Phuket, Thailand

Thailand

June 13

We arrived late at night in Phuket in south Thailand. Driving in at night we could already tell that Thailand was much more developed than Nepal had been. We settled in and got ready for our first day in the town.

June 14

Our first full day in Phuket we spent mainly relaxing. We walked to the beach and hung out there until it started to rain, and later we went to a nice restaurant for dinner. I had some amazing thai seafood there. Afterward we returned to our hotel to get a good nights sleep before our big day we have planned for tomorrow.

June 15

We started our day today by taking a taxi to the Kata-Karon beach area where  we will begin our day long tour all over the island. We arrived at the tour's starting location and drove out to the mangrove channels to kayak first. We saw many farms and fisheries as we kayaked through the channels. Next, we went to Thailand's biggest national park and hiked to a waterfall that we then swam in. During the drives to and from the national park we saw another example of integrative farming, this time with rubber trees and pineapples. Then, we ate lunch a local Buddhist restaurant which was amazing. Afterward we went to a hot springs resort and relaxed for a while until finishing the day by watching the sun set on another beach north of Phuket island.

June 16

Today we slept in after a busy day yesterday and then spent the afternoon at a nearby beach, Hat Surin. We came back to the area our hotel is in and got dinner then I packed and got ready to finally begin my journey to get back home. See ya in 24 hours of flights and 14 hours of layovers, Kansas!!

Kathmandu part 2

Kathmandu part 2

June 6

We arrived back to Kathmandu at night and went to The Mediterraneo restaurant for dinner, which was near the hotel we are staying in for the remainder of our trip. I am glad to be back in the city with more variety of foods and activities, but I already miss the less stressful areas we were previously in.

june 7

Today we ate our first breakfast at the Yellow House (our hotel) which is incredibly good. The neighborhood we are staying in reminds me more of an area that I would imagine in Europe. After breakfast we visited a government run school about an hour away in Kathmandu. Many people in Nepal send their children to private schools because the government schools are usually poorly run; however, this school has been fairly successful. We had some great conversations with the students and we even had a dance party with the 10th graders. We also looked through what they were learning about that day (which was their local society and the environment), and there was a page entirely about Bill Gates, which I found interesting. After we ate at traditional Nepali lunch at the school, we headed back to our hotel to work on our photo essays, which is our final
project for the trip. The essays consist of picking a picture weve taken over the trip and writing a short paragraph about that pictures importance (ill attach them to the blog later).

june 8

After another amazing breakfast we started our day by hearing lectures at Resource Himalaya, the NGO we visited earlier in the trip. We learned about Nepal's local governance and community forestry and livelihood improvements. It was very interesting to tie back the research we had done in the field (in the villages like Amaltari) to concrete facts and history. After the lectures we visited Patan square, a historical monument in the city that had many temples and museums depicting the history of Buddhism and Hinduism.

june 9

We again started our day with lectures at Resource Himalaya. The first lecture was about Nepali society and conservation, and it more specifically talked about how the community forests are key for creating a positive relationship between Nepal's government and the villages. The second lecture today was about conserving Nepali culture and monuments after the earthquake. Kathmandu lost many monuments in the disaster, so it is especially important now to properly preserve what is left. We witnessed this damage and destruction yesterday when we visited Patan Square: many of the temples were under construction or simply gone. The last lecture was about how Nepal's contribution to climate chance is negligible (.027% of global emissions), but the country feels some of the strongest impacts (such as melting glaciers and shifting tree lines). After the lectures we went to a Nepali paper factory, which consisted of women making handmade paper. This was my favorite part of the day, I never knew that making paper could be so interesting. Lastly, we went to a Stupa (essentially a temple) in Kathmandu. This stupa was beyond busy because apparently today is the day Buddha died, so thousands of people came to the stupa to pray.

