G's Asian Adventure

Japan Revisited

2009-05-09T15:57:00.026+07:00

The end of my trip in Asia is drawing near and my time with Simon in Japan is almost over. It is definitely bittersweet, as goodbyes always are in my experience. I am looking forward to coming home, now that the snows have hopefully all melted away and the flowers are budding (maybe?), but I will be sad to be so far away from here and all these Asian experiences. I know that as soon as I arrive home, all this will start to seem just like a dream, getting further and further away as each day goes by back at home. Here in Japan, Thailand has already taken on the slight strangeness, the unrealistic quality, of a dream. And here in Asia, home often seems a strange and unreal place. Snow? English? French? Loonies? Tim Horten's? Toronto? The Globe and Mail? What are these things?

For the last two weeks, our trip through Japan has been a somewhat hectic time with both its highs and its lows. I think that many foreigners (especially those that live here - but also travelers) feel ambivalent about this country - this land of the rising sun. When asked by the Japanese if I like Japan, I say yes (of course) but I think, "Well... yeeeess. Sometimes. Somethings. Some days." My real opinion of Japan is that it is interesting.

As the author Bill Ferguson writes in his book about hitchhiking through Japan:

"They call it the Seidensticker Complex, after the American scholar and translator, and it describes the ambivalent feelings that tormet long-term foreign residents in Japan, a pendulum of emotion, alternating between attraction and replusion, affection and anger - back and forth. But the image is false. These feelings do not alternate. They are inseperable.... One does not love and then hate and then love Japan like a metronome. One lovehates it, one wants to draw nearfar to it, to gostay."

So, it has been a love-hate relationship for me and Japan. Somethings are fantastic. Like the amazing, amazing food. And the amazing scenery - craggy snowcapped mountains, quiet rural towns with blooming gardens, thousands of cherry blossoms falling into the rivers, the millions of bright lights of Tokyo. And the kindness of strangers who spot you fumbling with maps and go out of their way to lead you right to the doorstep that you were looking for and could never have found alone. And somethings are frustrating. Like the constant wide-eyed staring and giggling that the sight of a foreigner in Japan inevitably causes. Like the incredible expense of traveling in this country. Like all the social rules and regulations that one has to abide by in Japan. Like feeling so foreign.

One of the most interesting days I spent in Japan was a crazy, tiring 24 hours in Tokyo. I christened the day "Fish Day" and Simon was good enough to lead me around to various fishy sights in Tokyo. Our first stop was the Tsukiji Fish Market. We woke up before at 4:45 am to make it there while things were still interesting. We missed most of the fish auction but still got to browse through lots of crates of dead marine life, squids, octopus, little fishes, mollusks, hundreds of big bluefin tunas and also, sadly, whale. There was even a stall with banners showing cute whale cartoons to advertise that they were selling big bloody whale steaks for much less than the cost of beef. The number of big bluefin tuna was also incredible, considering that I have read that the world's oceans have lost over 90% of their large predatory fish since the start of large-scale industrial fishing. Where were all the big tunas coming from? Japan? The Arctic? Some secret corner of the ocean? I should have asked.

Frozen Bluefin Tuna on warehouse floor

Whale Meat Stall

As we were in Japan, the market was well-organized, clean and surprisingly un-chaotic. It didn't even smell that fishy, despite the massive quantity of sea produce on display. I kept sleepily wondering as we wandered around "What are they going to do... what are WE going to do... when all these fishes are gone from the planet."

I read a newspaper article over a cup of coffee in Thailand right before leaving and this was the title caption, "As the ocean's stocks dwindle, jellyfish chips, squid sausages and algae cakes are starting to look good." The article explained that with rampant overfishing occurring in most of the world's oceans, there is now much less competition over the ocean's resources and the populations of opportunistic jellyfish and squid are exploding. In fact, a telltale sign of a serious overfishing problem is the presence of loads of slimy jellyfish and squid. The fishermen that lived on my island in Thailand (Koh Phra Thong) fished almost exclusively for squid, likely because there was little else left - or also perhaps because the mafia-run trawlers were monopolizing (and rapidly exterminating) the more profitable catch.

Here are some scary statistics that I jotted down in my notebook. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 3∕4 of the world's fish stocks are being exploited right now or are recovering from depletion. So, at the moment, only 1∕4 of the ocean's fish are safe from our fishing nets and we will likely soon have to start exploiting some of these less appetizing species. In Europe, it is estimated that 88% of fish stocks are overfished. And when you go to the grocery store and pick up some fish, you might like to know that only 8 out of a total of 47 exploited fish stocks are known to be in healthy state. A few years ago, I printed out a consumer's guide that I could carry around in my wallet which showed which fishes from the grocery store were sustainably fished (http://www.blueocean.org/seafood/seafood-guide). I gave up carrying the guide around because I found that I didn't need it - none of the available fish were sustainably exploited - and the guide made me really depressed when I stood in front of the grocery store fish counter reading it and thinking "nope, nope, nope".

In conclusion, Canadian scientists predict that if the rate of collapse of fish species continues at the current rate, none of the fish that we now eat will be around in 2050. Jellyfish burger anyone?

Live Tuna at the Aquarium

So, in order to cheer ourselves up after these sad musing at the fish market, Simon and I jumped on the subway to head across town to the Tokyo aquarium and see some living fish. Well, actually, we went back to our boxy hotel room and had a nap first. The fish in the aquarium were much more lively and less depressing than at the market, although some animals always make me winch when I see them in cages (sharks, bears, birds). Surprisingly, neither of us felt much like eating sushi for dinner after our "Fish Day" and we opted instead for a famous Tokyo tempura restaurant. Which leads me to remark that the thing that has been consistently and undeniably fantastic during my travels in Japan is the food. Whether I am in a fancy restaurant, or just a cafe in the train station, my taste buds have been constantly happy and satisfied. If you are now going to ask me, "Which is better, Thai or Japanese food?", I cannot answer you. It would be like comparing apples to oranges.

Belated Dive Photos Posting

2009-05-09T15:18:00.010+07:00

It is hard to know if anyone out there is still following along on my blog - despite my infrequent entries - but for those of you who weren't as lucky as I have been in the past few months, I give you some more beautiful diving photos from my last trip in the Similan Islands.

Adult Green Turtle who swam up right to the boat (alas, the staff were feeding her I believe).

Weird but quite cute little frog fish.

By far my FAVOURITE fish in the ocean - the amazing Clown Trigger Fish, what a BABE!

Surgeon Fish

My Great Dive Buddy Lisa and I before one of my last dives in the Similans

Diving Diving Diving

2009-04-23T13:38:00.008+07:00

So, as I promised, here are some more beautiful diving photos from my last dive trip in the Similans. These ones were taken by my Swedish friend Erik. I will add more if he send me any nice ones in the next few days.

Anemone and Anemonefish

Lionfish - Yes he is beautiful but also toxic!

Beautiful Soft Corals

Hawksbill Turtle that came right up to the boat and swam with us.

Nice underwater landscape!

Thai Impressions

2009-04-22T11:06:00.022+07:00

Isn't it strange that when you travel, it is often the similarities between your own culture and the foreign one that stand out more than the differences? I have found that the basics of life are surprisingly similar no matter where I find myself, Canada, New Zealand, South America, or Asia. People work, go to school, eat, drink, sleep, grow up, have kids, get old, fight with their parents, neglect their homework, go out with friends, fall in love with foolish people etc. etc. etc. all over the world. There are, of course, major cultural differences between some areas of the world. Yet somehow, during my travels, I have never found these differences to be that apparent. If you sit somewhere in some foreign town, a small cafe, a shady park, the steps of a famous monument, and you watch the people go about their daily business, I think you will find yourself saying, "These folk are just like us in so many ways!" You will watch people shopping, arguing, eating, scolding their children, rushing about, even begging, in the same manner that we do at home. Where I do think that you often notice differences between yourself and the local people when traveling far from home, is in the small, superficial, ordinary aspects of everyday life. The little things. So throughout my time in Thailand, I have collected a list of all these quirky little things that the Thais do differently than we do. And for your amusement, I will share them with you here.

