Daily Life in Vietnam

Friday, October 31, 2008

BOOOO! Happy Halloween! 

Some of you may be wondering what a typical day is like here in Vietnam. Well, it kind of depends on whether I am in the city or in the park. When I am in the city, I usually have something to do, like voting, buying things for the field, or taking care of business. It is kind of the relaxing part of the time here. I get up around 6, get some coffee, and check email. This is the best time to chat with me since the internet connection is great where we stay (with our friends Bert and Sherri, who have a house here for the year). There is an excellent bakery about 2 blocks away, so I frequently go for a walk to the bakery to get some fresh bread for breakfast and lunch. When I return to the house, I eat and get ready to go. I then go wander around getting things done. I like to eat lunch at home, but if I am out wandering around, I will get some food out at a restaurant. I like to have a rest in the afternoon because it is very hot and humid, which makes me tired quickly. 

After a rest (a cold shower, a cool drink, and an hour of reading), I like to go for a coffee, and then continue to get things done. The afternoon usually involves the market-either the supermarket or the open-air markets. I have made some acquaintances with the vendors at the market nearby, so I like to go by, say hello and chat. Afterwards, we usually cook or eat dinner out. Since our food choices are a bit limited in Cat Tien, we LOVE to get some different foods. Our favorites are: salads, PIZZA, and sandwiches! 

Voting

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Jonathan and I just voted! FedEx has this great program called Express your Vote. In most countries around the world, expats and US travelers can vote using an absentee ballot. Then they can 1-day it to the county in which they are registered for a very discounted rate. Here in Vietnam, sending the ballots was FREE! The woman at the FedEx office must have had several Americans coming in to vote because it was VERY easy for her to help us! 

Be sure to VOTE, if you haven't already!

Da Co

October 21, 2008

Once we came back to the forest, Jonathan and I got to work on re-establishing the last transect. It has taken about 3 days for each of the other transects, so we were expecting 3 days of work for the one in Da Co. We were pleasantly surprised to find most of the tree tags still in tact in Da Co. We spent about 3 hours working and got to tree #46! There are 108 trees in this 500-meter line of the forest so we were almost halfway done! As we hiked back out along the road to the motorbike, we heard some crashing in the trees. Doucs! A group of 6-7, with an adult male and an infant! The male climbed up into a tall tree near the road, stopped, and looked straight down at me! He was at least 50 meters away but our eyes met! I think he was probably telling me to go away. Shortly after that, the group moved off and we didn't see them again.

The next day we rode the motorbike back out to DaCo to finish the transect, or at least get as far as we could. We got out in the trees and were about to start working when a small group (2-3 individuals) started moving around in the trees. I didn't get to see them, but Jonathan said they stayed there, with us under them, for a few minutes. That is a good thing for the research! In order for us to watch what they are eating, we have to be able to sit under them and NOT have them scamper away. Wow, this might take a long time!

As we walked back to the motorbike along the road we saw a male gibbon! He was WAY up in the tallest trees swinging from branch to branch. That is how gibbons move, and it is called brachiating. He moved so quickly and quietly we ended up losing him. We DID get to see 2 groups of Doucs along the road, though! Both groups had about 6 individuals. Jonathan found the first one and I found the second one! It was amazing because i just saw the trees moving out of the corner of my eye, and then saw the douc. One group was in the forest about 25 meters off the road, but we could use our binoculars and see them clearly. They didn't threaten us by staring at us, and didn't run away! We watched a female eat for about 1 minute before she continued on into the forest. At this point it is really hard to get any photos. It's hard enough just to FIND them! I hope to have some photos of them soon, though. We will just have to be patient and persistent. 

Oh, we did end up finishing the transect in 2 days! 

