Nong Khiew - proper travellers

150K upriver from Luang Prabang spent an interesting evening with two proper travellers. One- a young Norwegian bloke - had sailed from Norway to New Zealnd in a 22ft boat, across both the Atlantic and Pacific. He had sold his boat in NZ and was making his way home overland. The other, a german in his sixties, was taking six months to cycle from Germany to Bangkok. He had cycled all the way across Russia and China - Siberia vas borink, nothing but birch trees - until the heat forced him to take a bus in Vietnam. After several beers the german got very quite drunk, but the Norwegian remained as perky as ever, showing the kind of stamina it takes to sail around the world single-handedly.

Back to LP on the slow boatthe next day. Five hours of fantastic landscapes and very hard seats.

Tourists in Luang Prabang

LP is a mixture of french colonial and traditional wooden houses. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and the centre almost completely given over to tourism. Very beautiful, but maybe a bit too perfect. All the streets are swept, the pavements (there are pavements!) neatly made out of herringbone brick. However, not far away life carries on as normal.

Did a couple of touristy things, including a trip to the waterfalls where we met the American nurse who had travelled up from Vientiane on the bus (14 hours!). She joined a group of twenty-something Japanese tourists in plunging 8' into the water from an overhanging tree, and received an admiring round of applause.

Vientiane

Laos is very very quiet and a bit bumbly after Thailand. There are only 5m people here in a country the size of GB. Vientiane is tiny! Stayed in grande luxe in a crumbling colonial villa with a wonderful garden (although I did wish they would pick up the empty beer cans).

Laos seems to attract some interesting people. Met a 70 year-old nurse from New York who has spent the last eight months working for Medecins sans Frontieres in Cambodia with HIV patients. She leaves her husband at home and goes volunteering abroad to remote places.

Everyone very keen to practise their English. Got talking to some monks at one of the Wats and ended up giving an impromptu English lesson. We were invited into their room where they had set up a classroom - complete with whiteboard - where they practise English conversation among themselves. Becoming a monk is one way for boys to receive an education. They explained that while they had been monks for four years, they did not expect to be monks forever, and English was necessary to get a good job. Being inside the temple was a bit like being in a boys boarding school. They had boxes of little cellophane wrapped snacks under their beds to keep them going between their one meal a day. So on the whiteboard went: 'Guests eat snacks' - except of course we only ate one tiny packet of Chinese crackers to be polite, as they had so little.

Off to Laos

Caught the night train to Nong Khai - quite rackety. It poured down in the night and the train went very slowly. A group of railway police had a party in the dining car and drank all night. They were still pouring bottles of beer when the train finally got to NK two hours late at ten o'clock in the morning. A big fat cook had to steer them out of the door.

In NK took a tuktuk to the border where we went through a series of checkpoints each designed to extract a different sum of cash: $35 for a visa, plus an extra $1 - because it was Friday? 100 Bt for completing the paperwork, 10 Bt for permission to cross, 15 Bt for the bus ride across the bridge. Then finally through and into Laos.

State of emergency

Seems like the protests turned nasty overnight when govt supporters laid into the anti govt crowds at govt house. One person killed and quite a lot wounded. We are apparently now under a state of emergency but no one seems to know what that means. Melissa from downstairs came up to say that they had all been told not to go into work as UN is right next to govt house. A general strike is threatened for tomorrow of all public workers. Hannah v worried that they will stop her flight to Australia on Thursday morning and is trying to change her ticket but all flights booked solid.
Sat on the balcony and wondered what to do about going to Laos. In the end decided to buy tickets anyway. Will be on the train if it goes and if not will get money back and take a bus to the beach. At the station no one seemed to know what was hapening so they were just carrying on as usual.
Everyone seems a bit tense and bad tempered, apart from those who are just enjoying the excitement. Extra security in all public buildings and at the stations. However, otherwise everything seems the same.

AIT

The talk at AIT went well. Sue came with and we got the mini bus from Mo Chit - takes about half an hour along the expressway. Seems quite a long way out. When we got there it was baking hot and no one about - very different from Kasert which is always boiling with activity. As an international university it had a very different atmosphere, lots of foreigners and very few Thais.