1. Thai people are addicted, truly addicted, to sugar. It is remarkable how much sugar they eat each day. More than Americans, you may ask? Possibly so! (Although they don't eat desserts like we do.) When you go to a restaurant here, there is often a little tray of spices on the table to add to your meal, if so desired. You typically get chilies, fish sauce, vinegar, and also a little pot of sugar. The Thais will pour tablespoons of this sugar into their soups, salads, and even onto noodles. My friend Por put so much sugar into her noodle soup that we were convinced she was joking. She wasn't joking. The soup was so sugary that it burned my throat when I tasted it (although it also tasted pretty good). In Thailand, you can buy individual packets of instant coffee, called 3 in 1 Coffeemix, that are very popular. I was reading the packet while I sipped on one of these coffees the other day and I found this list of ingredients: Sugar 52.5%, Non-dairy Creamer 37%, Instant Coffee 10.5%.

2. The Thai people are very polite. They do not shake hands in greeting but instead do something called a "Wai", which is also used to thank people and to show respect to people like monks. The "Wai" is essentially placing your hands in the prayer position in front of your chin and perhaps slightly bowing your head. There are different levels of "Wai" which show different levels of respects. It is quite confusing for foreigners and I normally just mimic the "Wai" that people give to me. This "Wai" is so much a part of their culture that when my Thai friend Oppy bumped into me while Scuba diving, she "waied" me underwater! Even though she was carrying her underwater camera!

3. Most (or perhaps all) Thai woman want to be as white as possible. It is considered beautiful. This is an excellent example of how we always want what we don't have. Western woman spend tons of time and money on getting a nice tan, i.e. darker (and damage our skin in the process) and Asian woman do the exact opposite. The pharmacies have aisles filled with whitening creams and lotions. The suncream that I bought here says "Long-lasting protection against sun burn and skin darkening." One woman that I met here while diving pointed at my glaringly white belly and said, "I want be white like you!". All of the stars from the ridiculously popular Thai soup operas that play each night are as white as I am, which is definitely not typical of the woman here!

4. Woman are not supposed to touch men, even family members, in public. Although this is an old-fashioned practise and is changing with the younger generations, it is still rare to see couples, even married ones, touching each other. There is a famous story in Thailand that goes like this:

"Once the consort of a king was being rowed across the Chao Phraya River. The boat capsized. She was drowning. The royal oarsman were thunderstruck with horror. None dared to dive in to save her because no man should touch a woman in public, and this woman was a lady, and royalty at that. She drowned. The King was waiting upriver far away. He was King Chulahengkom and the Bang Paln Palace, a very popular tourist site now, was built for her, the Queen who never came. Such is the seriousness of Thai tradition and culture."
- From "Dos and Donts in Thailand, 3rd Edition"

On my ticket for visiting a famous temple in Chiang Mai, there are some guidelines for appropriate behaviour while inside the shrine. These include dressing conservatively, taking off your shoes, and not displaying affection for another person in public!

5. Thais are very superstitious. Most of them believe that the physical world is filled with spirits, who can cause a lot of trouble if not given enough care and attention. My Thai colleague was convinced that she saw a ghost in our house one night, apparently a woman with long hair was sitting in the corner and pulling on her mattress. The next morning, her fears were confirmed when she heard from the villagers that the family who had previously lived in our house moved out due to the bad spirits present there. Most people also believe that these spirits will wreck havoc on an area if they are made homeless and this can happen whenever a new building is constructed. Hence, owners of a new building have to also build a small home, called a spirit house, for the spirits who previously occupied the land. Everywhere in Thailand, in the best spot outside every home and building, you will see a small house on a stand which usually looks like a minature buddhist temple. The beauty of the spirit house reflects the status of the building and all construction stores sell various kinds of spirit homes, as well as cement and two-by-fours. The occupants of the building will leave daily offerings of flowers, incense, candles, and food for the spirits. It unnerves me when we pass a particularly sharp bend on the highway and there are plenty of spirit houses along the edge of the road. These are homes for all the spirits of those who have died at that spot.

Spirit House for one of the Beach Resorts on the Island

6. It seems that due to the fact that one of the Prime Minister's sons was an alcoholic, Thailand now has very strange rules regarding the buying of alcohol. These rules are supposed to limit the consumption of alcohol and, of course, do not work in the slightest. You are only allowed to buy alcohol from 11 to 2 o'clock and from 5 o'clock to midnight. They made me wait 4 minutes to buy a bottle of Thai whiskey from the 7/11 because it was only 10:56am. However, they sold my friend Por alcohol at 4 o'clock because she asked nicely in Thai, and she gave them exact change so that they did not have to make change from the register. These rules also don't apply for those buying large quantities of alcohol, which you can buy at any time of day.

7. I think that this is a universally Asian thing, but the bathrooms here sure are strange. The toilet, sink and shower are in the same room. There is no seperate cubicle for the shower or seperate bath area with curtain. The showerhead is just attached to the wall and when you take a shower, the entire room gets wet. This is fine, because the entire room is tiled, but I just can't get used to it. I am really looking forward to coming home and having a bathroom that is not permanently dripping.

Typical Asian all-in-one Bathroom

8. Many people are constantly sniffing out of these funny inhaler tubes, which I shall call "Sniffy Tubes". I think that perhaps people are addicted to them. You can buy many different kinds for many different ailments. The one that I bought out of curiosity is pink and for vertigo. It contains eucalyptus oil, menthol, camphor and borneol (?). You see people walking and sniffing, taking the bus and sniffing, sitting and sniffing, talking and sniffing. I don't use mine because it is too strong and makes me feel dizzy, somewhat the opposite effect that it is supposed to have. I feel like these are the modern day Asian equivalents of smelling salts.

9. The Thai people keep their homes quite clean and tidy, but the outside of many homes is another story altogether. Garbage - mainly plastic bags - floats around everywhere in both the cities and the countryside. Even the surroundings of immaculately clean Buddhist temples are littered with trash. In one of the villages on the island where I worked, piles of trash constantly floated in and out under people's stilted houses with the tide.

10. On a related matter, Thailand has not yet embraced the idea of reducing the amount of packaging on store-bought products, or of reducing the use of plastic bags in everyday life. Each day that I spend in Thailand, I receive and discard at least 10 plastic bags and just as many straws. When you buy a bottle of water, the bottle is double-bagged with two straws and a handful of napkins before you can even begin to refuse them. At the corner store, you can buy small packets of snacks for only 2 baht (6 cents) which are 90% air and only contain about 3 or 4 chips or peanuts each. You need about 10 of these packets to constitue one snack. When you buy a box of cookies, each row is individually packaged and each cookie within each row is also individually packaged. If you are hungry, it is hard to even get at the cookies there is so much plastic in the way.

Snack Shop

And there are plenty more, but I think this gives you a good enough taste of some quirky things I have noticed during my travels!

In Search of the Elusive Dugong

2009-04-18T13:34:00.019+07:00

This is what happens when you travel far away from home in the so-called "Third World". You fuss and fiddle and organize and arrange and book and cancel and finalize your travel plans. Then, at the last minute, all your plans go POOF, up in smoke, and you have to go back to the drawing board. A few days ago, I thought that I had everything perfectly organized: Dive Trip in the Similans, Bangkok Visit with Nadia, Yoga in Chiang Mai, Japan for Cherry Blossoms, then Home. However, the Thai government had to go and declare a state of emergency in Bangkok and the surrounding area on the very night that I have bought a bus ticket to go there. After watching some rioting on the T.V. featuring red-shirted protestors throwing heavy things, and tanks rolling through the streets, and after receiving an email from the Canadian Embassy advising me to avoid all unnescessary travel to Bangkok, and after thinking about my mother, I decided not to go. Although my friends in Bangkok say that it is not really that bad there, I decided to stay in the south for a few days, far away from any red-shirted trouble. On the bright side, the last minute change of plans meant that I could go on a hunt for the elusive Dugong in the southern Trang islands.

