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.