There were 14 people in the class - all post grads - some from Indonesia, quite a few from India, other from China and Korea. The common language is English, but some struggle. They are just about to start their own research and they seemed to enjoy the practical side, what I did, how I did it. But I got the feeling they would have liked more hard conclusions about gender, but it isn't that easy to come up with hard and fast conclusions in such a short period, as they will find.. Babette pushed a bit but I didn't give in.

They gave me a nice present - a bag and a book and were all very gracious. Came back on the ordinary bus which took so long I was starving by the time we got back.

Chiang Mai, back again and protests

Thoord gave Bee and I a lift to CM on Sunday afternoon, as they were going to visit his dad in hospital. I have a feeling the frogs in the plastic bag were a present for him, but didn't like to enquire.

At CM I checked into the TopNorth Hotel, right in Farangcentral. Bit strange at first to be back in the world of bars and written English. However, Touristworld is fine for 24 hours - had a swim, a gin and tonic, bought a load of presents in the night market, and went to a bar where two Thais sang country and western songs in accents that missed out all of the consonants. I thought they were great and gave them a big tip. It absolutely threw it down most of the night and the next morning.

In the morning sat in my room and wrote most of my AIT presentation, then back late afternoon train. Managed to get hold of a copy of the The Bangkok Post which is full of stories about the escalating anti-govt protests in the city.

Tuesday eve - Sue due to arrive Weds so was running errands. Was going up to the little supermarket when one of the big marches came down Phaya Thai road. Found out later that this was one of the five demos that Tuesday. These people had been occupying one of the Ministries up the road, and having made their point they had left in the evening and were marching to rejoin the main big protest outside Govt House. There were thousands of them, all dressed in yellow, looking very happy and unthreatening, taking up three lanes of the road in a procession which stretched for over half a mile. They were singing, had a few drums and loads of 'We love the King' banners. Interestingly, there was hardly a policeman to be seen. If this was in England, there would be a policemen every 20'. The only policemen I saw was a traffic cop stopping the motorbikes driving into the demo from a side road.

Second trip to Mae Tha

A very successful trip to Mae Tha. Did six interviews - with women working in the electronics factories, a couple with women who worked in a noodle factory and one with a primary school teacher. One woman was making industrial size quantities of Som Tam in her back garden kitchen. She had a large tin bowl of live fresh water crabs which they had caught in the paddy belonging to a relative. As we were talking to her she picked them out of the bowl and put them in the blender, absently pushing them down as they tried to climb out, and then blended them whole. That was a short interview.
Thoord provided loads of secondary data which Bee got very excited about and downloaded a stats programme and proceeded to set up an enormous spreadsheet. I'm not completely sure what it all means, but may come in useful once I understand it. At one stage we had three laptops going and piles of paper spread over the floor.
Little PimPom was very pleased with her animal book and didn't let go of it all the time I was there. Although she has more than a lot of Thai kids she doesn't have a lot - and practically no other books. Her two friends were there for most of the weekend and the three little girls spent ages sitting in the hammock with the older one reading the words and the smaller ones looking at the pictures. I was sorry to leave Mae Tha - Thoord and Bim are lovely and I also really liked Pikot (I think she's a cousin) who was very helpful and kind. The picture shows her and PimPom outside Pikot's house. I went for a bike ride on Bim's bike on my last evening and went all round the valley as it was getting dark. The air was full of fireflies and the sky really clear so the constellations stood out.

On my travels again

Just spent a pleasant lunchtime in Kasert's specimen garden. Everything is labelled, I am trying to memorise at least one species every time I go in.

This evening off to Mae Tha again on the night train. Unfortunately we booked too late to get the bottom bunks, so we will be slotted in like parcels on the top shelf. Aim to spend three days at MT, interviewing women who work in the electronics factories in Lamphun to see what their attitude is to the CF. We will also go the the Royal Project and try again to get to the bottom of exactly what secondary data exists. And need to take as many photos as possible! Bee has borrowed her friend's digital camera, and is in charge of documenting everything we see.

