Wrapping up

I've been home a couple days, and I'm closing out this blog for now. It was a great trip, slipping back into the road life like nothing had changed. I find a clarity in the time to reflect; more "now" as the past is pushed behind and the future has more unknowns.

I doubt I'll do more of this any time soon, at least til the kids are older. Thanks again Jules, for tending the home fire while I was away. I return to this blog if I get another chance to travel (hopefully it won't take another 10 years!)

Layover in Taipei

I had a gap between planes of about 8 hours in Taipei, so I caught a bus into town and took a look around. On the way in, I sat next to a Canadian named Rich who's lived in Taiwan for 5 years (after several years on the backpack circuit). He gave me some tips on places to go in town.

Stopped by the grandiose Chaing Kai Shek memorial. Super sized, no doubt to be bigger than Mao's tomb... It includes a museum of artifacts, including the CKS Cadillac. Like the Pharoah, in case he needs it in the afterlife?

The shopping districts are a neat way to see city life. People sure seem to love to shop. And the shops are full of staff just hanging out, including young people who hang out while working. Seems like every other shop is clothes for young women, but there are odd ones too: a shop just for card tricks, another with anime action figures for grownups.

People are into gadgets. Here's a first for me: I was in a taxi, and the driver took a cell phone call from his grade-school son. Positioning the phone carefully on his driving wheel, he had a video conversation with him - he could see himself in a tiny picture-in-picture, so he made sure his son could see him, and they passed the time while he drove. (Probably not too safe -- one hand half-occupied and eyes off the road...)

Nighttime layover in Bangkok airport

The connections returning home are awkward, with long waits in Bangkok and Taipei. I'm in Bangkok airport now, and got a "day room," with shower and a weak but serviceable wifi signal. No problem on the web, but Skype sucks -- noise, pops, dropouts, OK for short conversation but no fun.

The room is rather odd. I was expecting a tiny 8 x 10 cubicle, like the old days. But this has 2 beds, lots of unused floor space without a desk, a fridge, and advertises babysitting and a video parlor. Oddest of all, it has windows in the room that look down on people checking in.

The road from Tana

Great to be on the move, leaving the city. About 20 minutes of city traffic to get to the open road, past the old queen's palace. The town is hilly, even more than Yaounde or Addis Ababa, and the resulting neighborhood pockets are visually quite varied.

Out of town, the land is often terraced, usually growing rice with a few cows in the fields. The brick buildings of the city give way to more wood, and eventually to mud huts on the smaller roads.

Small town with cyber shop

In a small market town where two roads cross, we stopped for a drink, a look at the market stalls (mostly food and cheap stuff from China) and a few photos. Down the street I strained to read the sign -- yup, a shop labelled "Cyber". The proprietress sold and repaired computer equipment, ran a few PCs (advertising games to play), and used a modem for internet access. She also made photocopies. Reminded me of the shops in the 1980s in most African countries, which would have copy machines and a telephone with a coin box. Today, I saw several people with cell phones, and market stalls selling cards for phone time, but the photocopier, and now the PC, are shared.

And I still can't get over the general use of man-pulled rickshaws. I've noticed a few bits of Chinese influence -- a road paved in the 1970s with a pagoda memorial, a few Chinese restauranters, but I don't know if that's related or not.

Lemur Island

The Vakona Lodge is near the National Park, and is quite pleasant. At first it seems luxurious, but on reflection, it's not so different from the mid-range Yosemite Lodge or Asilomar State Park facilities - just fewer guests.

Across the road from the Lodge is a small lake, and in it is Lemur Island. Back in 1996, the lodge owners heard of people who had kept lemurs as pets, who wanted to return them to more natural settings. (Lemurs don't tolerate captivity well, if at all). So the lodge owners took them in and kept them on the on the island, and soon several other lemurs of different varieties were sent and the island became a sanctuary. Some lemurs mated, all thrived, and none forgot their comfort around people. So now, you can take a very short canoe ride to visit them, and they jump on your shoulder, and eat out of your hand ... Not a natural experience, but a very happy one; they are primates, and friendly, and all were rescued from bad situations.