June 10

Today was a free day until around 3 pm in Kathmandu, so we went shopping in an area in the city. We all got lunch together then took the bus out to Ama Ghar, which is a children's home that our other trip leader Cathy helped start about 16 years ago. These kids were tons of fun to hang out with and we played soccer, tag, and danced together for several hours. We then had what I'm assuming will be my last traditional Nepali meal for dinner.

june 11

Today was the last official day of the trip, and many of my peers leave tomorrow to go home to the US. We started our day by going to TU (the university the Nepali students on our trip are from) and exchanging a Memorandum of Understanding with them that will promote further joint eduction between the two universities. I got to give a presentation with the TU student leader about our experiences on the trip as a part of the exchange. Speaking in front of the deans of the environmental sciences department at TU and my peers was a great opportunity. We then had an exhibition for our photo essays we previously completed and toured TU. Afterward we had a final debriefing and then a formal dinner with everyone. It will be so sad to say goodbye to everyone tomorrow, but I am looking forward to my last day in Kathmandu tomorrow and then Thailand next week!

june 12

Today is my last full day in Kathmandu, and majority of the people on our trip fly out today. Its been hard to listen to all my friends talk about how excited they are to go home, but I know Thailand will be an incredible experience. We mainly relaxed and said our goodbyes to everyone throughout the day today.

june 13

Before Jake and I's 1:30 flight to Bangkok, the four of us who hadnt gone home yet (Leah, Jake, Nelini, and I) took a mountain flight at 6:30 AM to see mount Everest. Other than Everest, another interesting mountain was Gauri Shanker, which is a holy mountain. They do not allow trekking on this mountain and they worship it. During the flight we even got to go in the cockpit to see some incredible panoramic views. After the flight we had a final breakfast with the students left, then Jake and I went to the airport to start a long day of travel to Phuket, Thailand. We had a layover in Bangkok for a couple hours (which was a surprisingly nice airport), then we took our final flight of the day to Phuket.

Pokhara

Pokhara

June 2nd

We woke up and left to drive to Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city, early this morning. Google maps said the drive was about 4 hours, but that meant it was closer to 6 because everything in Nepal seems to be +/- 2 hours. The drive was beautiful throughout the hillside and we reached Pokhara around 4 pm to check into our hotel. We explored the city and ate dinner at a western restaurant. The walk back gave us some amazing views of the city's large lake (Fewa Lake) at night and we planned for the adventures of tomorrow (our first free day of the trip).

June 3rd

Today was our first full day in Pokhara and also a free day that we could do anything we wanted. Nick and I decided to wake up early and rent a paddle boat to go out on the lake in the morning. We had a beautiful view of the Himalayas over the hillside from the middle of the lake, which was definitely the highlight of the day. After boating we headed back to our hotel to meet up with another group of students, then we all decided to go to see some caves on the other side of the city. We had to take taxis and city buses to get to and from the caves, but exploring the large caves was worth it. The second cave of the 2 was cool because it had a bunch of bats in it, but the exit to the cave required some intense climbing. Two old Indian women tried to climb up to exit the cave but got stuck near the top, causing quite the traffic jam and everyone was yelling at them in Nepali, which was a pretty stressful situation in a small, dark space. After we made it out and took the bus and taxi back we were exhausted, so we stayed in for a little while and did our laundry as a group. Later at night we went out to dinner in a small group, which was a great and relaxing end to an eventful day.

June 4th
We started our day by driving out to a hotel called the Himalayan Front for breakfast, which had incredible views of the Himalayas which include some of the tallest peaks in the world. After that, we drove to a farming community outside of the city to see their integrative farm. We had to walk about 3.5 miles each way and there were some pretty steep hills and a lot of heat and humidity. Visiting the farm was very interesting, though. They had 50 bee hives for cultivating honey (one of which stung me so that was awful), rice and corn fields, fish ponds, and many goats. All of these aspects worked together to create a sustainable farm: for example, the fish lived in the rice fields (since they used flood irrigation) and the water pools also benefitted the bees to help them pollinate and reproduce. After the long walk back to our bus we went back to the hotel to rest and eat dinner afterwards. All in all, it was a good, but rough day.

June 5th

Today we got to have a later start at 9am, then we drove back to same farming community outside Pokhara that we were at yesterday. We visited a different farm (that we could drive to this time) and learned about their permaculture farm. This farm integrated coffee, pineapples, bananas, and more into a vertical land space that was all organic and pesticide-free, which was very impressive. We also went to a nearby school to pick up trash since it was "World Environment Day," so we also got to interact with some children there. After that we went back to the farm and drank coffee and played cards with our group and another smaller group of young people who had been staying at the farm for a while. One of those people was from Freiburg, Germany, which is an eco-friendly city I have always wanted to go to, so visiting with him today convinced me of my wish to go there even more.

