived safely. Bkk (Bangkok) is still very much the same though I am seeing Thailand with different eyes indeed.

Life here with my host family (extended) is easy with little to do during the days and much to do at night, which makes sense with the heat. Oh, and yes I have developed the Bkk-scratch, where by which you'd think I had started smoking (but I haven't)...

To begin with, I landed @ 9pm on the 19th and @10am on the 20th I was already on the road to Koh Samet 2hrs due east of Bkk. Now this is not normally how I travel but Khun Maee (my host mother) had limited time and we decided to make it happen. So we hopped in a taxi and we were off...

Khun Maee, Khun Maee Khun Maee... I'm supposed to be jet lagged... On the way to Koh Samet Khun Maee catches some z's...

The luxury cruise option... heck it was $0.75...

Chicken bones in the bay.

I've gotten some flack for this photo... people say I look fat... I happily concur.

Boats in the bay on the way to Samet... a friendly sight...

After arriving at the Bang Phe Pier (on the mainland) we hopped on an old converted fishing boat to Samet. The weather was less than ideal. And actually very much like my first trip last time. I certainly had some feelings of De-ja-vu (See In the Nick of Thailand).

Having paid for a boat trip/hotel combination 'special' (Once again not how I normally do things) we got on the boat and soon found ourselves cutting the waves.

It didn't end up raining on us so we decided to rent a motorbike (~$7 a day) and do the rest ourselves. We traveled to the southern tip of the island stopping off at the bays and beaches along the way. The further south you travel the more deserted the beaches and the worse the roads. I am quite sure that we arrived after a rain because at one point I couldn't tell where there was road or just mud-puddles... This is kind of scary. The muddy roads got so thick that they seemed to be expanding upwards like thick foam. But we made it without falling once...

'Ahh... I'm back...'

Soul-searching on Koh Samet.

Isaan Food... Now I had forgotten that I am still a farang(westerner) and committed the sin of ordering food to spicy to eat. But darn... It was good.

After a Chang (elephant) beer (anywhere between 4-11% alc.) fire shows are a real trip. The next morning we stopped off at a nearby beach to enjoy the scenery... and the traditional 'sala'. This one was a truly beautiful piece. The tables that you sit at tend to be made as one piece of a really big tree - some are worth thousands of dollars.

This was not our hotel but its a nice one...

The tides having gone out, the crabs who filter this sand for micro organisms go to work. when the tides come back their beautiful design work will be washed away.

I think these mounds are also made by sand filtering crabs. But clearly they are farther towards the water and of a very different consistency.

Idillic eh?

The boats which took us back home... Koh Samet - a nice getaway trip...

I will be posting more photos of a beautiful Bkk temple (worth 2.4 billion baht - ~73 million dollars) and a few nights out on the town, of course. Soon I will be headed back to the south and more photos and stories will follow!

Entry 1 (Noon on Saturday, June 14th)

Greetings you kind souls who read other peoples blogs,

If you are reading this you have found my blog which I will post to occasionally on my travels back to Thailand. If this is beginning to sound like De-ja-vu then... I apologize. There will be many exciting posts with photos of volunteering plants, animals (i hope), people, places, smiles, etc.

This time IS different, however. My travels have a defined and strong purpose. Not to discount those without purpose - their's is the travel which opens minds and multiplies possibilities. But for me this time I will be taking advantage of opportunities which have developed in front of me.

This last school year I have been very lucky. I have lived in a great house, with fab friends all around. I have worked hard and done well in school. I was offered and accepted a great job working with a grad student who has become both a friend and a role model as well as a boss(but not bossy!). My beautiful sister has just married (see 'Mike & Emily' http://www.blog.lifestagevideography.com/) a funny, classy, calm fireman who brings so much to my family and... The number of blessings that I have been given has been overwhelming and I can only do my very best to accept them thankfully.

This last year I was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship which will pay for my expenses for my research on the 2004 Tsunami and its effects both long and short term on mangrove plant communities in Southwest Thailand, Phang-Nga province.

As you can see from the photo below I will be working in the same area as I was in 2006-2007.


These mangroves were badly damaged by the Tsunami. Mangrove forests provide a wide variety of ecosystem services which greatly enhance coastlines, including the main source of nursery habitat for fish, eroding sediment fixation, effective diffusers against harsh weather(Hurricanes & Tsunamis), among many others. The main anthropogenic threat to mangrove forests are the construction of shrimp farms and general coastal development.

I will be studying the long term effects of the Tsunami on Mangrove communities looking at salinity spikes which may or may not be a concern this long after the Tsunami. I will be chronicling the status of mangrove communities and species makeup. My field data will be compared with that of a graduate student's field work from 2002. This way we are trying to assess the situation before and after the Tsunami in a way which is new and original.

The Island, called Koh Phra Thong (or island of the golden Buddha), is relatively remote requiring a 2hr boat ride out. There is electricity for only a few hours at night. While on the island I don't expect to keep this blog updated but before arriving I should have adequate internet access.

Whether the project is a success or not, when I step off the plane in Bangkok I will have accomplished a self-designed goal to return to my 2nd home with a purpose for being there. If you read my last blog you should get a sense of the development of this goal. These are very exciting times and I am happy I can share them with you and with myself again in 6months, 2 years, and further.