National Parc at Andasibe

Once in the national park, hired a guide, who spoke halting but understandable english, and wore a fake Cal sweatshirt. Most important, she had a great eye for wildlife. Found the big lemurs, called Indri, right away, and even though they mostly stay high in the canopy they're very impressive. "Like a 4-year-old in a panda suit," I've read, and it's quite descriptive. Their calls are loud, carrying over a mile, and you hear them from time to time all morning. (Here's a longer sound sample; sorry for the low volume.)

There are also plenty of "common brown" lemurs, which come close enough for a good zoom shot, plus a few of a nocturnal variety that slept high in the trees, well protected.

Great 4-hour hike, beautiful scenery, cool clear air, deep quiet. And way too inexpensive: $12 park entrance, only $4 for the guide! Certainly the guides deserve more.

Last minute shopping

Dashing to the handicraft market on the edge of town, spending my last local currency on 'les cadeaus." At 200 Ariary to the US $, things are cheap, even if the selection isn't great. Bargaining is expected, and results in 30-50% off of first price. Long line of handicraft stalls on the edge of a canal, many more local buyers than expats, which is reassuring. The only place I found plush stuffed lemurs I found for the kids was at the expensive hotel, none at the markets; bought them anyway. At least they say they're locally made.

Returning to the hotel, the internet goes up and down and back up, and is slow so it pays to manually shrink my images before uploading (instead of letting blogger.com do it). Guess I can't complain -- it's back to being free, they disabled the lame attempt at charging for it!

Independence Day

Returned to 'Tana to discover that tomorrow, 26 June, is Madagascar's Independence Day. So that's why the Madagascar flag was on every building everywhere! The celebration started today, with crowds in the parks and traffic jams everywhere. One park was setting up a "battle of the DJs." A nice surprise after sunset: a long show of fireworks right outside the hotel, over the downtown lake. Fantastic view from the top floor of the hotel, where big families partied and government officials were expected (complete with security machine at the front door and red carpet at the entrance).

Conference finishing

Gave my presentation today. Good panel, with people representing two government ministries, three conservation groups, and two comms firms (including me for CGNET).

Also had an interesting talk over breakfast with a conservationist who was honored this week for negotiating a deal preserving 500,000 hectares in Equatorial Guinea. Turns out they're training local hunters to be conservation agents in a series of small training colleges along the equator in the new park. And they're planning to collect climate change data along this line, using data loggers that the agents would visit periodically to "harvest" the data. We talked about rBgan satellite units as the best technology for relaying that data to scientists on the Internet. He'd also like larger VSAT units eventually, so that he could relay online courses from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America to the agents as they train. (Unlike most other countries in Africa, Spanish is spoken in Equatorial Guinea.)

Got a tour arranged for tomorrow with a visit to a lemur national park. Looking forward to getting out of town, and then heading home.

Conference ideas

The conference has been interesting. One session on adaptation to climate change introduced an idea from the World Agroforestry Center called "sustainagility" -- developing and teaching farmers to use combinations of crops and practices that can be adapted to varying rainfall, temperature, and growing seasons. Another session on mining near biodiversity "hotspots" included people from the mining companies asking for international regulations and procedures to define the hotspots and keep all mining companies out. A guy from AngloAmerican refered to the wildlife and plants as the "jewels on the ground" that must not be disturbed for the sake of the jewels underneath. There was general appreciation that remediation after mining almost never successful at restoring biodiverse settings. I got the impression the big mining representatives wanted international rules so that their competitors, who might be less scrupulous or less vulnerable to bad PR, could also be kept out of biodiverse areas.

The part that I'm here for is mostly happening over coffee and meals. I've given my two cents of technical advice in conversations about server backup in a South African research institute, use of Plumtree portal builder when multiple departments are involved, and how to get IP in Equatorial Guinea.