In pursuit of something to read

Made another trip to raid the second hand bookstalls of the Khao San Road today. Got four books for 600B, or about nine quid, including a copy of Norman Lewis's travel book on Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in the early 1950's. Say what you like about backpacker land, it is a good source of books. For new books there are some very good bookshops in town, but the rate I go through fiction means it would be a very expensive undertaking. I was a bit disappointed by the British Council lending library - not many books, and mainly abbreviated versions of english classics for people learning English. The shortened versions of Trollope appeal even less than the full versions. AUA has apparently got a library - will have a look when I am next down there for another language class.

So in the meantime, there's the KS Rd. It's on the other side of the city, which until now has meant a journey to the end of the Skytrain line, and then a boat. Not anymore though! Today I found the elusive no 59 bus and did the whole trip in under 20 mins. Had to run to catch it mind, it doesn't hang about and you need to ring the bell and get off sharpish, otherwise it's blasting on up the road in a cloud of filthy exhaust.

The Queen's birthday

Tuesday 12th August is a public holiday for the Queen's birthday. Lots of Thais take the Monday off to create a four day weekend, so the city is in holiday mode. Yesterday went to see local 'festival' recommended by the landlady. I decided to walk there, an achievement in itself, as walking is not something which is done in this city. I followed the railway tracks for half a mile west, which I have been meaning to explore for a while. There is a concrete path by the side of the tracks which I have seen a lot of people using. The walk down the tracks was quiet, but pretty squalid in places as a shanty town has been built on the spare land between the railway and the next row of houses. I saw a group of men building yet another house out of sheets of corrugated iron, on posts stuck in the remains of a lotus pond.

The 'festival' turned out to be a gathering of all the people who had been invited to an audience with the Queen to celebrate her birthday - there were thousands of them, mainly women of a certain age in formal silk suits, and hundreds of girls guides and boy scouts in uniform, a bit like an english royal garden party. They had obviously all been told to gather at a certain spot where they could entertain themselves for a couple of hours by looking at an exhibition of the Queen's good works before they were bussed to the Chitlada Palace. The exhibition was open to the public and was a bit like a royal trade fair in a marquee, with yards of Thai silk draped everywhere and three 6' high balls of thread to symbolise the Queen's support for handicrafts. A lot of effort had gone into making it as pretty as possible: there were fairy lights, lots of hanging baskets and even more flowers projected onto an indoor waterfall.

Outside was a market where you could buy produce from the royal projects and lots of royal-themed souvenirs - I was quite tempted by an umbrella which said' Long live our Beloved King' in English (and presumably) in Thai.

Lettuce palace

Today walked over to the Suan Pakkad aka the 'Lettuce Garden' a group of traditional Thai houses around a garden which have been turned into a museum. Inside is a collection of pottery, semi-precious stones and some rather random artifacts collected by Prince Chimbhot. Very little is labelled, and the collection is a strange mixture of royal odds and ends - e.g. a model throne, unwanted presents - (what else do you do with a banqueting set of matching victorian glasses?) and some really lovely and valuable things e.g. a 14th century Buddah and some lacquered panels. One of the houses holds a collection of puppets which when you press a button will creak into action and re-enact a section of the Ramakien (Thailand's version of the Ramayama). Outside the garden is full of birds and pretty peaceful considering it faces onto a main road. Not for long though - the Skytrain extension to the airport is being built at the back and soon there'll be a train going past overhead every 5 minutes.

The walk home

Left the Thai language class feeling despondent at my lack of any kind of grasp of this language and decided to walk home. In about a mile walked across an entire slice of Bangkok life. 300 yards up Rachadamri I came to the Erewan Shrine, where thai dancers in traditional costume and musicians were performing, and crowds of people were burning incense and buying little cages of sparrows to set free. Then left down to Siam Square where the six lanes of traffic is so heavy the only way of getting around is to walk above it on the elevated walkway. This runs out so you have to walk through the department stores - acres and acres of branded goods in dead air conditioned space. Then right onto Phaya Thai Road. Cross where the road goes over the stinky khlong. I stopped at a canal-side cafe bar which is popular with young trendy Thais - extremely fashionable, talking on their mobile phones. Then on up the road past the Asia Hotel with all the massage girls sitting out front. Another hair-raising traffic intersection to cross at Petburi, and a quick detour to the southern Thai pavement food stalls outside the mosque for some mangoes and sticky rice. Then up through the workaday streets of Ratchathewi - stalls, street food, people threading garlands, motorbikes. Then through the office car park that every one uses as a short cut, over the Skytrain station bridge, and home.

