Found then Forgotten

            This week (as an assignment) I have been on the quest to find a social bookmarking soulmate. Though explained many times, this title still confuses me and may also confuse you. So, as Wikipedia defines it:

A soulmate (or soul mate) is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity, similarity, love, sex, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, or compatibility.

Social bookmarking is basically having the ability to share the bookmarks for websites that one has an interest in. This sharing then enables people to find links easily through people they know have similar interests.

So basically I just have to find someone who has an interest in the same stuff that I do, and shares it with the world.

Because much of my writing is on the environment through personal experiences with the addition of photos, my teacher suggested going to Pinterest to find the one. Pinterest. The only association that I have had with pinterest until now has been my girlfriend helping out her friends with wedding ideas. To my surprise though, as I started searching keywords like deforestation and air pollution, interesting things started coming up.

I think I have found that soul mate! But when I say that, I mean I have found one board that one person has pinned on that I actually feel a connection to. So, if my social bookmarking soulmate could be a pinterest board, her name is “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Though the title could have been cut down a bit and it isn’t all in caps, the images that are posted, by this Ana Trejo person, deal with issues that I am interested in exposing. I did find other people that just had also pinned amazing photos dealing with the destructive events of the world, but my soulmate has also written below each photo, giving background into why this photo is up on their board, as well as hinting at what could be done. Though there isn’t much personal experience going on, and I am starting to get this “My one wish would be world peace...” vibe from this board, it covers issues that are relevant to topics that I discuss in my blog.

Pinterest is a weird thing. So many of the same photos everywhere under different names and boards. I guess that's what re-pinning is. This blog entry may not be the right place to discuss images and the faults that I have found in pinterest, but I can’t help myself from critiquing this way of sharing. It seems to be a web version of Roland Barthes, “Death of the Author” essay. For those who haven’t read it, Barthes basically states that the author is nothing without his/her readers. But, while the readers keep the author relevant they also slowly kill the author. Pinterest is millions of photos with no author. Who took them? What did they have to go through to get that photo? No one cares.

Though I thought I finally found my social bookmarking soulmate, the more I examine pinterest and the way it works, I am already starting to think that it is time to get over her. 

Coral-less Reef

            During the planning of the trip to Thailand, everyone kept telling me that I needed to go to Koh Phi Phi. To get idea of this islands beauty, they said, this small island that lays about 30 mi south east of Phuket, Thailand was where they shot Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach. I had never seen the movie and I didn’t look into it because their words had convinced me so well. I then used their words to convince my girlfriend that it was going to be a great, romantic place to go.

So, fast-forward about 2 months and now we were landing in Phuket. Though my hopes for this island started dwindling once I saw how many tourists companies catered to it, I still tried to keep my head up and hope no one else wanted to go there. I mean how many people could actually fit on an island that that had the area of about 10 square miles.

From there we took a van to the port where we then caught a boat to the island. Though the boat ride was beautiful, I kept noticing little things that didn’t seem right. Cargo ships, brown water, plastic jellyfishes floating by, a Sean Kingston looking man filming himself riding the nose of the boat like Rose in Titanic. As we then pulled into the port, I was scared.

Crowds. Crowds. Crowds. To get away from the people though, we decided to hire a Ruea Hang Yao, private long tail boat, that took us to a even smaller island known for it’s snorkeling. Those hopes that were destroyed by the arrival to Koh Phi Phi slowly rekindled on the way to this snorkel heaven. I was scared again.

As the sand barge stopped our boat, we jumped out and swam to where the snorkeling was supposed to be done. The little snorkel tube makes me a bit claustrophobic so I took a deep breath and dove. Couldn’t see anything. I dove deeper. A fish! As I approached the bottom, the water became a little clearer, but what was unveiled was disappointing. I went back up for air and dove again. While swimming along the bottom, all I could see were piles and piles of lifeless, white coral being picked at by tiny fish.

On the way back to Koh Phi Phi from this smaller island, I was disturbed. I couldn’t stop blaming myself and every other tourist for the destruction of the coral reefs surrounding that island. Are there no regulations pertaining to the environment from which tourist companies make money? Is there no resting period in which travel isn’t allowed that allows the environment to regenerate and grow? Does the money that is generated through tourism distract the government from the issues caused by tourism? Or do people just not care?

We got back to the bigger island, as it was getting darker, we then walked to Koh Phi Phi’s biggest bay to watch the sunset. We walked past boats resting in the sand, we talked about things forgotten.

