Room with a View

As 2009 draws to a close, I reflect on the view that I was provided every morning as I crawled out of my tent to start another day of forest inventories in the Shinlonga management area (see The Last Stake). Doesn't get much better than this. [NOTE: We set up our base camp on the bank of Mawning River.  The field crews and I hiked in 2 hours from the village, while the tents, food, and bags were brought up by boat].

Flat Tire on the Ledo Road

I had a pretty tight travel schedule after we finished the fieldwork in Shinlonga (see Naw Aung and His Sagawa). Went back to Tanai on Sunday after the final wrap-up meeting with the community, and then the six hour drive to Myitkyina on Monday to catch my flight to Yangon on Tuesday to make my Singapore Airlines flight back to New York on Wednesday. Any screw-ups in this itinerary and I don't make it back to New York in time for Christmas (see Merry Christmas).  And then we got the flat driving back to Myitkyina on the Ledo Road...

River Taxis

River taxis parked in the early morning at the port in Tanai (see Tanai). Most of these boats are made from kyilan wood (Shorea assamica Dyer; white meranti group), which is one of the most abundant tree species in the Shinlonga management area (see The Last Stake and Believe Your Eyes).

Stick and Wheel

The classic toy. All you need is a stick, a wheel, and a little imagination. This Kachin kid was having so much fun that I had to film him. [NOTE: He had been coming over to the field office in Shinlonga for days before I finally got out the video camera].

Believe Your Eyes

Laying out the baseline at Shinlonga (see The Last Stake) involved a strange mix of GPS and compass. As shown in the photo above, Jon Kuan is using a compass to lay out the next plot stake, but he has a GPS is his other hand to "check" how the line is going.

The baseline that the crew at Shinlonga laid out was one of the straightest, most bearing-correct lines I've ever run in a tropical forest. In most places, you could easily line up three or four stakes (see image below). The guys, however, took a waypoint on every stake and were continually plotting the line - which zigzagged all over the place. This was due to the 5 to 7 meter positional error necessarily involved in every GPS reading. Although their eyes were telling them that the line was as straight as a string, the GPS was telling them that they were going crooked. And they worried about this. I finally convinced them to believe their eyes and to put their GPS receivers back in their packs. [NOTE: When we eventually plotted the first and last waypoints, our baseline was oriented precisely magnetic North, a result which seemed to reassure everyone about the quality of the work].

Kyauktawgyi Buddha

The Kyauktawgi Pagoda in Yangon contains a colossal statue of the Buddha, 37 feet tall and 24 feet wide. The statue was carved from a single piece of white marble, floated on a raft down the Ayeyarwady River (see Confluence of the Ayeyarwady) to Yangon from Mandalay Division. [NOTE: Thanks to U Saw Htun for showing this to me].

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas tree has an eclectic mix of ornaments from all over the world.  I made the styrofoam Santa shown above when I was about nine years old - with considerable help from my Mother.  It's held up quite well over the years. The image below is from the hymnal in the Shinlonga Baptist church (see Shinlonga). 

Peace on Earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled...

Merry Christmas to all.

Tiger Tracks

Although my recent fieldwork in Myanmar (see The Last Stake and Naw Aung and His Sagawa) was conducted in a tiger reserve, I never really thought much about the fact that there might be tigers prowling around until I saw these casts set out to dry at the reserve headquarters in Tanai. [NOTE: They were collected recently, I was told.  I was also told that the casts were collected from quite far away and not to worry].

The Last Stake

After running two kilometers of line through a tract of forest located several hours walk from the village of Shinlonga in the Hukaung Tiger Reserve (see Naw Aung and His Sagawa), setting the last stake was an auspicious occasion. [NOTE: It took three days to clear the line and set all 20 stakes. These stakes form the baseline of a 100 hectare intensive management area for the community, and are the starting points of inventory transects. It's an amazing thing that we are doing here]. 

Ferryman

You still have to take a ferry to cross the Taron River in Kachin State (see Crossing the Taron), but the ferry operator has changed and things seem to have improved a bit. The ferry, for example, will now hold two trucks, there is a permanent ramp to drive on to it, and the "protective" railings are painted bright yellow and red. Not to mention that the new ferryman is a total professional. [NOTE: The trip still costs 15,000 kyat for Forest Department vehicles].