Here's a view from one of the conference rooms of a lake near the downtown. Dinner yesterday was at a mostly expat bar and restaurant called the KuDeTa (as in "coup d'etat" ..)

"If it sounds too good to be true..."

"... it usually is." After an easy first day online, the connectivity went south in a big way. Turns out the open and free network that I found had been up "for testing" since April, and the operator decided to go production -- and charge for access -- on my second day here. And of course, it didn't go smoothly; most of the access points were misconfigured and useless for 36 hours, and even now they take minutes to offer a logon screen for gaining access. The rate is reasonable, I guess ($1.50 per hour) but the bandwidth seems even worse than when it was free (inbound 100 kbps, ourbound 20 kbps, with typical satellite latency of 800 ms round trip). I used skypeOut on the first day for checking voice mail, and for a long if slightly difficult conversation, but today skype is quite useless -- even for picking up voice mail! I guess the DTMF tones get garbled on the poor connectivity now. (Skype also shows its round trip times as 2-10 seconds, rather than the ping times of .8 sec -- don't know why that is.)

And, I think I ate something that didn't agree with me yesterday, so I've spent most of today near the john and taking it easy. Guess that comes with the territory. Went shopping today to stock up on some safe recovery food. Just like the old days!

GSM Enabled

I walked two blocks from the hotel, past several sidewalk vendors and around the jitney stop, then past this sign for DSL internet (from wanadoo, which I believe is a French franchise). I found the Orange mobile phone storefront, where teenagers were crowded around an SMS and voice mail demo; turns out the sales staff was running a weekly sweepstakes that gives away prepaid service. I bought myself a SIMM for the GSM phone I carried. I could have bought a prepaid SIMM for $2.50, but splashed out on the $5 plan instead. Checked my US voice mail instantly; super efficient. On the walk back I noticed that the sidewalk vendors sold many daily purchases like newspapers, snacks, cigarettes, and cheap sunglasses -- and two sold prepaid recharges for Orange and the competing network for $1 and up.

Try sending me an SMS, at +261-32-426-2788, or even phone me if you want -- but you might check that it's not the middle of the night here first... (Normally I wouldn't put a phone number on a blog, but what the heck, the number will be dead when I leave a week from now.)

Online in Tana

I'm at the Conservation Intl conference, which just finished its first morning. There were persentations or video greetings from various dignitaries and a speech by the president of Madagascar. He's quite a young, modern, and charismatic figure with a passion for environmental issues.

As expected, the connectivity from the site here is a world away from that in East Asia. The speed on the conference network is tolerable -- slow, but still broadband -- but the satellite delay makes everything feel sluggish. Funny - the french keyboards in use here make it just about impossible for me to touch-type, so now I'm really glad to be back on my laptop, plugged into Conservation's conference network. Surprisingly, the hotel's (free!) wifi service seems faster (less burdened?) than the conference network. I'm not as confident about leaving my laptop unguarded in my room, though, so I'll have to set up and shut down whenever I get online. That'll make this a less fluid online/offline flow than the days up to now.

Antananarivo itself reminds me of Cameroon, perhaps a larger version of Bamenda or Foumban, with mountains and morning fog and a mix of ramshackle and modern in the buildings and vehicles. (There are man-powered rickshaws -- it's the first time I've seen them in Africa.) Cool weather this time of year -- 50F (11C) as the sun rose leaving the airport -- and a pleasant 70s at noon.

Another temple in Chaing Mai

In our last afternoon in Thailand, before going to the airport, Rick and I took a hike to a waterfall in the hills with a temple on it. The temple site is maintained by some resident monks, who do meditation retreats there from time to time. Beautiful spot. And of course, it rained on our way down the hill; I raced to the airport dripping like a wet rat! No worries -- made it there with enough time to change before the flight to 'Tana.

