24-Feb-2007 1:36PM local time

There are many things I’ve been reflecting on over the last week, in between our visits to different places and the intensity of filming, often on the fly. We’ve met so many good people and often would have liked to have stopped longer in some places. The contrasts are great, from the rapid developments that are evident everywhere to the wisdom of people who are living close to nature. For me the contrast was amplified when we arrived at Chiang Saen in the Golden Triangle.

I stayed there 24 years ago when I was back-packing through Asia. It is unrecognisable now. There was nothing there that bore any relation to my memories of a quiet, peaceful town on the banks of the Mekong river. Change has come very rapidly to Thailand, some good, some not so good. The people we are meeting are providing living examples of a more balanced approach to development. We can’t forget nature. People are acting to plant or protect forest. They are experiencing higher temperatures and less reliable rainfall. Water is everything. Forest cover is essential to help regulate water flows, particularly with so much pressure on water resources.

There are voices that we need to stop and listen to for a while. The voices of people who are working in their local environments, who see what is happening locally and more widely, who have clear vision about what we need to be doing for the future.

Chatting from Hamilton NZ

Gavin's niece Amy and nephew Ben 'chat' with cousin Lena in Thailand. Lena and Amy can type speedily so the exchange was lively and fun.

Catching up - 21 February 2007

We must give a very big thank you to Mr Watchara Lewpongsawat and his wife, owners of Tam-Mi-La Guest House and Bungalow, who sponsored our stay by the Mekong with accommodation. We are very grateful for your warmth and hospitality.

Our day began on the Mekong river. We passed some of the rocks that local people have fought to protect from being blasted to create a river channel for larger boats. Then we came to a very beautiful place, to meet with Uncle Sao Rawangsee, a wise man (aged 77) of the river. We began to interview Uncle Sao when suddenly he noticed that he had caught a fish on one of his lines. That was the end of the interview. Lena and I grabbed the camera and microphone and rushed down to the river, into his little fishing boat and out to where the fish was.

Uncle Sao is widely respected as a wise man of the river and many people come to stay with him. He said that last year he saw the biggest flood ever. He doesn’t believe that we can make things cooler because too many factories are being built along the river. He is not afraid of anything. Whenever he goes onto the river he says a blessing of thanks to the Mekong. He says that people who don’t do this are cursed by a river spirit (known as the Nakha, which is half fish and half snake) and lose their spirit.

Our time with Uncle Sao was too short, but long enough to hear and film some of his words of wisdom. From there we travelled to Huay Sa village, where a Lahu community lives. We spent time there listening to their music and singing, as they were celebrating the last day of their New Year celebration.

Catching up - 20 February 2007

Lena’s 18^th birthday and we were all up to watch the sunrise and then a very nice birthday breakfast. We packed up our gear and filmed an interview with two village leaders, Sala Aja Ayesang, a farmer and Bhu Mee Ayesang, farmer and leader of the women’s group. They both talked about how they had come there from Myanmar 30 years ago and all there was was the grass and the sound of wind in the grass. Since then they have planted forest all around the village.

Climate change is not something easily translated from English to Thai and then to the Akha language. However, these people carry wisdom about their local environment and the interplay between forest cover and water. They requested that everyone in the world plant at least one tree for every day of their life. They also talked about the problem of on-going conflict in Myanmar, and the necessity to manage the entire watershed of the area, beyond political boundaries. Water is everything, but it is not enough just to plant trees in northern Thailand, because the water that lies under the ground crosses country boundaries. They also talked about the importance of holding to traditional knowledge.

This was the end of our short stay with the mountain people of the north of Thailand. We traveled back down to the lowland area to meet with Mr Plaek Techaboon. He was a teacher at an agricultural college, but resigned 3 years ago to work on his family land. Mr Techaboon is now dedicated to education about sustainable living, through creation of a living model for local sustainability. Our time here was too short, after arriving late and then need to depart for Chiang Khong, by the Mekong river.

We ended the day celebrating Lena’s birthday with the Chiang Khong Conservation Group. It was a great evening, with our hosts bringing out their instruments and playing some Thai folk songs.