I hear many of you asking, "What is this thing, a Dugong?". For those who do not read "Marine Mammals of the World" over breakfast each morning, let me explain: A dugong is a large marine mammal, in the same family as the Manatee (found in Florida) and a few other species, commonly called the sea cows. Sea Cow! Don't they sound cute? A dugong is a big, slow, brown, vegetarian who spends his time munching through beds of sea grass with his wide, vaccuum-like snout. He lives in Asia. Due to the usual threats that marine animals face (refer to early blog posting "Save our Oceans"), including habitat destruction, hunting for oil and meat, and fishing-related fatalities, the poor gentle Dugong is now very rare. He is extremely vulnerable to extinction and may not exist on this planet for much longer. And this is why I went out of my way to a small island in the south Andaman Sea, crossing my fingers the whole time, to search for a glimpse of this shy creature.

Wikipedia photo of a Dugong eating sea grass.

I went down to Koh Libong, one of the Trang islands, which is supposed to be one of the last places in Thailand where you can see a dugong. The national park around the island contains a sea grass "sanctuary" where a group of around 40 dugongs come to feed. To get there, I left Khao Lak at 8:00 in the morning on a songthaew (open-ended truck with two wooden benches facing each other in the back, covered by a little tarp roof) to get to the bus hub at Khokkloi. At Khokkloi, I was hustled onto a bus bound for Trang (five hours away) and when I climbed on, as the bus pulled away, I saw that there were no seats left and already quite a few people swaying back and forth in the aisles. Thankfully, the bus boy heckled a poor Thai man into giving up his seat to the only farang ("foreigner") on the bus, and although I felt a little bad, I snatched it up immediatly. Every few minutes from then on, to my constant disbelief ("There is no way we can fit more people in this cattle car!"), the bus stopped to squeeze in more people. For the rest of this long trip, I found myself squashed against the window, with a knob of something or other digging into my back, half on the lap of an old Thai grandmother who was sharing the seat beside me with her big, chubby grandson. Most of the benches on the bus had three people, sometimes four, and the aisle was crammed with tired people who fell on top of the lucky seated passengers whenever the bus turned a sharp corner. Of course, the air conditioning could not cope with so many hot, sweaty people, and totally crapped out on us.

Songthaew

When I finally burst with relief off of the bus in Trang, gasping "water, please", I was immediately bustled onto a small green Tuk-Tuk (three-wheeled, open-sided tractor with seats in the back) and brought to the minivan station. I was just in time to catch the minivan for Ban Chao Mai on the coast. An hour later, I hoped out onto the pier and into a long-tail boat. At this point, I could actually see the island of Koh Libong and was getting quite excited to arrive. However, the journey was not quite over yet. Once on the island, I had to take a bumpy half-hour motorbike ride to the resort, perched on the back with my huge knapsack on my lap, cutting off the circulation to my legs. I was in a suprisingly good mood when I arrived at my little bungalow on the beach and ready to hunt out some rare marine mammals. I was also quite proud of the fact that I had used pretty much all the possible means of transportation available in Thailand, all in one day.

Tuk Tuk

For the dugong mission, we left early on a sunny morning to boat around the island to the sea grass "sanctuary". I put this word in quotation marks because I have some small doubts as to how well protected the area actually is. While we were waiting for our friends the dugongs to appear, noisy fishing boats from the neighbouring village kept racing back and forth through the protected area. Dugongs are frequently injured from collisions with motor vehicles. We waited for 3 long hours in the hot sun, occasionally jumping into the warm soup-like water to cool down. I had long extinguished any hopes of seeing a dugong, although I was still enjoying being out on the water, when we noticed a man on another tourist boat pointing at something. We cruised over and cut the engine. Almost immediately, I heard the "WHOOOSH" of a marine mammal exhalation. But where was it? I couldn't see a thing on the sunny surface of the water. Then I heard it again, "WHOOSH", but still I saw nothing. I seriously peeled my eyes and scanned the area. Then, I saw it. A smooth brown back arcing into the water infront of us. Mr. Dugong! I was pretty happy. We stayed in the area for a while but we only saw the creature once more, a little closer to the boat. There seemed to be only one animal, slowly circling the area, and diving down for around 10 minutes. He was very shy and we really only caught a glimpse. But a glimpse was enough and I will have to be satisfied with that for now. Next mission: diving with the dugongs in the Red Sea!

No dugongs to be seen for three hours.

But wait, what is that in front of us in the water? Could it be?

A dugong! This is the only good picture that I got of one, who is found permanently outside the resort.

Stay tuned for my dive photos in the next couple days...

Farewell to Koh Phra Thong Island

2009-04-13T09:20:00.013+07:00

Farewells are often bittersweet and my last day on turtle island was definately so. Leaving day had been creeping up on me so slowly that I was constantly surprised to find myself eating my last Thai meal prepared by our amazing cook (Lamion), or walking the beautiful white beach in the glow of the sunrise for the last time, or bicycling through the hot, heavy savannah to finally arrive at the beach and throw myself into the ocean for the last time, or having the kids yell out "Pi Gwyn, pai nai?" ("Gwyn (Pi = with respect), where are you going?") as I went past them playing their games. All these last times! But, of course, there were many things to look forward to after Koh Phra Thong.

Beers and sunset on the beach after a successful reef clean-up on Koh Pling.

Another beautiful sunrise on the island.

As the boat left the island with us for the last time, I felt free. Free from those damn mangy, barking, biting, infected stray dogs; Free from being deafened by those noisy long-tail boats at 5:30 every morning (when the engine is running, you feel like you are living through the Vietnam war); Free from waiting impatiently for the power to come on in the evening so that you can get some work done - but then you get nothing done because the power cuts out, or the internet doesn't work or you got one of the strong Chang beers with dinner (the alcohol percentage varies from around 4 to 8); Free from the evil power of the schedule (the Rota) which dicates life on the island; Free from doing my washing by hand and my clothes never being clean. Free!

Me, Making my Clothes even Dirtier than Before I Started

My first taste of life after the turtle project was one week before the project ended when I had to leave the island to go to Burma (I think I am supposed to say Myanmar) to renew my visa for Thailand. I was only given a two month visa and therefore had to leave the country to be given another two weeks to stay here. Many poor long-term travellers (and residents) are forced to constantly leave Thailand to renew their visas and in doing so, have helped create a visa-run industry in both Burma and Thailand.

First thing in the morning, far too many people were squeezed into a mini-van with me and driven wildly down the highway. When we arrived at the port of the boarder crossing (you have to go by boat, there is no overland route), everything was in complete chaos, with Thais, Burmese, and foreigners ("farangs") all mixed together, racing about, crying out, and sweating buckets all over each other. We were herded into a line to get various stamps on our passports and then our passports rapidly disappeared into the hands of our seedy guides, along with a crisp $10 US. We were then herded onto a large fishing boat for the trip to Burma. The nice woman at the hostel had ironed my $10 bill before I left (it had been in my shoe), as she thought the Burmese government might find it too wrinkly. I must admit that giving up my passport and being told that it would show up on the other side in Burma made me a little nervous. However, it did show up intact, with a few more stamps. I was also a little uneasy about paying the Burmese military dictatorship a cool $10 US to continue to exploit their own people and create hundreds more refugees. But I put my morals aside for a half-day and gratefully renewed my visa. When I arrived back on the island in the evening, the peace and quiet, and the slow pace of life, seemed even more wonderful than when I left the day before.

The Thai side of the immigration "port" is hot, sweaty chaos.

Burma. The sign says "Let us all cooperate for the eradication of narcotic drugs".

