Fulbright Conference in Bangkok, Thailand

Sorry that I have been absent from posting for several days, but I have been attending a conference in Bangkok, Thailand. I will try to post info about the conferences and beautiful Bangkok and Thailand as soon as I can. I still have some things that I would like to post about Tioman as well and I probably need to catch you up on some of the "exciting" Malaysian news.

3rd Mid-Year Enrichment Conference for U.S. Scholars and Students in Southeast Asia

This conference allowed Filbrighters from across South East Asia to meet to share our experiences. The fact that the conference was organized by the Thailand-United States Educational Foundation (TUSEF) and was held in Bangkok made this experience a special treat. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this event such a great success!

The theme of the conference was "America's engagement in Southeast Asia: the role of people-to-people ties in strengthening connections". I may not have my numbers exactly right, but I think that there were 57 conference participants who are currently living in 8 countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philipines, and Laos). Attending this conference was a unique experience for me because of the broad range of interests in Fulbrighters. I listened to presentations by artists, political scientists, journalists, economists, and anthropologists in addition to "normal talks", meaning of course, those presented by biologists.

On Wednesday morning I met Michael and Jaki, two of the student Fulbrighters in KL, at KL Sentral station where we caught the Express Train to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We arrived in Bangkok a little bit after lunch time so we had some time to look around for a while before the conference started on Wednesday evening.

View from my hotel room.


We stayed at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok which was a beautiful hotel. They had a woman in the lobby playing music on a Thai xylophone/harp. I don't think you will find her at the Motel 6 in Lubbock.


We wandered around the city searching for lunch. When we saw what was on the menu, then we knew we had found the right place. You can't get fried rice with crap and rots pork just anywhere. Actually, lunch was great and cost about two bucks.


There was a large park just across the street from our hotel. Jaki, Michael, and Michael (three of the student Fulbrighters in Malaysia) are holding up the cool tote bags they gave us at the conference.


I was surprised to hear a marching band practicing. These kids looked to be Junior High age. Maybe I should start recruiting for the Goin' Band From Raiderland.


Giant swan.


Muscle Beach Bangkok.


We saw a lot more locals exercising in Bangkok than we do in KL. Maybe that's because they know that Thai food is so good and they need to work it off.

Tioman Diving

Many people claim that the diving at Tioman is the best in Peninsular Malaysia so I was happy to be able to check it out for myself. I dove with Tioman Dive Center located in Tekek (http://www.tioman-dive-centre.com/). I did 13 dives with TDC and I enjoyed them all. The three dive guides Nina, Rosie, and Katie (all from England) did a great job making sure that everyone had a good time while protecting the reef.

We would gear up at the dive center and then head out to the boat.


Getting everyone situated on the boat.


Off we go. The boat rides varied between 5 and 20 minutes.


After we returned to shore we carried our gear back to the dive shop.


Katie (right), the owner of TDC, Nina (center), a dive guide, and Angus (left) from Belfast head to the beach.



So What Did I See?
The dive sites around Tioman were diverse with a combination of large stands of hard coral, boulders, swim throughs, rubble, and wrecks. As usual, I an not able to take any underwater photos so I borrowed a few photos of Tioman from the internet.

Sting ray.


Sawadee wreck. The Sawadee was a fishing boat that sunk in about 100 feet of water. The Sawadee was an interesting dive because there were huge schools of snappers aggregating on the wreck. We dove the Sawadee twice to look for a large stonefish. Stonefish are camoflage experts so I was never able to find it.
photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/gs9826/page32/

There were lots of "big animals" to be found including sea turtles, large groupers, and black tipped reef sharks. One of the most interesting things that I saw was when a very large grouper (about three feet long) swallowed a pufferfish. When the pufferfish found itself inside of the grouper's mouth it "puffed" itself up to such a large size that it was impossible for the grouper to swallow it. The grouper had no choice but to spit the pufferfish out- and the puffer escaped unharmed!
photo from http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9S6Cm50DkHL9RNp1cPLDYA

Lots of cool nudibranchs!
photo from sergeyphoto.com

My favorite undersea moment came during an interaction that I had with a cuttlefish. One particularly curious cuttlefish swam up to us and finally ended up about a foot and a half from my face. Cuttlefish are known to be very intelligent animals so it is only natural that they would find me to be so interesting.

photo by Lillian Daniel

Tioman Beaches

Tekek- River Walk

They are clearly doing some work to try to develop Tekek a little more for tourism. The river walk and the walkway along the shore were very nice and should be even better when they are completed. I hope that they don't develop things so much that Tioman loses its charm.

