Long Awaited Update

I've been really busy the past few weeks because Rich came to KMUTT and I feel like every weekday I have either been in a class or a meeting and then Thai language class and then on both of the past weekends I did a bit of traveling around the area.

Some highlights include:

More environmental chemistry lectures than I ever expected were possible, especially crammed into like a 2 week window. Rich is the coolest professor though and even when he's deriving ridiculous differential equations to model ozone formation in the troposphere, it's really entertaining to watch his mannerisms and the every-five-minute side note in Thai that nobody understands except for the three Thai students. They just the "what the --" look because Rich is crazy and school is a pretty formal affair in Thailand, so to see a teacher jest around like Rich becomes an odd occurrence to say the least. We conducted a remote experiment on Rich's smog chamber in Pittsboro, NC and it was hilarious to watch him explain what we would do because he started dancing like a robot and making gas pipe sounds "pssshhhhhht" and the Thais were just probably confused to the nth degree because the chemistry was really crazy and then Rich started acting wild. It's such a sight. The experiment was cool though, we waited until sunrise in North Carolina and via the world wide web opened some valves, pumped in NOx into our fake atmosphere, the combustion by-product of cars and industry and the sun in North Carolina reacted with NOx to produce free radical hydroxyl groups which create ozone. This type of ozone is in the troposphere and is synonymous with smog, as opposed to the "good" ozone in the stratosphere which protects humans from dangerous ultraviolet rays from the sun. So, that was a fun experiment. Then, Rich has this really old computer model (it's in DOS) that he has tinkered with to model the chemical mix from cars in Bangkok and then we can change certain concentrations of chemicals and see how it changes the levels of ozone. This is really neat and has a lot of practical applications for finding ways to reduce smog. Not everything is as easy as one may suspect, if you decrease a lot of the NO2 but nothing else, you may actually increase smog becuase other free radicals can consume more free oxygen and all this weird chemistry stuff that I don't really understand completely. The cool part though, is that it made me question some of the ways decision makers create legislation.

For instance, a 20% biodiesel blend is required in government vehicles in Thailand, which will likely cause a lot more air pollution and not to mention land use change in Thailand, because many of the government vehicles will not change their engines, so the 20% blend mix makes some cars sputter a bit and not run as well as they should. In theory, it seems like a good idea, but when you look at what the implications of such a mandate are, the logic is flawed. It's tough though, especially for Thailand whose energy situation is very similar to the United States: dependent on foreign imports and trying to find alternate ways that will insulate their economy.

So, too much chemistry, is the point of all this...

We played several games of frisbee, met a bunch of Thais. One friend took us to this floating market last Saturday in a rural province outside Bangkok, which was a lot of fun. Even though I don't particularly enjoy shopping too much in the US, it was fun to walk around the floating market. I bought a lot of fruit and we ate a lot. Sunday, Neung came with a couple of us into Bangkok and we went to Wat Arun and the Chatuchak Weekend market, which you can probably find anything you would ever want for only 3 dollars.

Our other classes resumed, and we had many meetings with university people and other friends of Rich. The next week, classes were pretty much everyday for some reason, and then I had some free time and I finished reading one of the books I had started at the beach two weeekends ago.

On Friday we traveled via bus to Ko Samet, an island in the Gulf of Thailand with an amazing beach. We didn't arrive to Banphe (the mainland port) until like 10 pm, so we ate some food (chicken soup) and then chartered a probably illegal speedboat across the water to the island. It was a pretty fast speedboat ride and then we didn't have to pay the entrance fee to the island because the guard wasn't there at 11 pm. Apparently though, it's pretty normal if you arrive past the ferry hours to do this. There is absolutely nothing in Banphe, it's a pretty mundane place and the only good part about it is that it's close to Ko Samet. So we got to the island at night, my friends from UNC Ricker and Christina booked us a cabin in advance (they came earlier than me and others because they didn't have Friday class). The bungalow we stayed in was pretty cheap and pretty neat. It cost 150 baht per night (roughly less than 5 dollars). The cabin contained a double bed enclosed in a mosquito net. The forecast called for thunderstorms all weekend so on the bus, we were a little anxious. But it didn't rain at all the entire weekend! The water was blue and green and the picturesque white-sand beach fits the travel guides descriptions as one of the best beaches along the Gulf of Thailand. It was awesome, we traveled south on the island away from all the tourist trap stuff near the pier on Saturday and spent the day on a secluded beach. It's the rainy season (read: off-season) so nobody else was there. We brought a frisbee and all of us got sunburned even after applying lots of sunscreen, pretty much because all of us were pale and we are 13 degrees north of the equator.

That reminds me of my solar energy where our professor is obsessed with the sun and calculating "solar time" and other funny things, but the neat part is he can pretty much quantify how much sun energy is hitting Thailand at all times and then convert that into how much solar electricty one could theoretically create. His figures present a fairly compelling case for solar power.

The next day at the beach Pai and I rented a kayak. We were out in the sea for about an hour and then it got really windy. I am usually fine with motion-sickness type things, but the waves were too much and I felt pretty sea sick. So despite our two-hour rental time, after an hour, both of us were very dizzy and nauseated. The kayak was fun, but the weather wouldn't permit. There aren't many waves though, as the largest wave we saw was about half the size of a wave at Wrightsville Beach.

We ate a lot of food at the beach and it was all delicious. Everything was really cheap. Then we came home Sunday evening. Monday we had class, met with Rich for the last time, and then traveled into Bangkok to meet the director of Kenan Asia. This is a UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School affiliated non-profit seeking to aid sustainable development in Southeast Asia. He gave us a really interesting presentation on Thailand's history and culture and proceeded with a current analysis of the economic and political situation. It was one of the better presentations I had seen in a while and we all learned a lot and came to a lot of realizations. He said the presentation is best during your first week, but I think since we had been in Thailand for a month already, a lot of his observations were more relevant to us and we had a better feel for what he meant. Some of the cultural differences we observed in our interactions with Thais that we may not have had if we had met with him 3 weeks ago. He also may provide a good network connection for our project later this semester.

I probably forgot about some other cool things over the past few weeks. But, I think this weekend we may head to the beach again (Hua Hin). Our Friday class was moved up to Wednesday so we have a long weekend. The best part about Bangkok is the proximity to a lot of cool areas and travel is cheap. So far we have worked really hard during the weekdays, and then gone to some neat places on the weekends.

So long for now