Lam yai

Spend Friday with Bee's parents in Lamphun. They are fruit farmers, growing lam yai, bananas and mangoes - but mainly lam yai. Bee's dad (see pic) explains that until about 10 years ago the whole area was down to rice, but now is all given over to fruit growing - presumably much less labour intensive than paddy. We go to have a look at how work is getting on in the orchards. The lam yai season is just about over, and two blokes are up a rickety ladder, chopping away the branches that have fruited. We spend some time pulling the last fruits off the chopped branches - these are the lowest quality ones which will sell for the least money.

Later we meet Bee's uncle at his factory. He is a local fruit magnate who has invested in huge drying sheds and machinery so that the lam yai fruits can be graded, dried and exported - mainly to China. Half a dozen young Karen seasonal workers are making some lunch out the back. They keep their distance from the boss. 'Work long, not much money' says Bee's uncle cheerfully, referring to his workforce . The drying process operates 24 hours a day. 'Do they eat lam yai in England?' he asks, hoping to open up another market. I tell him I don't think so and he gives me a large sack of dried fruit to take back to Bangkok.

Mae Tha (2)

Long couple of days. Have now done nine interviews here (plus sitting in on interminable CF Fund meeting) and am starting to understand how things work. Hooray! Some direction at last. Checked with Thoord's wife Bim, who acts as village archivist, who added some detail but broadly agreed.

Was talking to people about additional income options (apart from agriculture) and it turns out that a few people earn a bit of extra dosh by acting as golf caddies! In the middle of this protected area of National Parks, conservation forest and narrow strips of agricultural land disgraced ex-Prime Minister Thaksin built a huge golf resort which sits like a spaceship a few miles out of town. His wife is currently standing trial for tax evasion - I hope they get them both.

Mae Tha (1)

The four of us got off the night train just as it was getting light at a little halt just outside Doi Khun Tan National Park. Station completely deserted except for a pack of dogs. Picked up by Thoord, leader of the local agricultural co-op, and driven several miles down windy roads to his house for breakfast. Mae Tha is a narrow valley in the mountains, surrounded by forest. Small quantity of flat agricultural land - paddy, baby corn and fruit orchards. Seven linked villages - first impressions - very prosperous, tarmacked roads, several shops and quite a few new houses - highly varnished, tiled roofs and neat gardens. Thoord had arranged for a young volunteer - Pee King - from the co-op to show us about. We met the leader of the local natural resources committee, who is famous for his part in the national struggle for community forests, and who is now concentrating on local issues rather than national ones. Pee King took us to meet several groups of women who were shucking baby corn, but they were reluctant to talk to outsiders. We had a similar experience with other women later. On talking to Thoord it seems that a researcher from Chiang Mai visited recently and put villagers' backs up with her arrogant attitude. Personally I think that this area is so well known, and so well written up in the literature it's just that villagers are sick of answering questions! On the other hand, because there is so much written there is a lot of secondary data which could come in very handy once I find out where and what it is.

So what do you do all day?

Monday - Friday, if not in the field, spend the day at Kaset. Up at sevenish, fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, pack up the laptop and then off to the University via Skytrain and taxi. In the library until 12.00, then lunch in the canteen. In the afternoon more of the same, work with Bee, pester RECOFTC staff with questions. 4.30 is chucking out time, then it's swimming on Mondays, Weds and Fridays, or yoha in the Sports Centre Tuesdays and Thursdays. This not only counteracts all the sitting about but also means that I miss the main evening traffic jam, which can turn a 35 min door to door journey into an hour-long trek.

In the field we could be working (or hanging about waiting to interview someone) from first thing in the morning to 11.00 at night, so a little routine while I'm in Bangkok is useful.

Off to Chiang Mai tomorrow on the night train for four days at Mae Tha CF.