To treat myself after six weeks of the project, despite low funds in the bank account, I went diving again in the Similan Islands. It is just too beautiful there to resist the temptation. I had two beautiful days of diving, with each dive more beautiful and special than the dive before. I saw more turtles than on the project (five!) and some came swimming very close beside me. I found some beautiful new nudibranchs (marine slugs) that I had never seen before, taking my total up to five new species! I saw the deadly stonefish and the amazing, totally gorgeous clown triggarfish. I spent two days in constant delight. I also realized that my favourite part of the dive is the last 10 minutes, when you pull back and swim away from the reef into the blue. It is only at the end that you get real perspective on the whole living, breathing, bustling coral reef system. During the dive, I spend most of my time staring, with my nose brushing against the rocks and coral, trying to spy all the interesting animals. At the end of the dive, I move from macro-mode to landscape-mode. I float above the reef, looking down on the patchwork quilt of colourful life, and I feel so calm and peaceful. The fish are schooling around you, the reef is moving below you, and the blue is holding and supporting you. It is fantastic. I think that you all should try it, as soon as possible.

Finally, because I have had many special request for them, I will include some photos from my last dives over the next few days. Enjoy!

Save Our Oceans!

2009-03-28T18:46:00.006+07:00

So for all of those who thought that my last blog entry on the tsunami was perhaps a little depressing and negative, read on to learn more about what I have learned about the state of our oceans! Not for sensitive readers. Warning to readers: long rant on environmental issues below.

Tomorrow morning, I will wake up at 5am to walk the beautiful (and long) beaches of the island of Koh Phra Thong. But I am pretty sure that we won’t find any nests. It seems that this year, unluckily, it will be a no-nesting year for the sea turtles who return to dig their nests in this area. How frustrating! Why aren’t they coming to nest here? I came all the way to Thailand to meet them! Well, although sea turtles face some natural threats throughout their long lives, they are now rapidly disappearing from the planet thanks to our destructive species. When will we learn?

No turtles to be seen from our observation rock on this day.

Sea turtles and their eggs have been a source of food for many coastal people for a long time. But, it was only around 50 years ago that harvesting sea turtles really began a lucrative industry. As the years went by, more and more turtles and eggs were harvested and shipped around the world to satisfy increasing demand for these exotic products. On many beaches, including this one, almost 100 percent of the eggs laid were harvested every year – some even stolen as they fell out of the turtle! And coupled with fishing for adult turtles, this now leaves us with populations made up only juveniles. Imagine a human population made up of immature teens - disaster!

Green turtles are also called Soup Turtles because they taste so delicious in a broth. In fact, our boatman just handed a turtle carapace (shell) over to us that he “found” in the neighbouring village, and that had clearly been eaten by the locals. Despite all our efforts at education over the past years, and the fact that it is illegal in Thailand, rumour has it that the older generations are still catching and eating around 40 to 50 turtles a year. We hear that they no longer harvest the eggs, probably because there are so few nests left to harvest!

Tom is measuring the carapace of the green turtle who became soup.

Unfortunately, like our friends the whales, the ability of a sea turtle population to replenish itself is very low. Which means that even if we stopped exploiting them right now, at this exact moment, it might already be too late for some species. It takes a long time for a little hatching to reach sexual maturity, anywhere from 15 to 50 years. And despite the large number of eggs laid in each nest, sometimes more than 100, there is an extremely high rate of hatching mortality. As they scurry down to the beach, they get picked off by crabs, dogs, birds, and predatory fish like sharks. They get lost on the beach and end up desiccated in the dunes, far from the ocean. When they leave the nest at night, hatchlings normally use the dim light over the ocean horizon to orient themselves safely towards the water. Artificial lights shining onto the beach, from hotels or houses, or even flashlights, can confuse the little turtles and lead them away from their watery home.

And this is not all: when calm or sleeping, turtles can stay under water for hours at a time. But when turtles get caught on long lines or in nets, they often drown in panic after only a few minutes. Huge developments on nesting beaches squeeze turtles into smaller and smaller areas, leading to over-crowding and the trampling and destruction of nests by other turtles. Even cute beach umbrellas and sun loungers scattered over the beach by the hotels can become evil baby turtle killers. And, prepare yourselves, even sand castles can be anti-turtle! (Aside: a gecko just fell off the ceiling and almost landed on me).

I don’t want to sound like a total party pooper, but the moral of the story is that we need to leave sea turtle nesting beaches undisturbed. Why are we still building huge hotels on top of the beach? Don’t we want to go to the beach and not to a concrete terrace that was once the beach? Even on vacation, is it really too difficult to walk a mere 200m from the hotel to the beach to get sunburnt? Is it really to difficult to stack up our sun loungers at night so that the nesting turtles can find a patch of sand to dig their nest? Do we really need to poke hundreds of beach umbrellas into the sand, breaking the eggs and contaminating the nest? Can’t we just turn off all the lights that shine onto the beach at night in the areas where turtles are nesting? The solutions are very simple. I now avoid all hotels that are built where the beach used to be and stay in places that are set back from the water.

Faced with all this dangerous beach paraphernalia, sea turtles also have to contend with the masses of garbage in our oceans. As I have myself witnessed, floating plastic bags can look remarkably like jellyfish. Floating pieces of non-biodegradable plastic and styrofoam also look delicious to turtles. One autopsy on a dead sea turtle revealed that there was enough plastic in its stomach to cover an area of 2.7 by 3.6m.

Have you heard about something called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Or others call it the Pacific Trash Vortex or the Plastic Soup? This is an area in the Pacific (located 1000 miles west of California and 1000 miles north of Hawaii, i.e. somewhere between North America and Japan) where four major ocean currents meet and create a giant ocean whirlpool. Most of the trash that gets thrown or washed into the ocean ends up in this whirlpool and all this trash has collected into a mass approximately the size of Texas. The vast majority of this garbage comes from land and it is mainly non-biodegradable plastics. In 2001, scientists who study the Garbage Patch found that the mass of plastic particles in this area exceeded the mass of zooplankton (i.e. animal life) by a ratio of 6:1. You can find some shocking videos on YouTube of the Garbage Patch.

I would like to end my blog here with the obvious conclusion that sea turtles are in trouble. But I haven’t mentioned the whales or the sharks yet! Have I already told you that 1 out of 4 dead beluga whales retrieved from along the banks of the St. Lawrence River (Canada) is found to have some form of cancer? Most of these cancers are caused by the chemical pollution in the river. This is the highest rate of cancer found in any wild animal population and is comparable to the rate of cancer in humans. We can sympathize.

And our poor sharks? Who are still suffering from the bad reputation given to them by a certain completely unrealistic and wildly fake film that everyone (except I) has seen, entitled Jaws? My co-research assistant Tom is a big fan of sharks and this is what he told me: There are over 1000 species of sharks (and skates and rays) and 65 percent are threatened with extinction. They estimate that 73 million sharks are killed each year to satisfy the demand for shark products, which amounts to 270,000 sharks every single day. This is probably an underestimate because shark fishing is illegal. The aim of most shark fishermen is only the shark fins, as they can sell them to producers of shark fin soup. These fishermen catch the shark, bring it on board their boats, and then slice the fins off while the shark is struggling around on the deck. The mutilated sharks are then thrown back into the water, where they can no longer swim and will sink to the bottom to lie there completely helpless until they bleed to death. You can also find horrible videos of shark fining on YouTube, but I couldn’t watch them. One huge trophy fin from a Basking or Whale Sharks can fetch up to 10,000 dollars.

To prepare shark fin soup, the fin is ground up into a powder and added to the broth to thicken it. So why do people, mainly the Chinese, enjoy shark fin soup so much? It is popular simply because it is expensive and exotic. Some people think that shark cartilage prevents cancer, as sharks have low rates of cancer compared to other animals, but this is a completely unproven (and to me, false) belief.

