It was really great to see Dia again, and to meet new friends and learn a new language!! Dia is still the same, with her old habits... I won't mention them here. It was quite a learnin experience to meet Steve Elliot, her supervisor, who is one of the funniest person I've ever met. He is always very sarcarstic about the way things are going with his project in the South, so many obstacles he met with and how different government agencies are inhibiting his work there. Now I know I'm lucky to have my project going rather smoothly compared to Dia's. The organisation there is not very neat, like in Singapore there is only 1 government body issuing permits to do research, whereas over there there're a few, and they keep telling Steve to go in circles among these places.
It's frustrating, but I told Dia if they don't allow her to do her work just do it anyway, I don't believe they'll send people there to watch the plots 24 hours a day. I believe science cannot be impeded by stupid systems imposed by humans.
Ok anyway, I was shown around Krabi and the field site there, met a few good people who have been very supportive of Dia's work. I tried my best to be very polite with my limited Thai, perhaps I should visit them again. As for Dia's university Walailak, it's the biggest in South-east Asia, I think if I remember correctly it's more than 1000 ha. There's many cows grazing on grass all day long, and dogs and cats too, although they usually wait for people to feed them. It's a nice campus, I love the big open environment there. Transport is usually by motorbike, or by Dia's cute little 4-wheel drive.
Ok I shall end here for now, I'll write more about the trip when I feel like it. :)
Steve and I in the "e-tan", which Steve calls the 'limousine'. The roads to the plot were the worst I've ever experienced, even worse than PITC, but according to Steve they are more worse in Indonesia...
No comments:
Post a Comment