Tansen, Palpa

Tansen, Palpa

June 1st

We arrived in Tansen, a mid-sized city if about 300,000 late at night night on may 30th. Tansen is at a much higher altitude than Lumbini and Chitwan, so we had astonishing views. During our only full day in Tansen we started by visiting a women's coop/ sustainable farming community. They taught us about sustainable farming techniques (like sharecropping, crop rotation, and irrigation systems) and women's empowerment within these communities. We then went to a nearby school for blind children, which I loved visiting because it reminded me of FBC (Foundation for Blind Children) which I work with back in Phoenix. After lunch, we went to see the "Queen's Palace," which was built long ago as an act of love from a previous king after his wife died. It is built in the bottom of a valley by a river and the drive there was easily the worst road I've ever been on. The long suspension bridge and neat palace was worth the drive, though. After a long day I am excited to get a good night's rest and travel to Pokhara tomorrow.

Lumbini

Lumbini

May 30

I woke up this morning to a steady stream of water dripping on my face after I fell back asleep from receiving tea again at 5:30 AM. It had been storming all night and it was still pouring, showing how this really is the wettest region in the world. After waking up we went to Lumbini, which is the city that is famous for being the birthplace of Buddha. We first went to the Pratiman-Neema Memorial Foundation (PNMF) school, which is similar to a US trade school. It is on the nearby river, so it monitors water quality as a part of its Lumbini Centre for Sustainability (LCS). The students at the school were mainly lab technicians and assistants, and they have had 124 total graduates so far. They have plans to expand all their programs more to incorporate sustainability and transdisciplinary studies more. An example of one of their programs is the DEMP (danda ecological monitoring project), since the nearby Danda river is a valuable resource for them. Following this visit we drove back to the hotel we stayed at that night, and because we were only 1 KM away, we stopped by the border to India on the way back.

May 31

We started our day out by visiting the birthplace of Buddha and the surrounding temples. The actual place of birth of Buddha is well documented because he was a prince, so it is more specifically known than the birth place of other religious leaders (it is inside the white building pictured). Around his birth place there are many temples gifted by other countries, of which we saw China's, Thailand's, Germany's, and several others. The USA gifted an eternal flame to the site to represent peace, but we do not have a temple. After the temples, we ate lunch then went to an Ostrich farm. The farm was gifted to Nepal from Australia, because ostriches are not native to Nepal. Their meat is expensive because it has a low fat content, so it benefits the local economy. There is an argument to be had about if ostriches are sustainable or not; they use every part of the ostrich for a purpose and it benefits the local economy, but the species should not exist in Nepal naturally. My personal conclusion is that a more widespread environmental impact study ought to be done to determine the overall sustainability of the bird both for the environment and society. Trade offs like this are a unique and fun concept to learn about, so I enjoyed our trip to the ostrich farm. We finished our day by driving a couple hours to our next location, a mountain city named Tansen in the Pulpa region of Nepal.

Homestays

We arrived in Amaltari, the village which we are doing homestays in, the night of the 26th. We drove through hours of farmland to get here and this is the closest feeling to home I have had yet. There are crops as far as you can see, but they are rice fields instead of wheat like back home. As soon as we arrived we put our bags in our rooms and walked through the rice fields (which have built up passageways amongst the swampy rice pits). We then crossed a large river to go play soccer with some children in the village. After wandering around, we had our first dinner with our host family. Nepali people do not use utensils so we ate rice, a lentil soup, and a vegetable that the US does not have but is similar to spinach, with our hands (a childhood dream, haha). At dinner my friend Jake and I taught one of our Nepali friends the game rock paper scissors, which I can only imagine seems like an odd game to them. After dinner we explored the village a bit more, and I saw a woman making "BBQ" as a Nepali student told us, and her cooking consisted of a small fire and a then metal mesh sheet to cook on top of. I tried to explain Kansas City BBQ, but it was difficult to explain when it is completely different. As I lay under the bug nets in my bed I am again skeptical of my ability to sleep in a small hut without AC or even a fan, but we will see. We spent about 5 minutes (my roommate, Roseali from TU and I) getting all the mosquitos out from under my net, and we were awoken about 30
minutes later by some loud noises and someone outside talking about a snake. I wrote this the following morning though so it didnt impede by ability to sleep too much after a long day.