Graduation

Friday was the Forestry Faculty's turn for graduation and the mayhem came to our corner of campus. We were overwhelmed with proud relatives and over excited students, all picnicking and taking photos of each other in caps and gowns before going off for the presentation ceremony. Bee had changed out of her jeans and plimsolls for the occasion and I took a few pictures of the new graduate who has spent five years doing a joint degree in forestry and social science.

A royal visitor

This week is graduation week at Kaset, and we are graced by HM Princess Chulaporn, the King's youngest daughter, who is here is give out the degree certificates. Every day for four days the junior students create an honour guard, lining the route she takes in and out of the University. They are not allowed to go far from their posts, as they have to be ready whenever she may appear. Consequently they are sitting out at the edge of the road in their formal uniforms and black shoes from late morning onwards.
I caught HM's departure this afternoon. At 4.50 everyone started looking up the road and the traffic police began diverting traffic from the main road in and out of Gate 1. The road emptied. The national anthem played over the PA and we all stood to attention. Then at five o' clock the royal cavalcade swept down the road. Everyone and everything was completely silent. Not a flag was waved or a photograph taken. As the royal yellow BMW went past, the line of students rippled as each one bowed or curtsied. The procession was made up of ten vehicles, including three traffic police cars and an ambulance in case of medical emergency while stuck in traffic. A pick up truck with three men in full dress uniform sitting in the back brought up the rear. We all held our breath while she went past. Then as soon as she was through the gate the spell was broken, the motorcycle taxis started up and life went back to normal.

Trip to villages (4)

For our last day the headwoman’s son gives us a lift to Ba Noi Hong (c 3 miles away) where we will do some more interviewing and stay the night. Idyllic farm - six little cows and a calf called Foremost after the dairy company. Area suffers from water shortages in the summer. Water (apart from drinking water) stored in fishponds and lotus ponds. OK to wash in but don't clean your teeth with pond water (very brown)! About 1m mosquitoes.

We set off on foot with Pi Ying (farmer's wife) to interview the neighbours, looking for younger people who have been to work outside the village and returned.

We interview young woman Urai wan Rakpan (Nam) aged 19, with two year old daughter. Very poor family. Landless. Day labourers. She and her husband leave the village to work on construction sites for several months at a time. Has been back in the village for 2 months to look after her mother in law who is v sick following accident when she was hit by a m’bike. Mother-in-law looks as if she has fractured several bones in her face, incl cheekbone and eye socket and right eye does not look good. Pi Ying tells us later that the accident happened in another village and the boy who hit her was the son of the local policeman. Witnesses were reluctant to come forward and she has received no compensation.

Then three up on the bike to another dairy farm where we interview young woman Neep Pow Wam Kotchalee (22) - grandfather keeps interrupting for a moan about CF regulations which mean he can’t take his cows to graze in the forest when he wants to.

Down the road we interview Rung Beakap (M) (29). Wife has gone to work in the factories in Petchaburi province, her home town. Has been away since April. He says she doesn’t like farm work. He helps his parents on the farm and looks after their daughter aged 2.

While we are there Mrs Lottery (Lotterlee) arrives. App one of the richest women in the village – a success story. She has the franchise to sell lottery tickets, among other activities. Later Pi Ying says she has over 100 rai of land.

The next day was the day preceeding the start of Buddhist Lent, so we went to the temple in the morning with our hosts,taking some offerings for the monks (food and a bunch of lotus). Only two monks in a small temple in the forest. Kids ran about during ceremony and showed me what to do. After the monks had eaten villagers scarfed the rest in double quick time. It was nice to see the people I had interviewed all together - could see the family groups - grandfather, Mrs lottery (lotterlee) etc . Then back to Bkok - 3.5 hours on a bus and that was quick because it's a public holiday.

Trip to villages (3) local government

In the morning of 15th July - Bee, Soot (video maker), woman from local NGO and I go with headwoman to pay a courtesy visit to the District Officer at District Office.

We are ushered into his large office w AC (and windows slightly open). Large tv and comfy seating area. Glasses of sweet flat drink are served on little glass coasters and crocheted doilies. Computer with plastic hood on - evidently unused. 12 rubber stamps on a carousel on his desk.

