Tamarind Trees

The road from Coimbatore to Kotagiri (see Kotagiri Landscape and Kotagiri Tea Estates) is lined with large tamarind trees (Tamarindus indica L.). Each of the trees has a number and two white bands painted on the trunk. This, I was told, is part of a government concession system in which local people can harvest the tamarind fruits, but only from designated groups of trees in certain years.  I wonder who is in charge of the tree painting?  

Confluence of the Ayeyarwady

The Ayeyarwady (or Irrawaddy) River, the largest river in Myanmar, is formed by the confluence of the N'mai and Mali Rivers in Kachin State. Perhaps the most interesting part about my trip to the confluence was meeting this group of five monks from the Kan Gyi Kyaung monastery near Inle Lake in Shan State. The older monk on the right is the Abbot of Kan Gyi Kyaung. He was giggly, interested to hear all about the rattans of Myanmar, and positively radiant.  He kept saying how auspicious it was for us to meet each other at the confluence. [NOTE: Andrew Henderson and I had just finished six weeks of fieldwork in the Hukaung Valley (see Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey) without a mishap. I, too, thought our encounter was pretty auspicious].

Kotagiri Landscape

The view from the balcony of the guesthouse where I stayed in Kotagiri on my recent trip to Tamil Nadu (see Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and Biodiversity Festival).  A patchwork of tea plantations in different stages of development. Kotagiri has some of the oldest tea plantations in this part of India. The first one was started in 1863 by the daughter of M.D. Cockburn, a Scottish planter and the district collector.  Wonder what was growing here before the Camellia sinensis took over?

Nat Worship

Prior to the arrival of Buddhism in Myanmar, animistic spirits known as Nats were commonly worshipped. When King Anawrahta came to power in the 11th century, however, he wanted to make Theravada Buddhism the national faith and he ordered the destruction of all the Nat shrines in the kingdom. This didn't work at all, and when the King saw that he was turning people away from Buddhism - rather than destroying their faith in Nats - he rescinded his order and allowed Nats to be worshiped and displayed at Buddhist temples together with arhats. The image above shows a prominent group of Nats at Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. [NOTE: King Anawrahta also added a 37th Nat, Thagyamin, to the existing list of spirits and crowned him "King of the Nats".] 

Banded Krait

One of the things I came across during my trip to Myanmar last summer (see Shinlonga) was this banded krait slithering slowly across the road. I gladly gave it a lot of room. [NOTE: In September of 2001, an American herpetologist working in Kachin State died after being bitten by one of these snakes].