Catching up - 19 February 2007

The next morning there were more people singing and dancing, including children from the village. Many were dressed in their very colourful traditional costumes.

We went off to the side of the on-going festivities to interview two village leaders, Mr Ja Hair and Ja Nae Nae, one of the female elders in the village. They both talked about how the weather is hotter now, the need to plant trees and protect water, the value of traditional housing which is cooler, and the importance of educating the children.

Later on we traveled to Pakha Sukjai, an Akha village and also where the Hill Area Development Foundation have facilities. We spent time walking around the village and then had a spontaneous interview with Ah Nor Jeu Beng Eh Khu, the oldest person (89 years) in the village. He talked about the interconnections in life, that sometime soon he will be going to live in the forest with his ancestors, that everything lives and dies.

We then filmed people coming back to the village from their days work and watched a quite spectacular sunset, which Karen caught with photos. I’d put the camera away, exhausted. That night we joined Ah Jew Beng Eh Khu, a village volunteer for HADF in Pakha Sukjai village, sitting on a large mat in his family house and sharing a very nice meal.

Catching up - 18 February 2007

We travelled from Chiang Rai back into the hill area of the north. The plan for the day was to visit two Lisu villages. At Ban That village we spoke with the village leader. He would like to see more support from the government to encourage people to do the right things on the land. Without this support people do what they can to make a living. Lack of citizenship rights is still a major issue for many hill tribe people. In the past, as shifting cultivators, they didn’t know political boundaries. Many came as refugees from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) about 30 years ago, where there is still conflict between the minority groups and the government.

From Ban That we travelled to Ban Pang Sa village to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Here we found people doing their traditional dancing.

The village musicians were playing the Seubeu, a traditional string instrument, and the Falous, a traditional wind instrument. They would lead the dancers around the circle.

From Karen 23-Feb-2007 Bangkok

We're now back in Bangkok for a brief rest before beginning our final week in Thailand. Since visiting the Karen village we have been to two Lisu villages, an Akha village, a lowland farmer near Chiang Rai, stayed by the Mekong for two nights, had a boat ride on the Mekong and talked with Uncle Sao (77 year old wise man of the river), visited a Lahu village, two community forest projects in the Mekong catchment.... back to Bangkok last night then straight to a small monastery 2-3 hours north-east, talked with a Buddhist monk this morning then back to Bangkok to our 'home away from home" at the Phranakorn-Nornlen hotel. We've met some wonderful people and done a lot more filming. I'll be writing a more detailed update and sending some photos to post tomorrow once I've had a good sleep!!

Email exchange Karen and Emma

Circle dancing with hill tribes people, interviewing farmers, foresters, looking after the Mekong river, a boat ride down the river to an old fisherman's place, caught and they ate the fish, so many new experiences in a short time. Love taking photos, the camera never leaves my side. So good flying to Chiang Rai instead of 12 hours on a bus after 7 hours the 2 days before, we would have been shattered. Last nite, stayed in a monks temple, on a woven mat on the floor, really sore right now but a good experience. woke up to photo sunrises, really beautiful, yesterday over Mekong on Chinese new year. Well will rest here for 2 days, so try to chat Emma if on line too. Love to all Karen

hey mum dat all sounds awsome!!! yesterday i saw a bit of the carnivale in 1 of the nearby villages.. its kinda like the blossom parade but EVERYONE dresses up not jst the people in it. and its soooo colourful!!!!!! well e-mail when you can k ciao xxxxxx

23 February 2007

We spent the morning with Pra Parinya. Pra Parinya was formerly an agricultural extension officer, based in Bangkok. He became a monk 19 years ago. At the invitation of local villagers he moved to Saraburi Province 16 years ago. He bought waste land from the villagers, previously used to grow corn but no longer fertile. Since this time he has planted thousands of trees, using local species, to create a small forest and local microclimate. Pra Parinya is dedicated to a high spiritual life, but also sees the need to help the local villagers. He is leading by example, planting forest to provide cooler local temperatures (within the forest canopy) and to help protect water. He is concerned that there won’t be enough water in the future. His focus is conscious change, demonstrating by example what can be done locally.