Woman from NGO introduces her project. Purpose: to equip villagers to be able to budget, analyse their incomings and outgoings, help them see where they could make savings. (Apparently debt is a problem in KRTT). KRTT selected as pilot area .

This type of project ‘back to the villages, back to self sufficiency’ supported by the King. District Officer grandly promises support and co-ordination with community leaders in order to let everyone knows about it. Headwoman tells him that Director General of Dept of Environmental Quality Promotion visiting KRTT in September, and they will need to plan for this. As soon as headwoman starts talking District Officer picks up newspaper and starts reading it.

I explain via Bee what I am interested in. District Officer patently does not understand and says go to Isaan if you want to know about migration. He mentions ‘alternative employment’ in a long speech he has evidently made before. I pounce on this and ask via Bee what his office is doing to promote alternative employment in the area. He flounders about elephants – people are like elephants, they both need the natural resources of the area. Bee looks confused – should I translate? No. He then goes on about how an elephant festival in another area has been very successful. Bee keeps gamely trying my question but he obviously doesn’t have an answer. Others are trying not to laugh and /or secretly looking at the paper themselves. He bangs on for 10 mins more then we politely take our leave. Outside everyone laughs – shouldn’t expect anything else - but also a little embarrassed that their local govt so hopeless.

Trip to villages (2)

On 13th we move to Khao Rao Thian Thong. Generally wealthier area than HHD. Farming community – paddy rice, cassava, fruit trees (papaya, mango). Lotus and fish ponds. Some cows both for milk and beef. Roads generally paved – some dirt track. 4 hours from Bangkok on public transport.

Very hot. Rain in the afternoons. Frogs in the house.

Head woman has car, computer, land, large house set in cassava fields (which doubles as meeting space for CF activity), two bathrooms, shop, washing machine and runs local admin office. Dial-up internet access and satellite. Lots of birds, chinchooks, mosquitoes and Mo the dog – limping but full of character.

We spend the afternoon with the CF youth group - 7 girls, six boys aged 5-14. First a ramble on nature trail they have created, then a drama activity run by one of the documentary group. Dance games to warm up, then the children are split into groups to write and act out their 'forest story'.

Bee and I interview the headwoman and her son.

In the evening the CF committee meet - four weather beaten farmers. RECOFTC monitoring officer arrives and gives presentation about results of monitoring bamboo exercise. Conclusion – mixed – villagers had not used same sample plot for bamboo monitoring. Therefore some dodgy results. Suggestion that sample plot is marked out – response - villagers would simply not take bamboo shoots from a marked plot – would be left entirely alone.

Much amusement about the fact I am so hot. For sleeping they provide a fan which is put under the communal mosquito net. P Kai and Bee wrap themselves in sleeping bags. I am happy to sleep in a high hot wind.

Trip to villages (1)

Back in Bangkok after six days away. Set off last Friday with the team in the RECOFTC minibus - P Kai (leader), Bee (my assistant/translator), driver and three guys who are making a documentary about community forestry. After about 4 hours drive we stopped at Phutoei National Park which borders Huai Hin Dam village, for a meeting with Park staff and to drop off some educational material for park staff to use when giving talks to children. Park superintendant has only been in post a couple of years, and takes pragmatic enlightened attitude. He is interested in negotiating local agreement with villagers about collecting NTFPs (bamboo shoots, herbs, mushrooms, and other forest edibles) although this is strictly against the national conservation policy which forbids anything being removed from a National Park.

We sat outside in the late afternoon - a beautiful spot but very hot. Superintendant evidently doesn't get much opportunity to talk to outsiders in such a remote spot. Got Bee to translate some direct questions, but mainly sat and listened and watched. After an hour or so documentary men slipped away to take random shots of scenery. Bee took ticks out of the dog. Superindendant talked on and on.