A stall selling Hong Kong shark fin soup in a Bangkok food court.

Now you many be thinking, why should I feel sorry for such a nasty, violent, man-eating animal? Our typical fear of sharks is greatly exaggerated. Sharks are not even nearly as dangerous as most people think. You are more likely to die from an elephant, hippo, or ostrich attack! More people are killed every year by lightening or by bee stings than by sharks. Do not believe Hollywood. How many marine biologist work there? Sharks do not eat humans. We are not delicious to them. I have now swum with quite a few sharks while scuba diving and have come to no harm.

So now I send out all my faithful blog readers (all 5 of you!) on a mission: Save Our Oceans! We can stop polluting the seas with our plastic bags and cigarette butts. (Cigarette butts are the most prevalent form of litter on the earth). We can use biodegradable soaps, detergents and cleaners. We can boycott products that come from endangered marine species, fish, turtles, whales (ahem, Simon), and sharks. We can support organizations that work for marine conservation. We can participate in beach clean-ups. We can act responsibly when we go on vacations to beautiful tropical beaches that are being destroyed by development. We can help fund Gwyn’s master’s degree in Marine Biology…. just joking. We can spread the word.

I will end on a positive note with a beautiful picture of a sunrise that I witnessed a few days ago on the beach.

Koh Phra Thong Island After the Tsunami

2009-03-17T18:09:00.006+07:00

Did any of you give money to Tsunami Aid when that massive, destructive wave hit South-East Asia on December 26^th, 2004? Did any of you wonder how all that money was spent? Now, I partly know the answer – at least for money sent to Thailand.

When The Tsunami smashed into the coast of Thailand, the whole staff of the Naucrates project (the sea turtle conservation project that I am working for now) was here working on the island. Most of the staff escaped the wave, but only very narrowly by running up a steep hill. A few staff members from England and some friends of the project drowned. Many local workers and villagers also drowned. It was a very tragic experience for everyone on the island – and also for everyone who lost someone to the wave. The head scientist, who started the project here 12 years ago, is still very affected by the memory of the wave and finds it difficult to sleep soundly on the island. She tends to only stay for a few weeks at a time. Most of the children that I teach in the schools were also here for the wave. Our cook lost all her possessions. Our boatman lost his whole family. There are many sad stories but people seem to talk about them quite calmly.

(Even our Thai boatman wears Crocs!)

Whenever you bring up the subject of the tsunami with foreigners who live here, you start hearing stories about widespread corruption and misspent money. You always hear, “Oh I stopped helping the Tsunami Aid projects after I noticed all these people driving around town in brand-new expensive cars.”

The village where I live is the perfect example of how tsunami aid money was spent in Thailand – and likely in the other Asian countries hit by the tsunami as well. The original village (called Pad Chok) was completely flooded and destroyed, killing many people. All that is left is a flooded bay in the mangroves, still full of debris and broken china. I find it very creepy when we have to walk through there early in the morning. After the wave, an aid organization built a new village near the old site, but further inland and away from the sea. There are around 150 new, identical concrete houses – of which about half are still standing empty or deserted. Why? Because the new village was not finished until three years after the tsunami hit and most islanders already had a new house (also donated by aid money) on the mainland. Hence, many families here have two houses – one here, one on the mainland – which they shuffle between from week to week. Despite the fact that this new village is still half empty, a whole new set of around 100 houses was just built across the dirt road. All still remain empty, without water or electricity. Apparently, many of the villagers have also applied to be given another house in the new, empty side of town. Does this mean that some families will have 3 different houses? Is this what the money should have been used for – empty, unused houses that people don’t need because they already have a house somewhere else?

All of these 100 houses are still empty. Who will fill them?

And you wouldn’t believe what fantastic schools are now found on this island. They say that some foreigner aid workers arrived in Thailand literally frantic to find a town that needed a school rebuilt after the wave. It seems that lots of aid workers were obliged to only spend their money on schools. One of the three villages on this island (Tapoyoi) was barely affected by the tsunami, as it faces the mainland and not the open ocean. However, one organization was so desperate to build a school for the “victims” that they tore down the old (and completely undamaged) school in the village and built a huge, brand-new school. The school is spotless, three floors high, and can hold hundreds of students. It has water-treatment facilities, kitchens, libraries, staff housing, and a large school yard with a basketball court. There are only 30 students in the school. Why? Because Tapoyoi is a small one-horse town (squid-fishing) and the area cannot support a large, permanent population. There are only so much squid in the sea. Why would someone build a school that will never be full? We think that maybe people expect this island to become another Phuket (Please God no!). Then, there would be a great need for locals to clean the rooms of the numerous all-inclusive resorts crammed along the beaches for the hundreds of sun-burned, top-less European tourists! Who cares about the turtle nesting beaches?

The school here in Pad Chok is also new, well-equipped, and could hold at least 100 students. In January, we had 5 students. Now, we have 7 students. We only use one of the many classrooms. The school was also given a specially designed, light-weight wind turbine for power. However, despite the fact that it keeps turning, it cannot be used because the battery is broken and there is no one to pay the 6000 baht (around $200CAN) to fix it. No one is sure how to contact the company that built the turbine.

This school has only 6 students.

Many organizations also donated traditional long-tail boats to the fisherman who lost their boats – and even to those who did not lose their boats. Some ended up with two or three boats. One of the women who works for the project said that she saw locals accepting money for a boat, donated as a memorial for someone who died in the Tsunami. They would paint one name on their boat one day, take a picture, send it to the donator, and then the next day, they would take money to do the same thing for someone else.

Some organizations also donated an excess of new fishing gear, nets, lines and squid traps. The majority of this ended up abandoned in the sea, where they floated around until they became entangled on a coral reef or on the marine wildlife. Poor turtles! Some researchers on this project also believe that all the extra fishing gear that was donated actually encouraged the locals to start fishing at unsustainable levels.

I don’t want to sound too negative here. I think that a lot of the tsunami aid money was well-spent and went to people in need – those who were sick and hungry and had lost everything. But, it seems to me that a lot of it was spent in strange ways. It also seems a shame that such an excess of money was donated for tsunami relief, so much so that people did not know what to do with it, and so little money is donated for other worthy projects (like sea turtle conservation, ahem…).

And, you may be wondering.. “It seems like the tsunami had a profound affect on the lives of people on this island. Did it also affect the sea turtles?”

Well, consider the fact that most of the sea turtles were probably offshore, or out in the open ocean at the time, as this is where they live. The wave did not form or break until very close to shore. So, these hardy sea turtles were likely completely unaffected.

Now you ask: then why have there been no turtle nests found this season? We don’t know, but it is not the tsunami’s fault. Maybe it is due to the fact that 20-25 years ago, when the female turtles that should be nesting today would have been born, the locals here were collecting close to 100 percent of the eggs laid on these beaches to sell all across Asia. Who can blame them? Turtle eggs are more worth much more (and are easier to collect) than squids.

This is one reason why the education side of this project is so important, and one of the reasons why I love working in the school every afternoon. We need help the new generations understand why it is important not to harvest the turtle eggs. And we also need to teach them how to spell in English – a huge challenge for me as I was never taught phonetics!

Patrolling the beaches of Golden Buddha (aka Turtle) Island

2009-03-07T13:21:00.003+07:00

For two weeks now, I have been living off the beaten track on the lost tropical island of Koh Phra Thong in southern Thailand. And despite having many, many interesting things to write about on this blog, we have a) limited electricity, b) slow and expensive internet access, and c) crappy computers than have no battery power. So I hope that you forgive me for keeping you a little in the dark about my arrival on Golden Buddha Island and my first weeks working on the turtle conservation project.