Though places like this are suffocated by tourism, I realized I wouldn’t be able to see them without being a tourist.

Kabocha

            Even though I hadn’t slept well for the prior week, it felt like the night before Christmas. I couldn’t sleep; I was too excited for what the next day had in store for us. While I felt the mosquitoes eating my face, fantastical visions of the upcoming events began playing emotions.  What if they don’t like me? What if they all just run away? But, as the mixture of Singha and the other local alcohols settled, these visions finally became dreams.

            Before we knew it, the park’s mini-bus was waiting downstairs for us. As I quadruple checked my camera equipment, my girlfriend tortured my neck with sunscreen and deet. Ahhh!! It was time to go. It was time to finally come face to face with my first true love.

            If I knew how far it actually was from Chiang Mai to Chiang Dao, I would have tried to calm myself down during the voyage. But because of my constant questioning of where we were and attention spent on everything we drove by, by the time we got there, I was worn out. As we pulled up to the destination though, I felt like a floating butterfly.

            There they were, as my girlfriend and I hurried out of the mini-bus to only be stopped by our “tour guide” we got even closer to the amazing creatures. The Thai woman then started explaining what was going to happen today and the agenda, I blacked out. I have no clue what she said; all attention was focused on them. She walked us closer and gave us all an area to wait with food in hand. Ready. Then, one by one, each of them approached each us. As I felt the sweat stinging down my neck, I stuck half of a Kabocha squash out. The mammals trunk then wrapped its self around the food, and then proceeded to throw it in her mouth.

            While spending most of the day feeding, petting and washing the elephants, I learned much more than expected. But, I left sadder than expected. We learned about all the different elephants that were at the park, from their names to what industry they were enslaved to before they were rescued. Though many cases dealt with poachers and harsh conditions in other tourist attractions, most of the problems stemmed from deforestation. In “Societal Change and the Control of Deforestation in Thailand”, Alan Grainger states that at one point in the early 1900’s Thailand’s national forest coverage was 75%. Sadly, since then it has dropped down below 25%. These forests are home and protection for the wild Asian elephants. As they get chopped down, elephants are lost beneath the trees and revealed to poachers.

The place we journeyed to, to see these elephants was The Elephant Nature Park in an area near Chiang Dao, Thailand. 

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org

            

This article provides an in-depth look at the ivory trade. Much of it takes place in Africa but also very relevant in South Asia. 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/ivory/christy-text

Looking for the Sun

We were waiting for the rain to stop. The head of the village was telling our group of their practices and traditions, trying to entertain us until it was safer outside to travel. The persistent rain forced him to then go into how they work and survive in such a rural place. It turned out that everyone in this village and surrounding villages made a living off of harvesting rice. As my curiosity began growing to the point where I actually began asking questions, I was interrupted by clear skies. A local farmer then led us on a bike ride around their village and surrounding rice patties. The rest of the group that my girlfriend and I were with seemed as if they thought they were in Cancun for spring break. The villagers who got back to their farm work stared at them as they jumped into the mosquito infested fields to take selfies. As we noticed a trend of them lagging behind to take their photos, then catching up with us and the villager, my bike’s tire amazingly blew out. YES! The “tour guide” then told the rest of the group how to get back, and proceeded to walk my girlfriend and I around the patties. I took this opportunity to ask him about his life. His family works everyday to maintain the rice. Rain or shine. If they loose a crop, they don’t eat. They work to feed their kids until their kids can work to feed them. As the walk was coming to an end he told us that they make about $200-250 a year.

If this wasn’t shocking enough, he then proceeded to tell us about the other villagers who have found a way of making much more profit. Mining. The presence of gems found in the mountains surrounding the area they live in has caused companies to hire people from the villages for a much higher wage than that of rice farming. Blinded by money, everyday these villagers blow holes in the mountains that keep their villages and crop safe. The villages in Mai Chau are slowly becoming less sustainable. Once they begin showing a dependency on these outside sources, it will become more and more of necessity to rely on them to survive.

Even though the beauty of Mai Chau was overwhelming, during the rest of our stay I was haunted by thoughts of the future for this area. How many more generation will it last? How long will it be before all of their cultures traditions and practices are forgotten?

On the last morning there I went on a walk to watch the sunrise. Not knowing where to go, I followed a boy and his brother as they lead their family’s cattle to feed. They turned around disturbed by my foreign presence, then proceeded to smile. Though, I was saddened by thoughts of their future, I forced a smile back then proceeded to look for the sun.