Then onto Huai Hin Dam as evening fell. Very poor Karen village right on the border of the park. Dirt track roads. Wooden houses with thatch and corrugated iron roofs. Downstairs is open, beaten earth floor, where cooking, living, rice milling etc go on. Upstairs is for sleeping. Water from stream or rain water. Subsistence farming in rotational fields - rice and vegetables planted together in the traditional Karen manner. Some cash crops - mainly maize, to pay for the neccessities of modern life: electricity, education and transport. Most houses have electricity (mainly used to power the TV or a DVD player, but not used for lighting). Most people don't have a fridge. The headman has the largest satellite dish I have seen outside military use.

Khun Piya, who runs the local children's group, looked after us and cooked for us. Bee, P Kai and I slept in her elder sister's house next door, three of us in a row under a mosquito net, on a thin padded mattress which the cat had sprayed on. Next day did interviews with Khun Piya, her sister and a rather creepy professional do-gooder who has married a village woman. Much talk about desire to preserve the old ways, also thirst for education, even though they kept saying that what they teach in school is 'urban knowledge'.

KP showed us around - a very hot walk to see her training plot where she teaches the children about traditional Karen agricultural techniques, some ritual trees and up to the latest irrigation project where we were given two pumpkins, which subsequently figured largely on the menu. I kept seeing a very bright looking woman going past on her motorcycle, and would have liked to interview her, but every time I went to her house she was not in - presumably off on her bike somewhere.

P Kai and KP obviously great friends. They talked late into the night lying on the earth floor with the baby asleep between them. Noi (KP's jolly teenage daughter who is studying for her accountancy certificate) invited me to watch Spiderman with her. So we finished the evening sitting companionably in the dark watching a blurred pirate copy badly dubbed into Thai.

Teen shopping

Went to look for a bag in the local mall to pack for trip to villages on Friday. Large concrete monolith overlooking six lanes of traffic on the Phathonyothin Road. Shopping hell. All the major brands were there - Boots, Body Shop, Nine West - you name it. Six floors of designer goods. Took a chance and went next door to Union Mall which turned out to be a shopping centre for the trendy under 25's. A cross between Claire's Accesories and the old Camden Lock except with strip lighting. It's obviously packed at weekends but mid afternoon mid week was bearable. Lots of trendy little boutiques for teenagers, plus make up, false nails and henna tatoos. Also several shops selling second hand bags. Shop assistants too cool to be helpful so had fun throwing the great pile of stock around. Am now proud owner of Le Coq Sportif squashy bag - trendy or what? Interesting that for middle class young people branded goods are no longer enough, they want something more individual, and that includes second hand.

Sunday in Bangkok: flat hunting

With the aid of a map that I picked up at the airport and a one-day pass on the Sktrain I managed to view three studio flats, all in complexes with swimming pools, roughly on a N-S line between here and Siam Square. None of them were fantastic, but one or two would have done. It was very clear which market they were aimed at. For example, one of the better ones was obviously aimed at the fat farang and his Thai 'girlfriend'. It was a modest size but dominated by a huge bed!. To cool down I went for a ride to the end of the Skytrain line and back again. It is heavily refridgerated and you get a good view of the sprawl.

This afternoon, having seen what else is out there, I agreed to move into a big shared flat with an australian girl working for Greenpeace. The house consists of three self contained two bed flats in a nice garden down a quiet soi very near Phaya Thai station. The landlady lives with her aged mother in a bungalow next door. I move in on June 10th, the day before I set off for the projects.


I explored the neighbourhood a bit and ended up in IT City, three storeys of IT concessions jammed with Thais and a few farangs looking for bargains. It was semi-airconned so down to c 28 degrees but noisy as hell with a Thai woman screeching full blast over the PA all the time presumably about what great bargains were to be had. Luckily, lots of IT words are english, so I could communicate what I wanted in nouns even though I have no verbs. Bought a lime green MP3 player/recorder marked down, presumably because of its remarkably offensive colour. Will use it to record interviews when I go off to the villages on Friday.

First few days

This is by way of a summary of the last few days - or rather my first few days in Thailand for my research at Kasetsart. Thought it was time to start a blog before the vividness of those first impressions fade away, so here goes ...

Sunday 29th June - arrived early in the morning after a 14 hour flight, a speed-fuelled taxi driver who zoomed across town and no sleep. Campus all very quiet but found RECOFTC where I have large gloomy and rather battered room, but it has AC and an intermittent wireless connection so I feel very fortunate.