may 27th

Our first full day in Amaltari was both long and eventful. We woke up around 5:30 AM to eat breakfast (a banana and some Nepali tea) to then go do a jungle safari in Chitwan National Park, however the tour was delayed for rain. We instead took a hike to the river, hung out around the village, and met some elephants. Around 8:30 AM we met the other ASU group (a group of engineers who arrived 2 weeks before us) so they could show us the work they had done in the village. They had created several bags of biochar, which was a charcoal made from invasive species in the jungle that would generate revenue for the community, prevent the invasive species takeover, and emit less carbon into the atmosphere than coal based charcoal. After this, we ate an early lunch (which has become a quite monotonous rice, vegetable, and lentil soup) before we left to go visit the other engineering project the other group had finished. They had created a solar panel in a neighboring village that would pump irrigation throughout their fields, widening the variety of crops these farmers can grow in the future. After this site visit, we rushed back to Amaltari to do the delayed jungle safari tour, during which we saw several rhino (one of which charged one of the jeeps), many deer, a couple peacocks, and many other animals. Driving through the national park reminded me of cloud 9 (@ mom and dad), and how much I miss home and my family. Even though it has only been a few days, I miss the comforts of home- as well as the variety of foods. However, I am excited to continue learning. Oh, and as an update on the heat, the power finally returned just as I sat down to write this post. Obviously there is no AC here, but the power means the fan works, so it will be much better tonight (if the power remains on). The ending to our night was spent at a cultural show from the villagers, which consisted of performing dances and even joining them in some dances. It was a fun celebration to end the engineering group's hard work, and essentially start ours.

may 28th

Today I was awoken at 5:30 AM by knocking on my door, which was our homestay mother with tea. Sadly, I do not drink tea nor do I like to be woken up at 5:30 AM, but regardless the day was off to a good start. We first walked to a neighboring village after breakfast that is one of the most marginalized groups in Nepal because of their darker skin tone. The children at the local school and all the villagers were welcoming, as well as very helpful to interview/ ask question to help us learn about our respective topics that we are each writing on. After this, we ate lunch then visited the community seed bank, which was very interesting. This seed bank had over 1000 varieties of seeds and they not only dispersed them to farmers, but also provided trainings and other programs that benefit the community. We immediately then drove to the solar lift irrigation site again to participate in the formal ceremony of handing the equipment over to the community, which we only did because the engineering group had to leave the previous day. While we were in the area we toured the rest of this climate smart village, seeing other solar panel powered systems for both drip and flood irrigation techniques. After this long day, we came back to our homestays for dinner, then spent some time just hanging out and getting to know one another better.

may 29th

Our final day in Armaltari was quite a bit more relaxed than the other ones, but it was even hotter than usual. We woke up early to go make a batch of the biochar that the engineering group designed, then we met several members of the community in their community center to ask them whatever remaining questions we had. I asked about the community's usage of the community forest, because I plan to conduct my research over how the government can aid sustainable community resource usage. After we ate lunch we we explored the village's biogas (using cow dung as fuel to power kitchens) and other sustainable solutions like building houses from mud to keep them cooler. In the afternoon we took an elephant ride that gave us another tour of the national park, and we saw some more rhinos up close. Following that, we celebrated a girl in our group's birthday and then ate dinner which was my favorite dish of Roti (pretty much tortillas) and sautéed okra. After dinner we all spent our last night hanging out and getting to know each other better again. We have a really great group of students, and we are all excited for the next two week (which will hopefully feature less bugs and more AC).