After this visit we returned to Bangkok, for a well earned rest at Phranakorn-Nornlen Hotel.

22 February 2007

Our last day by the Mekong river. We drove from Tamila Guest House to visit two community forestry projects. Both projects are along the Mae Ing river, a tributary of the Mekong, and are initiatives of local villagers. The first visit, hosted by Mr Somkid Chantima and others from the village committee, was completely on the fly. We were almost running to keep up with them to get footage as they walked and talked about their forest.

The next visit was at a more manageable pace. This was further up the Mae Ing river to Ngam Muang village. We were hosted by Uncle Tanom Outtama, President of the people’s network for the Mae Ing river and Mr Somkiat Khuenchiangsa, Coordinator of the Mekong-Lanna Natural Resource and Culture Conservation network. They began their river protection work 10 years ago and now have 15 villages who are members of the river protection network. There is less water now, they said, so they have to protect the environment more. They have had great success in this regard.

From Ngam Muang village we drove back to Chiang Rai for an early dinner and then to catch a flight back to Bangkok. We arrived in Bangkok just after 8pm. Our principal host in Thailand, Khun Teunjai, met us there and we drove north to a small monastery, Wat Pacumcon.

Earthlimited Logo 2007

A little house keeping

To keep the flow of the blog as simple and straightforward, as is possible, we decided that we would post in NZ times. This seems to be working - with the postings timed as they are received here by e-mail. In the head of each post you will find the corresponding local time. Any mistakes are mine.

Those of you familiar with blogging will realise that we are doubling the workload somewhat in that everyone could be posting straight to the blog. We decided against this for continuity sake - and to give the travellers a little breathing and creative space - so as to not have to worry excessively about such small editorial niceties as spelling and grammar - along with the researching, and inclusion, of links - which is my job.

Karen's camera is set to NZ time and the posting of individual photos reflect this with the local time, once again, in the header. Karen is new to the exciting world of high tech SLR digital photography and is bringing us some really neat images - so far only a couple have needed a little PhotoShop help.

The cross-referencing (Blogspot calls them labels) categories (down the right-hand column) are being kept to a bare minimum again for simplicity's sake. It will be possible in the future to add further cross-referencing should this seem appropriate in hind-sight. I hope you are enjoying the journey.

Oh and one other thing the label earthlimited.org appears in each post both so we can see at a glance how many entries there are (you can count back to where you read to last time) and as a branding exercise for the software that tracks blog entries across the Internet.

Michael

E-mail to parents Bill and Barbara in NZ 11:37AM

Hi good to get your mail, we are all good, so busy and tired but exited doing stuff. I'm taking lots of photos, check blog every day for more. We will be out of reach for tonight, seeing the Lasu hill people celebrating the Chinese new year. Yesterday, we saw my namesake, KAREN hill people clearing a fire break, looking after the rain forest, where they live. Gavin interviewed the head man of the Karen in the forest, with his daughters, they had a great grasp of climate change and the need to preserve their environment. They are doing some great things.

by the sea, it was great to see all that the organic farmers were doing, working We have been eating lovely Thai food, and I have seen amazing new things at at the markets, buckets of eels, massive crabs, fruit I have never seen before, and have tasted spiky red fruit with white flesh and tiny black seeds, I will try to find out names.

The Thai people are so gentle and graceful, even riding their mopeds 3plus, weaving in and out of massive traffic jams in Bangkok, they are so relaxed, I would freak out... After our 6 hour train ride down to Chumphon - working co-operatively, and recycling etc. Woke up early to walk on the beach and take the sunrise, saw a special needs Thai group on beach, amazed. well I'll say more soon.

Love to all **Karen

11:19AM local time

We've had a challenging, but great, first week in Thailand. As much as I believe we got some great footage earlier in the week, for me there was a real beginning yesterday. It was incredibly powerful to hear the voice of a village leader and his 16 year old daughter from within the forest they live in. It may not always be this good but this interview was a very powerful affirmation that we have the makings of a story that as many people as possible around the world need to hear.

