Today, we were assigned our groups for our topo map project. After breakfast at 7.30am, each group was given a GPS to navigate our way around the mountains. It's not the GPS you use when you drive. This GPS gives us the coordinates, elevation, bearings and altitude at each way point.
My group took the trail off the main road, into the forest. We walked on really steep slopes off the trail, trudged through mud and saw little huts and terrace cultivations along the way.
Little hut along the way
Mini landslide just below the house
After more than half an hour of walking, we reached the end of the trail. We were guessing that this is a farm/plantation. I was really curious to look at the toilet in that hut above the stairs but 2 huge dogs came charging towards us. They were just curious and wanted to check us out, but I freaked out and ran off as soon as they were sniffing my group members.
At some parts of the trail, some of us received SMSes from friends. It was such a joy. Everyone's faces lit up whenever someone's phone rang.
There was still some time before lunch, so we went back to the main road to look for another trail, taking the coordinates of our way points along the way. We went into MEC resorts to check if there's internet connection but we ended up at another plantation. By then, everyone was too tired to walk. We took a break and sat at a spot with reception.
Lunch was at 1.30pm.
After lunch, Dr Z said there wasn't anything for us to do and so, he's going to drop us off at the botanical gardens near the foot of the mountains and we can explore the entire place from 2.30-5.30pm. Most of us were expecting the botanical gardens to be something like Singapore's and we were quite reluctant to get down. But the botanical gardens here is way more exciting than Singapore's! Entrance fee was about 100 baht per person.
We went to look at the waterfall first. Because we went to the botanical gardens shortly after a rain, the waterfall was pretty fast. The water level was so high it flooded one of the paths. We tried moving up that path though, but our slippers were all stuck in the mud.
Random bone along the way
And we crossed a river!
At the cross junction, all of us chose the nature trail instead of the footpath. And again, because of the rain earlier on, the ground was muddy. All of us were struggling to keep on the path and we had to help one another up the slopes because they were too slippery.
Struggling to get up the slope
The glasshouse was the attraction in the botanical gardens so we were determined to find that place. We took a long walk up the mountains via the winding path. All the vehicles slowed down to stare at us and after reaching the top, we knew why they were staring at us. They must be thinking that we were crazy because the walk took us almost an hour and the paths at the top of the mountain were really steep. All of us were out of breath half way up the mountain.
This wasn't even at the top of the mountain yet. We took a break here only because it had a scenic view.
Glasshouse!
The fish that committed suicide by jumping on the leaf
Carnivorous plants
We went back up to the mountains at around 7.30pm for dinner and spent the rest of the night getting started on our topo map. It was really tedious, having to analyze the map and the trail we took. But I now know how to put together a contour map!
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20 May, Bong Khrai
Again, we were not aware of what are the activities planned out for the day and because I need to bathe in the morning and there are 8 people in the house sharing that one little toilet, I woke up at 6.30am. While waiting for breakfast, I started doing on the topo map.
After breakfast, we were broken up into groups again for our soil pits, with 7 people in a group. When asked for a volunteer, one of my group members raised his hand and so, my group got assigned the soil pit furthest away from our house.
We were supposed to look for a climate station and find a spot near the climate station to start digging our soil pit (1m x 2m x 2m). We walked along the road, further up the mountain but the climate station was nowhere in sight so we went back down and walked on the trail near our house. We ended up at a ginger plantation and there was no other path to take, so we've decided to get back to the meeting point to ask Dr Z for the exact location. And, he brought us back to the ginger plantation. A rain gauge, about the thickness of a lamp post, was hidden in one of the corners of the ginger plantation. Because all of us were looking out for the climate station, something we presumed to be large scale, we spent 2 hours looking for our spot while the other groups have started on their digging. In an hour, we dug about 70cm deep into our soil pit.
We found out that the other groups' soil pits were just behind our houses. All they needed was 2 minutes to walk from our daily meeting point to their soil pits, but my group need about 15 minutes. ): There wasn't much to do after lunch, so we were brought to the waterfall.
There were a total of 10 waterfalls at this place and we were told that the 10th one right at the top is the prettiest. So we climbed flights and flights of stairs up to the highest point and it turned out to be a so-so waterfall. It was nothing as compared to the ones in Mauritius. Everyone just sat in the water, feeling around for rocks to be collected.
We were back at around 5.30pm for dinner and to continue with our topo map.
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21 May, Bong Khrai
Woke up again at 6.30am to bathe and to do up on my group's topo map. Super proud of myself for waking up so early. By myself some more.
We did all the technical stuff today. Classes started right after breakfast with our soil group mates. My group was assigned Dr Spencer, a geologist from Chiang Mai University, so we had to visit a river in the nearby village. Because he had to return to pick the other half of the group, the few of us had to find our own way down to the river. We barged through the jungles, trudged on mud and I got stuck in the mud so much so that my boots went into the mud completely and I had to remove my boots to get them out of the mud.
Over there, we built a small dam with the soil, mostly clay, to test for water velocity and collected some water so that we can bring it back to test for turbidity, dissolved particles and ions.
After we were done with all the tests and plotting of graphs, we followed Joon to our soil sample site to tie a pail onto our makeshift stand under the bamboo trees.
We had to return to our site every morning to collect the rainwater to test for water quality. Then, we went back to learn about spectrophotometer. After collecting the rainwater samples from our site daily, we had to test them for nitrates, nitrites, ammonium and phosphorous using the spectrophotometer and write a report per group.
All of us were looking forward to lunch and soon after lunch, my group followed Dr Eric to the village again. This time, to test for air quality. All the time, Zee Zee followed us.
We were just walking around the village, holding onto the device. Whenever motorcycles drive pass us, the values on the device would jump really quickly.
Zee Zee, the village dog that followed my friends back to the place where we stayed and it stayed there the whole time we were there.
Chicks
It's very common to see chicks/chickens and dogs along the roads of Bong Khrai.
It was dinner after all the lessons, and it free and easy.
Some of us went to do up on the topo maps while the rest went to dig further into the soil pits.
My group's topo map!