The project is based out of one of the three local villages on the island, called Pad Chok, and is somewhat of a strange village. The original village of Pad Chok was completely destroyed by the tsunami and was then re-built in a different location, further from the sea, by one of the many competing tsunami aid organizations. But more about tsunami aid later. All of the houses here are identical. We have running water filled with sandy sediment that is pumped in from the savannah. I do my laundry in a basin and my clothes are all becoming browned from the water. I basically have to wash all my clothing continually, as soon as I take them off, because I sweat so much here. I will probably throw out all my clothes before I leave. We have electricity only in the evenings, from approximately 6 to 10 o’clock, however it depends on which soap opera or boxing match is on television. The electricity current here is not that strong – I have been charging my batteries for 4 nights and they are still not charged. Hence, the portable solar charger that Norah gave me for Christmas is coming in very handy and has raised a lot of interest (and I maybe some jealousy) from both my colleagues and the local villagers.

At this time of year, the temperature here varies between a cool 25 degrees (when we are lucky) on the cool nights when everyone puts on a sweater, and up to 40 degrees every day around noon. I am not telling you this to make you jealous, cold Canadian friends and relatives. Imagine this: at most meals, I get so hot from the effort of chewing that I have to lie down afterwards (or sometimes mid-meal) to rest. When I walk to school at 2 o’clock for class, the 2-minute-long walk over burning sand leaves me soaked and bright red in the face. I cannot get anything productive done after lunch. I cannot even nap because it feels like I am sleeping in a sauna and is probably dangerous to my health. And I also cannot get anything productive done after dinner because the constant heat of the day has sucked all the juice out of me. So I spend most evenings chatting, drinking Chang beer, attempting to say things in Thai, or going to bed early to the gentle sounds of the generator, Thai pop music, and/or the barking of the nasty fighting dogs. Most nights, I sleep like a log.

For the turtle project, our daily duties consist of waking up before the sun every morning to monitor the beaches on this island (and also on the neighbouring, exotic Koh Ra island) for any fresh turtle tracks that would indicate a nest. We also spend two hours in the morning, and two in the afternoon, perched atop a rocky hill on the beach. There we sit, hiding from the sun under umbrellas, scanning the water below us for any turtles in order to record their behaviour. We call this job, “Observations from the Rock”. At the moment, there are four staff members working here (including me) and four volunteers. Volunteers come from all over the world – France, England, Holland, China,

Switzerland

- and normally stay for two weeks to a month. Sadly, there are no other Canadians here at the moment and we are being invaded by the British over the next month. The goal of this project is to collect data for research on the sea turtles, as well as on the mangroves and coral reefs in the area. It is also to protect sea turtles and nests from natural and human predation, as much as is possible for a small, poorly-funded, not-for-profit organization that relies on volunteers. Furthermore, one of the main goals here is to educate as many people as possible (volunteers and local villagers) on diverse environmental and conservation issues – and on sea turtles of course! An admirable goal! Hence, one of my main duties is to help each day here in the village school, helping my colleague Pi Por (really my boss, but she is too nice to boss me around), who was hired to teach English and conservation at school. We also make weekly trips to the two other villages on this island, Tapoiyoi and Toon Dap, to teach the other students of the island.

So far, working at the schools has been one of the most enjoyable parts of my experience on the island. The kids are fantastic, hilarious, and ready to learn. They dance along willingly to my silly songs and make funny attempts to sing along to my old favourites, including the Canadian classic “There was a Great Big MOOOSE”. We make weekly trips down to the mangrove forest so that the kids can take down data from their mangrove study areas. They laugh when I count in Thai and correct my writing when I try to write in the curly, whirly Thai alphabet. They are great. And it is great that this organization (www.naucrates.org) seems to value education just as much as research.

And now for the bad news. The team has not found a single turtle nest all season. Last year, they found 8 nests in January and February and watched hatchlings emerge from the nests in March. This year, no female turtle has been observed making the long trek up the beach to dig her nest. Alas! Alas for the poor staff and volunteers that have been waking up at the crack of dawn to walk the beaches for weeks and weeks, finding nothing. Alas Alas for the local female sea turtles that were not able to return to their natal beach this year to nest. Alas Alas Alas for the general fate of sea turtles worldwide. All 8 species of sea turtle are either highly threatened, or endangered. These animals have existed on this earth for millions of years and now they are rapidly disappearing from beaches all over the world. And who is threatening these amazing creatures with extinction? You guessed it, good old Homo sapiens sapiens – marine polluter, mass deforester, beach developer, turtle egg eater, consumer of pretty turtle shell products – we are guilty. But despite this gloom and doom, we here on Golden Buddha Island are still hopeful and still keeping our fingers crossed for some late nesters on these lonely beaches!

Right Back into the Wetsuit

2009-02-23T20:28:00.008+07:00

After my jungle experience, it was lovely to know that I was heading back to Khao Lak to meet up with my new dive friend Nadia at a gorgeous "luxury" hotel that, thanks to her good bargaining skills, only cost us 500 baht ( 17 Canadian dollars) each per night. I arrived, slept, ate, and got my laundry done. It was what I needed to get over the last of my nasty cold, I hoped. It was when I saw Nadia's smiling face at the dive shop that I realized how nice it was to see a friendly familiar face.

Travelling alone has been just fine here in Thailand, everything seems so safe and easy and clean compared to South America. But being a loner on the road definately has its downsides. The first major one is that things are much more expensive. Every hotel room and taxi ride comes out as twice as much as you would normally pay with a travel companion. And it really adds up, especially the hotel rooms. Moreover, as a lone woman, one normally is forced to take more guided tours of the sites, not having an ready group of nice people to do activities with, and also it not always being the safest option for a woman to wander around alone in unknown areas (in the jungle, in the city). Unfortunately, I tend to dislike guided tours unless they are of very high quality, which was not what I experienced in Khao Sok National Park. The guided tours here seem to be more just ways of getting all the travel arrangements organized for you by a local (cars, boats, trails) instead of actually being a more interesting and educational way of exploring an area. I missed having Simon, my trusty independent hiking partner, with me in the park. I was also getting bored with eating meals alone. So I was pretty excited to see Nadia and gossip to someone about fish and sharks and marine slugs etc.

Our second diving trip was wonderful as well, of course. This time we were in the Similan islands only (instead of the Surin Islands) and the sites were even nicer than the last time, with waving beds of colourful soft corals and large boulders and bommys (boulders made only out of coral rising up out of the sandy ocean floor). And even though we didn't see anything "big"like on the last trip with whale sharks or manta rays, I was happy looking at the nudibranchs (sea slugs) and other small creatures of the sea.

One of the most interesting parts of the trip was sleeping one night on island number 4 of the Similans. Nadia and I had a nice little ridiculously hot tent on the beautiful sandy beach for the first night, and it was great to get off the boat and walk around. However, we were awoken very early in the morning to a incredibly loud and incredibly high-pitched screeching - which we quickly realized was coming from the bats in the trees above our tent. Nadia's first hypothesis was "Maybe they are giving birth?" and then I suggested that "Perhaps they are eating each other?" and finally we concluded that we had no idea why the bats were going berserk at four in the morning. Were they afraid of the coming sun? Do they do this every day? So we laid awake and wide-eyed in our tent for a while until it got light and we were brave enough to make a dash for the beach to get picked up by the boat. The following night we were saved from this petrifying alarm clock because the small boat broke and we slept on the roof of the dive boat under the stars, where we felt a lot cooler and safer from flying mammals.

The only downside of this second trip was that my lingering cold meant that I had pretty bad sinus headaches underwater and a persistant nose bleed on the ascents. It was nothing serious but I found it a fairly dramatic way to come up out of the water with my mask slowly filling with blood. We were exhausted and happy when we got back to shore and spent another late night boogeying down to reggae at the only bar in Khao Lak - the Happy Snapper.