Chitwan

We begun our trek to chitwan via bus. Exiting the kathmandu valley took about an hour and a half because of road construction, which also causes immense pollution (in the form of particulates like dust). Once we left the valley driving through the mountains provided amazing views into canyons and the hillside was filled with terracing for farming. We soon started on the long stretch of road that was under construction towards Chitwan and Pokara; it was almost impossible to see more than 30 feet ahead because of all the dust from the passing cars. This also meant that roadside towns and homes were constantly dusty, which was something that was hard for me to imagine. There were many roadside towns, but nothing like what we have in the states. Instead, they were just a few connected shops and a home or two. These would often be connected to another community across the river that could be reached via bridge. Once we arrived in Chitwan we first drove through the city which was much smaller than Kathmandu, but still had a variety of homes, shops, businesses, and schools. We stayed the first night outside of Chitwan in a hotel called the adventure lodge, which was quaint, but also quite warm because of "load shedding." Load shedding is when the power is turned off at certain time increment to save power and help support the weak grids in the area. While this is a great idea, it created some discomfort in the heat and humidity which made it very difficult for me to sleep (but hey, at least that gave me plenty of time to write majority of this blog entry and the past one!).

Kathmandu Part 1

Once we arrived in Kathmandu, we went to the Radisson hotel, where we stayed the first two nights. The Radisson was quite nice and helped to not create a completely sudden shift in culture for us. We explored the city the day we flew in, and we got to see sights from famous temples to wild monkeys in a local vendor/ temple area. Considering I have never been to Asia, I was taken aback by the cultural differences I saw right away. The prevalence of religion is obvious by the temples and culture in the city. There were beautiful buildings amongst the less developed buildings, showing the diversity in income as well as lifestyle in the city. Kathmandu was also hit 2 years ago by a widespread and severe earthquake that left many buildings severely damaged, which is still apparent today. The following day we met up with the students from the largest campus in Nepal who will be studying with us for the next few weeks. Their college has almost half a million people in it (and I thought ASU was huge!). The 8 students from TU are all amazing and extremely nice, and I am excited to get the opportunity to work with them for the remainder of the trip. We also visited the Resource Himalaya NGO in Kathmandu, which plays a critical role in creating the country's public policies, which I was very interested in. We also got to spend some more time exploring the city and shopping around for cheap, local goods. Overall, my impression of Kathmandu was that it was a city that had a unique opportunity to approach sustainable development that I am excited to learn about. While factors like the lack of infrastructure may have been a struggle for me to understand and relate to, I am looking forward to learn more about Nepal and the other cities around the nation in addition to Kathmandu.

Flights

may 21-23

To start, I believe we skipped the 22nd as a day in its entirety, so that is why this entry applies to several days. I have spent the past 2 days traveling to get to Kathmandu, Nepal. I started the trip by flying from KC to LAX, where I waited several hours until I continued on to Guangzhou, China with my friend Nick. The flight to China was quite an experience. We boarded the 15 hour flight anticipating to be out of our comfort zones, but a broken AC system in the plane is not quite what we meant. After the flight was delayed an hour for the sauna-like temperatures, we, along with the hundreds of other people on the huge double-decker plane took off for China. Thankfully I was able to sleep for a couple hours of the flight, otherwise our time was spent playing random children's games on the in flight system and watching Shrek. I'm still appalled that there was no wifi on any of my flights, but that was likely for the best. Another interesting occurrence on Chinese Southern Airways was the meal situation. We were served "dinner" immediately after our flight departed (so 4 AM Kansas time), which consisted of rice, fruit, and other basic staples. We had "breakfast" right before the flight ended as well. After a lengthy de-boarding process, we rushed to our connecting flight in Guangzhou to Kathmandu, which was also with China Southern. This second flight seemed much more normal, was significantly less full, and much shorter (5 hours) than our previous flight. We landed with a view of the Himalayan mountain range, and after pointing out several different peaks I thought could be Everest, I gave up on guessing. Overall, these flights definitely taught me that I should probably learn Chinese, or at least conversationally, in addition to English for general travel and communication purposes. I also realized that international traveling is less scary than I anticipated, while certain parts may have been slightly stressful. As I write this entry on the last hour of our final flight, I am very excited to be done traveling for a while and to start learning about the culture and views of sustainability in Nepal. From what I have gathered from previous research on sustainability in the region, primary obstacles are poverty, population, and development. However, Nepal has a unique culture and opportunity to create a sustainable community system. I am excited to observe where these possibilities could take hold.

About the Blog

This blog will be used to document my trip to Nepal and Thailand. I will be spending three weeks in Nepal while I study abroad with Arizona State's School of Sustainability, then I will spend the following week in Thailand. Please feel free to contact me through Facebook messenger or Gchat while I am abroad!