Tech notes in Thailand

Before I forget these details, I'll record them here. So far, I've only wanted to power up my laptop once. When I did, I could see two wifi links, but neither was open (despite the hotel claiming to have wifi). No matter -- internet cafes have been great, with good throughput (typical 100-200 kbps outbound, and plenty fast inbound). In Taipei airport, the cafe was free (and in a great location with a view of the runway). In Chaing Mai city, the typical rate was 20 baht per hour (about 60 us cents). In Chaing Mai airport, it was free in the Thai Airways lounge, but here in Bangkok it's the most expensive of all, 75 baht for 15 mins.

The computers in the cafes are relatively new and appear well maintained, but I think I'll be changing my passwords every 48 hours or so; too many keyboard loggers in the wild, and I've had my fingers on too many keyboards lately.

Pretty amazing all the tech available now compared to 10 years ago. Doing this blog has required broadband, ubiquitous internet cafes, a digital camera, flash memory with a USB adaptor, and blogging software-as-a-service. Back then I'd always wished for a way to share photos and stories with friends back home as I travelled, ideally without the delays and hassles of photo developing and individual letters and postage. That way has certainly arrived. Then again, it's far from perfect; of the 6 machines I've used for internet access, two have refused to read my usb device to get my photos -- including the one I'm using now :<

Next stop: Antanarivo, Madagascar, 10 hours from now.

Why am I here?

I suppose I ought to say a bit about why I'm here. Conservation International is holding a five-day conference in Madagascar this coming week on the integration of nature conservation and development. As CTO of CGNET Services, I've been working in information technology for develoment for almost 20 years, and CGNET has worked for CI for many years, so CI graciously invited me to join a panel at the conference on the role of IT in integerated African development.

On a personal level, this conference is giving me an opportunity to get back on the road for the first time in over 10 years. I spent most of the 1980s living and working in developing countries. I joined CGNET in 1987 to help put IT to work in agricultural research and other sectors of international development. I continued to travel periodically in the early 1990s, by which time CGNET had grown (and I had aged...) so that other, younger people did the road work. For the last several years, the bulk of CGNET's overseas work has been done by our staff and contractors who are based in their home countries in Africa and Asia.

So it's quite unusual for there me to travel nowadays -- there are few cases where our local staff would not be more appropriate. This conference is meant to have a long tem view with a broad cross-country agenda, so it fits for me. And, it's a real treat for me to be able to return to what had been my way of life, 10 to 20 years ago.

And luckily for me, my dear wife is picking up my slack while I'm away. Thanks Jules!

The hills over Chaing Mai

Rick knows some great places to relax and hike in the mountains around Chaing Mai. Twenty minutes out of town on his motorbike got us to a lake with a trail up to a waterfall with pools of cool water. Pure tropics, thick underbrush, dayglo butterflies, and huts on the water near a golden buddha for a beer at the end.

Geek heaven

I'm here visiting my friend Rick, who has been living in Thailand for about six years. I met him over a frisbee in Central Park 25 years ago, then got him into computers as a career, and we've been buddies ever since.

When I got here, we headed out of town for a visit to a lake and a waterfall. On the way, we ran an errand to fix his computer printer, a local electronics shopping center. Rick's main contact there knows "everything there is to know" about PC configurations.

The wiring outside the building was an impressive rats nest of phone and power cables, with a dozen air con units blasting.

In a way, this place is a geek heaven. There's every piece of software ever written available bootleg for $3 per CD, and a wide variety of new and refurb add-ons at very low prices. Best of all, there are pleasant and talented people who'll help build, fix and configure PCs and peripherals at very reasonable prices (like a few bucks an hour, or just as a favor if you're a repeat customer).

Chaing Mai Temples

It's been 20 years since my previous visit here. Most of the changes have been in spread-out development; the outskirts are now about 10 miles further than they used to be! There are still temples everywhere, though. I'm staying in the old city, and there's a temple every city block.

3 minutes and blogging from Thailand

Just got this blog up, while eating Museli and drinking a latte in Chaing Mai. Hoping to use this to drop off pictures and comments as I go from here to Madagascar, then back home via Taipei to Palo Alto.

Going with my friend Rick Hoffman to a hike in the hills outside town soon. I have a few days of pictures to set up; will see what I can do in the next 5 minutes...