Nadia had invited me to spend a few days at her gorgeous apartment in Bangkok after the trip and I jumped at the opportunity for some R and R and also to get an insider's look at the big, exciting capital city of Thailand. Bangkok is amazing compared to other capital cities (San Jose, La Paz, Lima - Yuk) that I have encountered! So chic, so modern, so smoggy, so busy but not so scary. I spent my time swimming in Nadia's pool with a view over the city, eating in the fantastic mall food courts (I am in love), and spending my money at the markets on cheap summer dresses that I shall probably never wear. Oh yes, and I did do a few hours of site-seeing as well, until I got way way too hot and smoggy and had to hide inside one of the huge air-conditioned malls. Bangkok amazed me. It is not nasty but it is instead lively and interesting and gritty.

Here are some more photos from the dive for the nature lovers out there.

A nudibranch, or beautiful marine slug! These are by far my favourite marine creatures.

A school of barracuda!

A family of clown fish! I would put more on, but this internet connection is very slow. You will have to wait until I get home to be bored to death by all my photos.

A few guided tours in Khao Sok National Park

2009-02-19T13:20:00.006+07:00

I am, perhaps, a little behind in my blog writing. But it seems that each time I sit down in an internet cafe to write something on this site, I succeed in finishing one or two emails and then I realized that the sweat pouring down my back has completely soaked the seat of my pants and I am now sticking to the computer chair and feeling light-headed and heavy and hot and red and gross. So instead of pulling myself together and writing something amusing and elegant about Thailand, I stumble off to the shade or pool or thai massage studio to recuperate. It must take a while for Canadians to adapt to this overheated country - or at least this Canadian.

Last week, as I tried to recover from my sniffling cold and blocked sinuses (possibly a result of too much diving for an poor inexperienced diver) I headed up to Khao Sok National Park for some sightseeing and jungle treking. I had booked another dive trip (YIKES says the bank account) for the following weekend with my new friend Nadia who I met on the last trip and who lives in Bangkok. I just couldn't he lp myself, we saw such amazing things underwater! My shabby bungalow had a gorgeous view over the karst mountains of the park and a lovely little river to swim in with a bamboo raft that I played on. I didn 't want to head off into the jungle alone (tigers! wild boar! elephants!) and so I signed up to walk to a waterfall with a guide. The hike was beautiful but I was disappointed with the guide, who had only have a basic knowledge of English and of rainforest ecology. Granted, I am interested in that kind of thing, but I just wanted to know something more about the forest than that it contains monkeys and lizards. It would have been nice to hike more independently but it would have been quite challenging to find the trail to the most beautiful waterfall supplied only with the terrible sketch map that they give you at the trail head. We did see some interesting things, three kinds of monkey, lizards, elephant footprints and lots of insects. I missed seeing the second largest flower in the world.

The next day, after waking up to the screeching of various jungle creatures, I left on a two-day, one-night lake trip, where they ship all interested white people off to the Chiaw Lan Lake to hike through the jungle to caves and sleep in floating bamboo bungalows. This lake was artificially created by a dam in 1982 and is a major tourist destination because of the beautiful scenery with limestone cliffs stretching for hundreds of metres up out of the crystal blue water. I loved the trip but it was a little too packaged that it sometimes made me uneasy. The locals must wonder why there is a constant flux of white tourists coming in and out everyday from the lake.

While I was there, I read that when they finished the dam, the whole area flooded quite fast and many of the local animals drowned because they could not escape, and could not be warned. Some animals, including cloud leopards and many monkeys, managed to flee to the high limestone peaks but after a short amount of time, the food sources on the small isolated peaks began to run out and the larger animals started to starve. But it was now too far for them to swim to the mainland! One Thai biologist decided to organize a rescue mission and boated in to trap and snare some animals and then bring them to shore. However, many animals died, especially the shy leopards, who were stressed by the whole operation. Now the dam is one of the main sources for hydroelectric power in the area, and the lake is beautiful, but I couldn't stop thinking of this story while I was there.

Our guide at the lake spoke even less English and hiked through the jungle totally barefoot, even when we ended up bush-whacking through dense bamboo groves and prickley thorn shrubs to get to one of the caves. One of the caves he brought us too was so full of water at some points that we had to swim to get through to the other side. They told us that during the rainy season, there had been some "fatalities" there due to a flash flood, which made the whole experience fairly creepy and a little more exciting. I slept very well in my floating bamboo hut but overall was glad to head back to town the next day and get a foot massage and then head back down to the beautiful coast for more diving! I must say, if I have to choose between the jungle and the coast, I would choose the whale sharks over the monkeys any day!

Diving in the Andaman Sea with Penelope

2009-02-08T13:30:00.005+07:00

Eat your hearts out dive friends! I have just returned from a 3 day, 2 night trip onboard a dive boat that took us out into the Andaman sea to the Similan and Surin Islands, off the west coast of southern Thailand. And boy oh boy am I exhausted! We did 9 dives in 3 days and I have had to lie by the pool before and after my thai massages for two full days. I need to regain my strength for the next dive trip that I am leaving on the day after tomorrow! After all the amazing and beautiful things that we saw, I couldn't resist returning for another few days out at sea. It is not everyday that you have the opportunity to dive in the second best dive site in the world! (Not sure what is considered number one - Indonesia?)

I enjoyed the trip, although I didn't sleep well on the boat and I found that 4 dives in one day - including a night dive - was a little much for me. And I really like the company that we dove with - Wicked Dive Khao Lak - because they have a green eco-friendly focus to their trips. We did our best to minimize the impact of our diving on the reef ecosystems that we visited, although it is impossible to leave no trace at all - especially with so many scuba men and woman dumped into the water each day. The boat was run on a mix of biofuel and all our soap and shampoo was natural and biodegradable. We had a hands-off rule for all aquatic fauna and our guides gave us lectures on whale shark biology and conservation - talking to us about the appropriate behaviour towards the big marine life that we saw out there. We completed a buoyancy dive to try and prevent us from smashing our fins or other equipment down onto the reef and also did a reef clean-up dive. These seems like small and easy things to do - but that is the whole point! So many enviro-friendly actions are simple and easy to carry out, however for the majority of people these things are just not a priority.

And before I go, let me mention briefly some of the beautiful things that we saw:

Penelope the juevenile Whale Shark

Leopard Shark

Can you find the ghost pipe fish?

Japanese Onsen

2009-02-03T14:34:00.006+07:00

One of my favourite discoveries in Japan was the Onsen, or natural hot spring, experience. Japan has geothermal activity all over the country and for hundreds of years the Japanese have used these areas to create beautiful, natural hot springs. Everyone goes to them and they are found all over the place, in small towns, ski resorts, big cities. They are inexpensive (from 3-7 dollars) and many of them are really beautiful, built outside into natural rock pools with views overlooking the mountain scenery, for example. The only tricky thing for me is that there are no bathing suits allowed. Men and women are separated, but everyone is stark naked. And considering the fact that outside of major cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, a tall, white, blond foreigner is something of a spectacle for the locals, imagine the impression that a tall, white, blond, and naked foreign girl makes in a small local onsen!

My first onsen experience was with four of Simon's other foreign teacher friends in a beautiful location in the mountains of Zao - so at least I was not alone to figure it all out! On Sunday morning, I found myself seated naked on a little stool, next to four of Simon's friends that I had just met, washing myself in preparation for the pools. When you arrive at an onsen, you pick up a small little towel about the size of a wash cloth, which you can strategically use in an attempt to cover yourself as you scamper around between the outside pools. Then you strip down, take a seat on one of the little stools, and scrub scrub scrub all the dirt off with the soap and shampoo provided. Then you douse yourself with water, and clean off the stool, and only then you can hop into the baths, which are very hot and full of minerals that have various health benefits apparently, depending on the local mix of minerals in the water. The little towel can then be used to wrap about your head in turban fashion, if desired.

