On the Ground

The past two weeks have been quite a whirlwind. We've basically been whisked all over the Kanchaniburi province of Thailand, which is located west of Bangkok near the border with Burma/Myanmar. We spent the first 6 days in a village living with families there. I lived with my former roommate, Sara, and two Thai friends, and our host family was great. We played with the youngest son and his friends and got the whole family into a few very spirited games of bingo. Overall, though, we discovered that village life is very boring. The only real thing to do is drink, which is basically what the villagers do 24/7. We took a few excursions from time to time and worked on our research, but there was still a lot of down time. We worked in pairs for the research, and my topic was ethnicity, specifically the lives of Burmese immigrants in the village. We interviewed several families in our village and also visited a nearby refugee camp (thanks to a personal connection from one of our village hosts), which was a great experience.

Our first visit to the refugee village (being escorted by guards):
After we left the village, we were taken to the town of Sangklaburi, which is right on the Burmese border. We arrived in the afternoon and had nothing to do all evening since the town was so small. The following morning, we were taken to visit an NGO which we knew very little about. It turned out to be an interesting organization, though, that works with illegal Burmese migrants. We visited some factories on the border and walked through the small gate that the workers come through illegally each day. It was pretty wild. So now I can say that I've been to Burma illegally, if only for a few minutes. Our final activity that day was a visit to a brothel, where we spoke briefly with the sex workers (through translators, of course). It was an interesting and intense experience for all parties involved. It was also extremely awkward considering that we were not adequately prepared for such an intense day!

That afternoon we drove straight to Kanchanaburi City, where we stayed for three days. There was a lot more to do there, which got our morale back up. We visited the WWII cematary dedicated to prisoners of war who lost their lives during the construction of the Thai-Burma railway (by the occupying Japanese). We also visited a few museums, the best of which was called the Death Railway Museum - it had a lot of really interesting information, and unlike most Thai museums, had full English paragraphs that were not completely laced with grammatical errors (that is one huge setback of most Asian museums - they definitely do not get a native speaker to edit their captions and displays!). That afternoon, we had lunch next to the bridge over the river Kwai, which was a section of the railway bombed by Allied forces during the war. I walked partway across the bridge, but it was quite a safety hazard and I wound up getting scared and turning back.

The whole UNC group in front of the bridge:

The final two days of the trip were spent trekking through Erawan National Park with two environmental professors. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. The first day we hiked up the seven steps of Erawan Falls, one of the most famous and beautiful waterfalls in Thailand. We swam at the top step, and a few minutes after we started back down, it started to pour. It sounds terrible, but it was actually really fun to slip and slide down the mountain. Sometimes we had to use vines to propel ourselves down through the mud. It was quite entertaining, plus refreshing after hiking in the hot sun all day, and it felt like some sort of George of the Jungle movie. We spent the night in a bungalow in the park, and the second day we had a park ranger guide and did some more hiking through a more remote area of the rainforest. We literally went through the middle of the forest, climbing over fallen bamboo and cutting our way through vines. We hiked for a few hours to a cave, which we then explored for a while before heading back to clean up and ride back to Bangkok.

The top step of Erawan Falls:

We arrived back on Friday night, and since then I have been staying with a friend at my old house. It's been interesting and a tad awkward being here with all of the new people, but it's also fun. I realized two days too late that the Indians-Yankees games have been on TV here, but I'm watching a replay of one of them right now. It's making me very happy to see baseball (especially because I already know that they're going to win!). Tomorrow we give our research presentations from the trip, which should be interesting considering we all did very different topics and there wasn't much cohesion between the various trips and activities during the class. Still, I enjoyed my topic and talking to the Burmese immigrants and workers.

Also, for the first time all semester, I am homesick. I lost a close high school friend last week, and I now find myself constantly thinking about home and wishing I could be there. Please keep the family and friends of Cameron Wagner in your thoughts and prayers (if they are not there already). Cameron was a fellow percussionist, star hockey player, loyal softball cheerleader, and one of the nicest guys I've ever known. He was loved by all that knew him and will be greatly missed.