Went staggering around the campus in a dazed state in an attempt to keep awake. Huge campus, with lots of mature trees, ponds, canals and gardens. Every faculty has its own set of food stalls, complete with pi dogs. Nearly everything was shut, which was good because it would have been even more confusing. My biggest triumph was to find the swimming pool where I churned up and down for over an hour. There is an Olympic sized pool, three kiddy pools and a diving pool. Found several interesting student hang-outs and some semi-decent coffee in the School of Management. The canteens were shut on Sunday evening so went off campus. Just outside the gate and over the footbridge crossing six lanes of Patholytin road there is a whole collection of outdoor restaurants. They are all geared to Thai students, so cheap and cheerful. I couldn't muster any Thai, and they certainly don't cater for westerners, so I just found a group of students with a lot of interesting plates and asked them what they were eating. They obligingly wrote down my order for the waitress who then brought me something completely different. My surprise dinner was greens in batter, a plate of chicken in eye-watering sauce and a random bowl of seafood which I certainly didn't order and I think was just going spare. Washed down with a very large bottle of beer the whole thing came to £2.50 - and I think half of that was the beer.

Monday 30th June - Today I met Som Ying, the head of the team, who is lovely. She has been working in rural development all her life and very knowledgable. She has a team of 10, some youngish blokes and some very smart girls. The Thailand Support Programme's funding is coming to an end at the end of this year, and she is very preoccupied with what will become of the team. We had lunch with her and Attjala, who is her right hand woman and frightenly clever. Bee, a graduate student, who works part time for them, is going to be my field assistant. Between us we worked out a plan. I am going to go with them on two of their regular visits to the projects, when they will introduce us and Bee and I will stay a few days longer. We leave for the first project on 11th - this will be a joint visit to two of the nearest Community Forest sites about three hours away (Chainat & Suphanburi Provinces). Then I'll be back here then it's off to the furthest north to see a project near Chiang Mai.

In the meantime I will work here in their documentation centre which has fantastic AC. I may well get a little flat down the road while I'm here. I like my gloomy room but every time I leave on my trips I'd have to pack everything up as it's not meant for semi perm accom - only for visiting guests. Ramida the secretary has sent me some possibilities which I will investigate tomorrow.

Tuesday 1st July - Got lost twice today. This morning I set off for some breakfast and finally got back here two hours later having made some great discoveries. Round the back of the forestry dept (out through the parking lot, turn left at the Ant Museum, past Diamond Back Moth research unit and Pesticides Research) there is a big canteen which does breakfast and lunch. By canteen they mean a whole load of foodstalls all under one roof, all cooking different things (a lot of them are fairly similar). At 7.30 it was rocking, mainly with workers who you can tell by their yellow shirts. On the way back I got completely lost, but found the Tuesday market where I bought a torch to go the villages. I got a bit fed up not being able to find my way back (it is hot) and staggered into Horticulture where I had a sit down and the best coffee so far. Conclusion: the best food is where the workers eat and the best coffee where the post grads go.

Wednesday 2nd July - A day of sorting things out. In the library all day. Have SIM card for my mobile phone so have Thai phone number. Also went with Ramida to look at a flat down the road. OK, great swimming pool in the complex but rather over-looked. Have heard of house share in central Bangkok which I will visit on Sunday.

Thursday 3rd July - started to get slightly worried that there is loads to read and can't see how it fits together. Spent the day working on the building's roof (rather than the library) and managed to pull some ideas together and start to identify what I don't know. Rang Babette at AIT but she can't see me until August, by which time I will be half way through, so will be mid-project review. I would like some confirmation thatI am setting off in the right direction!

Friday 4th July - planning meeting with Attajala. I think they're a bit puzzled about the focus of my research. The whole focus here is (naturally) on Community Forestry, whereas I have to see community-based resource management as the context in which women make decisions about migration. So - two different agendas. Having a bit of trouble getting this across... mailed Brighton tutor who suggested that emphasis on livelihoods could provide some common ground. Useful.