January 16, 2005

Shimbweyeng Guest House, 4:44 PM

Breakfast at 7:00 AM was white rice splashed with peanut oil and sprinkled with salt and that spicy hot tofu. We walked about 3 km north of Shimbweyeng past the mile 164 signpost and then cut into the forest. The slope was very steep, and some of our plots were on more than a 100% slope (i.e. 45°). Slow going, but the forest was beautiful. It had never been cut because of the slope, and there were many big trees and beautiful vistas.  There was a greater diversity of palms in the montane forest than in the lowlands, but only three species of rattan.  We managed to find a flat spot where we all sat down and had a picnic lunch (see Picnic at Transect 3). We finished 10 plots, or 2000 sq. meters, which I think we will start using as a standard sample size in all of the rest of the sites. The crew is getting much faster, and even with the steep slope we managed to do the ten plots in about 1.5 hours.

We made it back to the guest house about 3:30 PM, and Andrew and I both ran to bathe before the sun went any lower and it got any colder.  We then pressed the three collections we had made and made bundles of the other specimens that were in the press and doused them with 70% alcohol and wrapped them up in a thick garbage bag.  With this treatment, they should keep fine until we get back to Yangon.  We have already colected five duplicates of 15 different rattans, and it is clear that we will have to build a plant drier first thing on arrival to Yangon if we want to get everything dry in time to take back to the US.

The elphants have yet to arrive to carry our stuff on the next leg of the trip toward Namyun. Myint Maung says that maybe they will arrive today. No one is very worried.  The weather has been so dry that we could probably get pretty far up the road with the 4-wheel drive trucks.

Shimbweyeng Coffee Shop,7:00 PM

Spent a nice evening watching the first half of the Tiger Cup soccer final between Singapore and Indonesia. I thing most of the village was crowded into the coffee shop, all sitting hunkered over in their woolen hats and puffy coats.  Lots of kids, too, crowding around on the floor in front of the TV. Singapore is ahead 2-0 at the half. I'm pulling for Indonesia.

Myint Maung has gone to see about the elephants.  He was going to call Tanai, where the elephants were coming from, and then talk to the truck drivers to see if they had seen any elephants on the road heading this way.  If they did, he said, they would be ours. Not too many elephants on the road, I guess. [NOTE: Indonesia lost 2-1 and the elphants left Tanai the day after we did.]