I must admit that I was a little nervous and more than a little uncomfortable in my glaring white skin at the start of my first onsen experience, my heart was racing when I stepped outside into the pools. And I did collect my fair share of wide-eyed stares, especially from the little girls, but I quickly relaxed and enjoyed sitting in the cooler tubs (shaped like barrels with a stream of water flowing into them) to relax my aching muscles. For someone who has never thought of herself as easily embarrassed about nakedness, I realized how foreign the idea of communal bathing is to a North American. Alas! Because it is a wonderful, inexpensive way to relax with friends and quite a good bonding experience to loll around naked with your buddies. I went twice while I was there and fell in love with the whole Japanese hot spring experience. There are apparently some co-ed public onsens but I am not yet brave enough to venture into those - that towel is just a little too small to protect me from prying male eyes!

A few days in Nippon, the Land of the Rising Sun

2009-01-29T09:09:00.000+07:00

Well friends, I hardly know where to start for my first official blog entry post-departure. I suppose that I could start at the beginning.

The flight from Detroit was uneventful, and extremely long. Despite my sleeping pill, I only managed to sleep for about 3 hours squeezed into my seat in the 61st row of the plane. And coming after a fairly sleepless night in Toronto where I tossed and turned for hours over-analyzing my packed luggage, I arrived in Japan relatively tired. In that one day, I travelled over 10,000 km - by car, plane, plane, train, train, car - to finally get to my destination in Japan.

When I arrived in Sendai to meet Simon, we ate our first quick Japanese meal together in a small restaurant where you bought your food ticket from a vending machine and then brought it up to a little Japanese woman in the kitchen with her son. We then dashed off to meet up with Simon's other JET English teacher friends (who come from Canada, Quebec, the USA, Australia, and England) to leave for our ski chalet in Zao for the weekend.

Zao is a famous Japanese ski resort - but we had terrible ski conditions. It had rained on Friday and Saturday dawned to cloudy, near white-out conditions at the top and miles of sheet ice on the hill. It was a terrifying combination! I put in a full courageous day of snowboarding, careening down the icy slopes in too big snow boots, barely able to see anything through the swirling wind and snow, feeling dazed from the jet lag. But there were many things to distract me from fatigue!

I believe that we spent more time going up the various lifts and gondolas than actually skiing down. I have never been to a more confusing, hap-hazard ski hill in my life - there were 40 different chair lifts and I think probably not even that many different ways down. There were also at least 5 men working at each lift. One man was standing beside the automatic turnstile to smile, bow and greet everyone going past, one man was there to smile, bow and usher everyone onto the lift, one man actually operated the lift, and then there were normally two more workers to smile, bow and usher everyone off the lift. I hear that there is very little unemployment in Japan!

And now that I have mentioned smiling and bowing, this is the first day when I have not spent the entire time doing either one! As I have claimed to be working (studying turtle biology), I was allowed to stay at Simon's apartment instead of accompanying him to school today. And it is a much needed respite from all of this Japanese etiquette, which I find very tiring as a new foreigner.

(Side-note: I want to mention that as it is just now noon here, the village loudspeakers have just played a cheerful little tune to announce the time, as they also do at 6 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock at night.)

Here are some of the many social rules that I have learned (and already broken a couple times) so far:

1) Always take off your shoes when you go inside a home, school, public building, etc. and put on the slippers provided (or bring your own inside shoes). In some washrooms there are even separate bathroom slippers (with WC written on them) that you have to change into, and which I always forget to take off when I leave the toilet, probably causing much consternation and embarrassment among the locals re: the transfer of evil gaijin bathroom germs.

2) You are not to bathe anywhere, public bath, pool, private bathtub (including Simon's bath, but I broke the rule last night because I was lazy and he is not Japanese) until you have washed yourself. It is unclean to bathe in your own filth, hence shower first, and then get into the tub.

3) No sticking your chopsticks into your rice and leaving them poking upwards. You must always leave them lying flat on the table or across the top of your bowl. It is bad luck, I think, because it is a symbol or omen of death.

4) Don't lick your chopsticks or fingers. I licked my fingers at school lunch yesterday with all of Simon's colleagues, and then spent the next 10 minutes choking, tearing, and gasping for breath, while everyone fussed over me offering water and saying "Oh oh! Is JAPANESE mustard, oh oh!"

5) Whenever everyone goes away anywhere - even for a short time, they must bring back small presents (wrapped) from the place they visited. These are called O-miyage.

6) However, women are not supposed to give gifts to men (or show any skin).

7) Always accept things with two hands.

8) Never serve yourself drinks (beer, wine, juice, water) at a meal. Someone else must serve you. I have asked what happens when you eat alone but no one seems to know. Perhaps no one else is there to see you serve yourself?

9) Never let other women in the bathroom hear the sound of your pee tinkling into the toilet. You must flush beforehand, to mask the sound of tinkling, and then you must flush again afterwards. If you don't pre-flush, another woman will probably do it for you.

10) Do not eat in public. If forced to, it is better to face a wall or use a special seat provided for this purpose. (Ice cream cones are apparently an exception.)

Imagine - these are only the very important social rules that even a foreigner who has been here for a mere five days is expected to learn. Thinking about the infinite number of polite habits the Japanese have to learn makes me feel exhausted and ill-mannered.

However, I think that I have made a good impression with Simon's colleagues and students over the past few days and at my delicious birthday feast last night. Or perhaps the colour of my hair and eyes is so charming, or "cute" and "bootifool", that it does not matter how I behave! Aside from some awkward questions about our marital statue, ("not wife... partner, PART-NER") things have gone very well.

Last night for Simon's and my delicious Japanese birthday feast (paid for by the principal and attended by all the teachers at his high school) we ate: a salad of radish slices with raw tuna, octopus, and shrimp, a bowl of "pickled fish intestines", a bowl of green wasabi-flavoured cubes of roe (fish eggs), sashimi (sushi on bed of rice) of shrimp, yellowtail, tuna, and sea urchin (!), tempura vegetables and shrimp, a plate of soya-flavoured eggplant scallops and shrimp 'au gratin' and oysters, a large bowl of seafood soup with veggies, meatballs, scallops, and who knows what else, and a large omelette covered in a gooey brown sauce which was the only thing that I didn't try because my stomach turned when I looked at it. To drink, we had Asahi beer, hungarian wine, expensive saki, and ice cider from Quebec (as well as many soft drinks). To finish the night, everyone sang "Appy Birt-day" to us and conjured up a real, sugary, creamy delicious cake with candles and a chocolate on which Happy Birthday was written. It was very Japanese and very lovely. And despite all these interesting things mixing around in my stomach late at night, I slept quite well on Simon's futon.

Packing my Bags

2009-01-22T05:11:00.002+07:00

Bright and early tomorrow morning, Thursday Jan. 22nd, I leave from Toronto for Detroit and then direct on to Tokyo, Japan! I leave at noon from Detroit and arrive at 4pm the next day, after having suffered through a 14 hour flight. I will let you know how that goes but hopefully my little blue pill will work its sleepy magic.

To celebrate our birthdays (only one day apart) Simon B. and I will meet up in Sendai and do some snowboarding with his other foreigner friends. Then, I'm spending the next week relaxing in the small Japanese town where Simon teaches English at both the elementary and secondary school. I can't wait to stuff myself full during my welcome feast... fresh sushi, sashimi, tempura, and who knows what other exciting (and scary) fishy things!

After the week in Japan, I will leave for Thailand to start doing some SCUBA diving in the gorgeous warm waters of the south. Near the end of February, I will start my work as a research assistant (and English teacher) for a sea turtle marine conservation project on a small, relatively deserted, tropical island. More about that to come. (Check out this link if you are interested in the project: http://www.naucrates.org/).

I have just finished my preliminary packing job and here are the five things that I think will be most useful on my trip.

1) SCUBA fins, dive mask and snorkel

2) my Leatherman pocket knife

3) Shampoo and Conditioner in soild bar form (looks like soap but works like shampoo, amazing)

4) Blue sleeping pills and melatonin to overcome the insane Jet lag

5) Way too many English books (I NEED them)

Wish me Bon Voyage! Happy winter and see you in the Spring!