everything up until now

Bangkok, Yarawat Street. After flying nine hours to Tokyo, seven hours to Bangkok, and taking a two hour ride by rented van we arrive at the New Empire Hotel. Our trip is structured so that at times like this we have access to what normal tourists don’t see. The whole point was to see the real Bangkok and I’m excited to say I’ve done just that. The Temple of the reclining Buddha was awe inspiring, but even more so were the monstrous dilapidated tenement house high rises and the mile after mile of street venders serving countless people bustling about their business mostly on scooters. Mae Nam Chao Phraya, the main river, connects an intricate system of canals along which the homes range from the shanty to the extravagant. We chartered a longboat for 100 baht a person to take us through the residential areas connected by canal which were fascinating. Mailboxes face the canal and everything from faded vinyl Coke signs to bird cages, animal skulls, and boats hang from porch banisters as people go about their daily routines. Children jumped from bridges over the canal and people did laundry in them. This has become an important piece of motivation for my pursuit of a legal degree directed at protecting the environment. The canals and river are such an important part of the lives of many Thai people and are arterial throughout the city yet there is not a single sewage treatment plant to be found, all sewer pipes discharge directly into the canals and as a result of that and all the boat traffic they are filthy.

On a more pleasant note Bangkok was wonderful. I ate all menagerie of strange things and fell in love with what I have dubbed Stick Meat, referring to any of the stunning variety of meats that can be found skewered on sticks and grilled. For dinner we would eat and drink like kings for 70 baht which equals out to little under two U.S. dollars and then for 20 more baht, about 80 cents, have a giant skewer of the choiciest of stick meats dipped in any variety of sauces from sweet and sour to the spiciest of pepper sauces.

Looking out from the top tier of a Buddhist monument at the Wat Arun temple, I felt the weathered brick under my hands as I looked out over the rest of the temple complex and the high-rises and skyscrapers, mixed in no particular order, stretching out forever into the haze and thought about how this was the furthest I had ever been from home. The furthest both in terms of distance and cultural difference. It made me feel small to think about how these millions of people had been living, dying, and going about their business without me until the moment of my arrival a day or so earlier. Of course one knows the rest of the world is really out there somewhere, but now that I’ve set out to see it my former perceptions and ideas of what it was seem so vague.

Koh Tao.

Koh Tao is an island paradise two hours by boat from mainland Thailand. If Jimmy Buffet died I imagine he’d choose Koh Tao over heaven, and as such I had a great time there. Upon our arrival we had the day off to peruse the town and get a feel for things. The following day we went scuba diving at a dive site called Shark Pinnacle and one called Green Rock. At Shark Pinnacle we saw bull sharks and white reef sharks and it was…awesome. At Green Rock we swam through small caves, saw fields of Christmas Tree worms, and pissed off enormous triggerfish as we swam through their territories. If diving at Koh Tao was this good I can hardly wait to dive in the Maldives. That night we went out and sampled the culture of the island and although I may never sort out exactly what it is, it is definitely something. Far too early the next morning we departed for the mainland again and upon arrival we traveled to a national park to explore an enormous cavern whose ceiling had collapsed. It was easily the most awe inspiring experience thus far, the cavern being directly out of an Indiana Jones movie with a small forest and a temple of sorts inside it. We hiked up the mountain to the cavern before dawn and were inside as it slowly grew light. Inside I built a cairn for my family on top of a rock with a great view of the cavern. On the hike down we caught a rare sight of monkeys eating in a tree along the trail at about head level and about five or six feet away.

We departed from the cavern site to stay in a dormitory several hours by bus away. We stayed there two nights and in hiked one day through a tropical dry forest there. We heard gibbons howling nearby, saw several giant piles of elephant feces, and hiked about six miles down through the forest to a huge waterfall. My friend Nate and I climbed up the rocks a bit and jumped into the crystal clear, ice cold water below. I have never felt anything more refreshing in my entire life than those waters after hiking through the jungle all day. Also there were beautiful trout everywhere in the pool below the falls. The following morning vans arrived and brought us to the hotel from which I am writing, so now everyone is all caught up. I leave in about an hour for the airport and a few hours after that for Delhi, India. Very exciting.

Koh Tao

Hi all, I was having some trouble accessing my blog, but its alright now. My group has been through Hawaii already, staying in Maui. We snorkeled at two great locations, saw a lava field although it had mostly been blown up as it was a former military testing grounds. Following that we went on a twelve mile hike through an erosional valley atop a volcano. The name of the area is Haleakela, which means house of the sun. We also attended a lecture presented by Ed Lyman of NOAA, the head of all whale entanglement rescues for both Alaska and Hawaii, on his work. On our day off I went with my new friend Andrew Swafford and taught myself to surf. I was successful for all of about five seconds, but I still count it. Hawaii was a great change after how cold it was in Alaska.

After Hawaii we traveled all day to Bangkok staying in China town for two nights and presently I'm in Koh Tao Thailand. I have so much to say on it all. I regret however that if I am not to be left behind as our boat leaves the island I must cut my blog short. My apologies for not having any pictures up yet, they're big files, take forever to load and I cant do it presently. I will be posting again, with pictures, from the airport in Bangkok on the 31st. Hi mom, and Farewell.

Alaska

Hi all. Im currently in Alaska as the title suggests. We have been staying at a religious retreat known as the Shrine of Saint Therese, an interesting locale with lots of log cabins and a long peninsula ending in a pine sheltered shrine and ocean observation point. Sea lions and whales have been spotted both from the observation point and from our front porch. It was rather warm for Alaska in January over the past few days but yesterday our group finally got a taste of the winter weather up here. I was glad I got to experience the usual climate, but only about as glad as one can be whilst being pelted in the face by sideways snow and hail. The object of our stop here was to observe the boreal forest biome and get a sense of the point of our trip in a somewhat familiar place. Soon we head North to Anchorage and after a day or two there we'll be heading south to Maui, Hawaii. Im sure all of my group will welcome the change in weather.
I guess now would be a good time for a brief exlpanation of exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. There are three classes that our group will be getting credit for on this trip. One is a biology course entitled Biomes of the World, the other two are writing and literature classes. The writing class focuses on the art of travel writing beyond a simple chronological litany of events, and the literature class focuses on German Science in Literature. For the biomes class each student will be devising a personal study plan comprised of a few things each wants to observe in all biomes visited and then parallels, if any exist, will be drawn between the observations from all of the biomes to enhance understanding both of the individual biomes and of the world at large so each of us might return home able to speak on the subject of biome types, effects of climate change, and anything else the student may have been particularly motivated to observe.
Concerning the travel writing class, the purpose is to allow us to convey our experience in such a way as to garner the attention and interest of those we would convey it to. As far as the literature class goes, the journey as a whole is styled after the scientific and natural history explorations of Darwin and Von Humboldt. The readings on such topics allow us to get a sense of what it is that we are doing, learning through travel. Really going to the place one wants to understand and immersing ones self in it is a learning strategy that may have fallen somewhat by the way side of late and this journey is really a revival of that for each of the students.
As soon as I get internet access again I'll be posting my personal study plan and any observations I may have made by then as well as photos I've taken to date. Mom, Im sorry for any spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors, but my time on the computers at the University of Alaska is limited.

Upcomings

On January 7th I depart. I am leaving on a study abroad trip that will be a great adventure. It's a journey around the world and the main reason this blog was created. I hope to be updating as frequently as possible for all of you who know me and want to keep up with what Im doing. The first stop is Juneau Alaska and then on to Hawaii and from there the rest of the world. As soon as Im good and gone and have internet access again Ill put another post up about whats been happening and whats about to happen.