So please, let as many people know about what we are doing and share our blog with them.... and with your support we may just get the help we need to turn our vision to create a documentary into a reality. "Voices from the earth: Where hope lies".... a working title. If any of you can think of a better one, please let us know.

From Lena in Thailand 11:06AM

Flying over Bangkok at night was really beautiful; just the shiny lights outlining the streets and buildings and everywhere else just blackness. As soon as we got off the plane the humidity hit me, I couldn't believe that people were walking around wearing jeans!! I suppose they're used to it though.

The hotel we arrived and are staying at looked a bit shabby from the outside, but as the owner explained to us, that's cos they use recycled wood. All the people who work here are really nice and polite and most of them speak at least a bit of English and Rose (the owner) speaks English very well.

It takes a while to get used to the smell and the food, well lets just say it's more of a challenge than usual for me.

We visited the Grand Palace, it was massive. We weren't allowed in most of the buildings because they were tombs for deceased royalty. I felt that we were kind of intruding on a sacred place; a bit tapu. there were so many tourists, I think it should just be a place left in peace.

We also went and saw the Emerald Buddha. As soon as I walked in I felt like there was real energy and power, and again, I felt we were intruding.

The Reclining Buddha in another temple we visited was, what's the word for it? Amazing? Spectacular? Breath-taking? A combination of all three. Hollow and gold-plated, it was there before the temple that was built around it. On its feet were mother-of -pearl pictures of elephants, people, gods.

Dad and I did some filming around Chumphon Cabana Resort with Varasorn (the owner) and it was real interesting cos on the outside it's just a holiday place for people, but if you go out back or know where to look, you see all this amazing stuff going on like they've created a wetland and grow rice and try to do heapsa stuff organically. Also they have this Play + learn = Plearn philosophy which is making it a pleasant environment the workers to work in.

Yesterday we went out to this forest tribe and interviewed the leader of the tribe and he had some really interesting stuff to say about climate change both on a local and global scale. But what amazed me was when we interviewed his two teenage daughters - they had such wisdom about how the world should be, I couldn't believe that they were only 16/17!

Ciao from Chiang Rai 10:44AM

An email to Emma in Switzerland

We're in Chiang Rai now, in the north of Thailand. We had an AWESOME day yesterday!!! We drove out to a small village of about 100 people. They are from the Karen (same name as Mum!) minority group and live in and protect the forest. We walked into the forest to where they were working, clearing leaves to create a fire break. We filmed some awesome stuff there.

Then we went back to the village and had an amazing lunch of very interesting food, bits of flowers, dried mushrooms, forest herbs, all sorts of interesting things. After lunch we went for a walk along the stream by the village with the village leader and his two daughters, aged 16 and 17. We eventually came to a quiet place in the forest where we set up the camera on the tripod and interviewed them. This was incredible.

These people are so in touch with the earth and aware of what's happening in the world with climate change and other issues. They talked about how we all need to be living closer to nature. It is their hope that they can provide a good model and example for city people, people in Thailand and around the world, to learn from. This was very powerful stuff. For me this was a real beginning to this journey. I feel very determined to find a way for as many people as possible to hear the voices of these forest people and of others that we will be meeting.

I may not be able to communicate for a few days now. This afternoon we're going to a Lisu (another minority group) village where they will be celebrating the Chinese New Year tonight. We'll be staying there the night and then going next day to the Hill Area Development Foundation field headquarters, which is by an Akha village. Then we are going on the Mekong River for a bit, to a place on the river where we will stay two nights.

We'll be celebrating Lena's birthday by the Mekong River! Then (on evening of 22 Feb) we fly back to Bangkok and are going to stay with a Buddhist Monk for 2 nights who our host Tuenjai Deetes really wants us to meet. We'll be back in Bangkok on 24 Feb, so if you don't hear from us before I'll definitely be in touch then.

Sunset near Chiang Rai city 6PM ( Saturday 17th)