Where we live

October 20, 2008

On the day the bears were released, we got word that our kitchen and room were ready! Woohoo! That afternoon we moved in! It was a disaster for a few days, with all of our things in new places and neither one of us knew where! We spent a couple of days getting organized before heading in to Ho Chi Minh City to send off our friends, Bert and Sherri~ they were going back the the United States for a week or so and we wanted to hang out with them. Here are some pictures of our kitchen~ before and after the addition of the stove and fridge! Now that we have the stove we can actually cook! Now we will have to figure out how to get some fresh food from across the river! There is always something new to learn how to do!

Some Photos

Here are some photos of the bears...

The Final Countdown

Sunday, October 12, 2008

In an earlier note I think I wrote about the Free the Bears project that was happening here at Cat Tien. All throughout Southeast Asia Asiatic Black bears are captured and kept in wee cages. Some are taken as pets, but many are kept to extract their bile. Bear bile is used in traditional medicine~it supposedly reduces fevers and has reconstructive properties for the liver. This link will take you to Wikipedia to find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_bile  

The Free the Bears organization helps by confiscating the bears from their wee cages, and building larger, more bear-friendly enclosures like the one at Cat Tien. Can you imagine being a big bear in a tiny little cage? I've never thought about it, until Jude, one of the volunteers for Free the Bears, explained what they were doing. Bears in the wild can climb up and down trees, eat almost anything, and have very good vision. Bears who have been in cages all their lives have to be taught some of these things. The folks working with the bears not only manage the construction of the new enclosure, but also train the bears~they have to learn about electric fences, and are given enrichment toys to explore, like logs, hammocks, balls, and a swimming pool to splash around in. All these things are in a smaller training enclosure, and also in the larger one. 

Jonathan and I went into the forest early, so we offered our help in the afternoons, and Nev, the man in charge, took us up on the offer! We got to chop rattan, play with high voltage electric fences, and help make enrichment toys for the bears in their new 1 hectare enclosure.  On Friday, October 10th, several people from Free the Bears and Wildlife at Risk arrived at Cat Tien to help and watch the release of the bears into the BIG, NEW enclosure. There was also a film crew from a show called Extinction Sucks, that will begin airing on the internet in February. 

The release was good. They let out 3 females and one male. 2 of the females went out easily and stayed out all night! The other 2 bears went out, found the electric fence, and didn't want to go back out. It will take some time, but eventually the goal is to have a group of males out one day, and a group of females out the following day. All of the bears will need to come back in at night, though, so it won't be a permanent home for the moment. 

The picture above is of 2 bears, Bouncer and Spike. This was the first time they had been in the training area together. They wrestled and played together for over an hour! If you'd like to learn more about Free the Bears, click on this link: http://www.freethebears.org.au/

Working in the Forest

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Jonathan and I are both back in Cat Tien. We have had 3 productive days in the forest so far. We had 3 beautiful, clear days so the forest dried out a bit after the big storm on Thursday. We did some excellent work on re-establishing one transect and were very excited about getting the other 2 completed. We were ready to get out to Bau Sau again and get to work!

We now have a motorbike, but the road is usually pretty muddy, so we rented bikes to see how the road was. It took us 2 hours to get out to the lake- it should've only taken 1 but the crank on Jonathan's bike kept falling off. We arrived, ate some bread, then headed in to the transect. 

The terrain here is much different than at Ben Cu. The ground is very muddy with lots of volcanic pumice stone. We hiked in about 2 km and began working. After a few hours of looking for trees that should've had tags on them and didn't, we were exhausted and ready to head back to headquarters. As we started hiking back it started to rain, and kept raining. The thunderstorm came and sat right over us. I was SO terrified! The lightning was so close I couldn't even count to 1-one-thousand! It was all around as we hiked down the trail, which had turned into a stream as all the rain flowed down the trail. When I made it out of the forest, with our bikes, I threw them and myself on the ground. I didn't care if I was covered in leeches, I just didn't want to get struck by lightning!!! 

The storm finally passed over, we rode our bikes back through the mud and muck, and I just worked on calming myself down. 

We've been back to that part of the forest a few times since then. At first I was really nervous, watching the clouds VERY closely through the canopy of trees. I've managed to calm down and like the forest again!