Following the tiger

Well, for those who don't know, the first phase of my journey in Asia is over, as I've finished the env. ed. teaching thing in Thailand. It was often fun as well as fulfilling, but I'm really glad to be recovering my own rhythm and enjoying solitude, freedom and space.

Plans are rapidly filling up the rest of my time in Thailand; I'm helping out in a homeschool program for international kids next week in exchange for a little Thai tutoring, then a friend is coming out to Thailand and we're travelling together for a month, and then I'm still looking for a voluntary placement with a conservation group to do some Animal Tracking for my final month here.

I've been to the rainforest mountains near Burma /Myanmar a couple of times in a National Park, the biggest in Thailand, Kaeng Krachan, and tracked some of the few remaining wild elephants there. We were also blessed with seeing a leopard, a very unusual sighting in the thick Thai forests, and somehow I knew it was significant 'medicine' but I'm not sure how.

We also trekked down the river high up where it was still clean enough to drink, wading through it much of the way and finding tracks and sign of the almost extinct Siamese Crocodile, which was amazing of course. And as the landscape channelled and funnelled us down the river valley, and we could only take one route because of the lie of the land and the thick forest, it was clear that other animals could only take that route too; out in front of us was a tiger, and we were helplessly on its trail for quite some distance. We were apparently catching up with it as the tracks got fresher and fresher, till they were only 2-3 minutes old (according to our guides) and still filling with water. At one point two of the group saw movement in the undergrowth and then heard a loud splash behind them just as we were crossing the river for the umpteenth time. Soon after that the guides decided it was time we stopped for a break to......well... give the tiger a little space. They are deadly of course, but I was disappointed not to see it.

The forest was beautiful and very moving, like something out of a dream. I told our head guide that England used to be like that, covered all over with mature, lush forest, but that it's been 5000 years since the Wildwood was intact (yes, it's officially called that in the academic literature!) An idea came to me to gather a tiny piece of my surroundings whenever I entered a moment or experience of particular power, beauty or insight; a pinch of dust or tiny bit of leaf from sacred moments, all kept together in a little pouch or something. But every time we found something amazing I kept forgetting this idea and taking photos instead, or just enjoying it. I really wanted to find a little pebble from inside a fresh tiger track. As we were tracking the tiger, each time we found a stretch of visible tracks I'd get wrapped up in taking photos and forget. We stopped seeing the tiger's tracks and thought it must have gone behind us, but eventually, we found one, single, final track. At last, and just in time, I remembered, and now I have a small red and white stone from between the toes of a fresh tiger track. That's my kind of souvenir :) And it's a good feeling to be connected with the tiger without killing it for one of its claws or body parts. I've seen those on sale in Bangkok; yes, poachers are still out there hunting them.