The chanelized river reaches the sea near the Yacht Club and the Ferry Terminal.


The Yacht Club.


The Ferry Terminal. You can see one of the ferries waiting at the dock.



I think that San Antonio ripped off the whole "river walk" idea from Tekek.


Most of the tour and dive boats are stored here.




Farther inland the river has its natural banks.


Eventually, the river heads into the hills.


Langkawi has its eagle so I guess Tioman thought that they needed a bird statue as well. I thought that the myna was an interesting choice.

Tekek, Tioman Island

Pulau Tioman is a relatively undeveloped island that is home to about 3000 people. Most of the people in Tioman live in the village of Tekek. Most of the population of Tekek is employed at a large resort that was located about a 10 minute walk away from where I stayed. Because Tioman is very hilly, most of the buildings were located along the coast. Thus, most of the "action" in Tekek was located along the one main road.

Looking down the street from near the hotel you can see apartments for the locals on the right.


Crossing a bridge.


Main Street continues.


This shop, Cheers, sold souveniers and snacks as well as.....


serving as the local gas station.


This little guy had the important job of keeping the flies off of the fried chicken using a branch.


The police were playing sepak takraw outside of their baracks. They were pretty good. They guy on this side of the net with red shorts and a blue shirt is getting ready to hit the ball with his head.


The two guys in blue on the far side of the net are trying to "dig a spike" with their feet.


The new school under construction. Currently, there are only primary schools on Tioman so any secondary school students need to go to the mainland. When the school is completed the secondary students from Tekek will be able to stay at home.


The road continues past the airport. You can see one of the flights getting ready to land.

Tioman Island

Tioman Island is located 32 km off of the east coast of Malaysia. It can be reached by air or by ferry. The island is 39 km long and 12 km wide. Most of the inland portion of the island are covered by forests so most of the permanent residents live near the coast.

Tioman is famous because it was depicted in the 1958 movie South Pacific as the tropical island Bali Hai so the old-timers and fans of musicals might have already gotten to know Tioman's beauty.

Here is the legend of Tioman according to Wikipedia- "According to legend, Tioman Island is the resting place of a beautiful dragon princess. Whilst flying from China to visit her prince in Singapore, this beautiful maiden stopped to seek solace in the crystal-clear waters of the South China Sea. Enraptured by the charms of the place, she decided to discontinue her journey. By taking the form of an island, she pledged to offer shelter and comfort to passing travelers." I have to say that I have felt shetered and comforted so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tioman_Island


http://www.tioman.com.my/

Pulau Tioman

This is the 249th post that I have made on this blog. Without a doubt this is the best location that I have ever blogged from. I am sitting on the porch of my cabin (they call it a chalet) that is separated by the sea by only about 15 yards of perefect white sand. I am drinking a frosty beverage (which is cheaper because things are duty free here). Earlier, the only people on the beach were three Scandinavian women in bikinis, but now the beach is becoming more crowed as people gather to watch the sunset.

The sun has just hit a wall of clouds about one and a half fingers above the horizon. It looks like this might be as good as the sunset gets tonight, but if so, that's OK because there will be many more sunsets to come.

This morning I took the one hour long flight from KL to Pulau Tioman. Tioman Island is located off of the south east coast of peninsular Malaysia in the state of Pahang (not Johor as I originally thought). It took me about ten minutes to walk down the only road in town to my hotel. About an hour and a half after that I was getting geared up for diving. Good day.

I will be here for several more days, so I will post more about this beautiful island.

This plane held about 50 people.


Sophisticated baggage handling system.


View from my porch.


Why did the monitor lizard cross the road? (I have no idea, this is a rhetorical question).


Update added dat 10 PM. I am in my cabin getting ready for bed (diving really tires me out). I can hear the sound of the waves gently breaking on the shore. I probably will never make it back to Lubbock!!!!