Africaniversary (500 Words)

August 07, 2016 by Miranda Harton in africa, animals, culture, travel, volunteer

I can't believe it's been three years since my first volunteer trip to Kenya, Africa. I'm feeling nostalgic so here are a few of my favorite pictures and excerpts from the original tumblr that I managed during our trip. I can't wait to return here and explore other parts of this beautiful culture and continent.

Day 1: Yep, it’s 4 AM in the morning and I haven’t been able to sleep all night. Partially because I am so excited/anxious and partially because there’s a few things I still need to wrap up before I leave. I am unfortunately quite the “packrastinator.” My whole life it’s been nearly impossible for me to pack more than a day in advance. I wonder if my fellow WFM team members are nestled, all snug in their beds, while visions of the Serengeti dance in their heads...

Day 3: Today...We got to visit a village benefitting from the One Acre Fund micro loans. They were so friendly and we were all touched by their hospitality. We learned about their work and culture and also participated in harvesting millet and planting trees...

Day 7: Thursday, our fantastic host/tourguide Ruby Ruth showed us around Maai Mahui and introduced us to CTC and the Malakai Moms that expertly craft and sew the lifeline products we sell in our stores. We learned all about CTC’s mission and multiple initiatives including Community, Environment, Education, Health and Economy. And the kids there were adorable, of course!

Day 8-9: Friday and Saturday were spent exploring the Ol Pejeta Conservancy near Mount Kenya. Truly a once in a lifetime experience where we got to see elephants, giraffes, zebras, cheetahs and even ultra endangered white and black rhinos…

We are all still in awe of Africa - everything we’ve seen and experienced, everyone we’ve met and the memories we’ve created.

Day 12: Tuesday, we laced up our shoes, put on our gloves and went to work transplanting trees… [and] painting the bakery floor bright blue…. and built a berm to help block the bakery from the evening wind, (Maai Mahiu can get very windy!)...

Day 14: I can’t believe this incredible journey has come to an end. And what a memorable end it was! … We took a bumpy road out to one of the Massai villages where we met and mingled with the kids and were so graciously invited into the home of one of the grandmothers. This was personally one of the most memorable a experiences of the trip.

Day 15: Friday morning, we all headed to the CTC bakery for a lovely breakfast… [and] got ... Cafe Ubuntu painted on the wall before having to head back to ... the Nairobi airport.
It was hard to say goodbye as we all felt like we had become a family the past two weeks. We all created lasting friendships, gained valuable insight and created amazing memories that we can’t wait to share with our teams, families and friends back home!
Asante Sana!
Love, Team Rafiki

If you've been to Africa, what are some of your favorite memories? If you haven't been yet, where would you like to go?

My First Alms Round with Buddhist Monks in Myanmar (200 words)

April 23, 2016 by Miranda Harton in backpacking, buddhist, culture, myanmar, travel, volunteer, voluntourism

The Sangha, or Buddhist leaders & teachers, are reliant on their community for everything, even their meals. Each day, groups of monks go out into the community to collect alms (food offerings) from lay people's homes. This tradition has been practiced for thousands of years.

The modern method is to load up monks, assistants and lots of plastic containers into the back of a truck and drive to nearby neighborhoods. A man walks ahead of the group with a loudspeaker announcing their presence.

The monks must walk barefoot and each carry special alms bowls to collect cooked rice. This is mostly symbolic now as the majority of offerings of raw produce, pre-packaged or pre-cooked foods is gathered by assistants (also barefoot) and loaded onto the truck. Many people also give cash offerings.

I'm not so used to walking barefoot on rocky and/or dirt roads. Apparently it was noticeable enough that one of the younger assistants giggled and told me "You walk like monkey." I had to laugh, too.

I kinda like this ritual because it keeps the community more connected. It's definitely an experience my mind - and my feet - won't soon forget!

Much Love,

Review of Foreign Volunteering and Meditation at Thabarwa Center in Thanlyin near Yangon, Myanmar (325 Words)

April 23, 2016 by Miranda Harton in culture, ecotourism, inspiration, myanmar, travel, volunteer, voluntourism

Thabarwa Center (actually a whole village) was founded by Venerable Sayadaw Ashin Ottamasara hosts foreign volunteers who want to do good deeds and/or meditate. I did plenty of both.

Try to arrive Sunday/Wednesday morning; informational meetings held at noon these days.

It's April, so I was perpetually sweaty, dirty and a little stinky until that glorious cold shower in the evening before bed. But so is everyone else. Between 5-20 other volunteers each day I was there.

One of my typical days at Thabarwa.

4:30 Wake up

5:00-6:30 Yoga (in my room by myself but most others participate in morning meditation)

6:30 - 7:00 Breakfast (rice + stuff)

7:00 - 8:00 Alms Rounds with monks or sweeping/cleaning/work

8:00 - 11:00 Continue chores or socialize with other volunteers

11:00 Lunch (rice + different stuff)

12:00 - 16:00 Read in Library (the only place with air con) or meditation or do special projects

16:00 - 17:00 Walking with patients in wheelchairs

17:00 - 18:00 Walking meditation around stupas

18:00 Dinner (Vit-C drink mix for me since I'm observing 8 precepts but rice + stuff for everyone else)

19:00 Basic Buddhism class

20:00 Glorious cold shower followed by a load of sink laundry

21:30 Lights out, eye mask on, earplugs in

Just relax and go with the flow. You can do as much or as little volunteering and/or meditation as you want. Longer term volunteers can teach English to monks and nuns. I even did a couple graphic design projects for the center.

Shared accommodation and meals are basic but free. However, I recommend making at least a small donation before you depart like $5 (5,000 kyat) per day.

Free, filtered water throughout the center.

Cats and dogs everywhere.

Keep shoulders, knees & everything in between covered.

Things to bring: mosquito repellent, dietary/digestive supplement, hand fan, reusable water bottle, hat, handkerchief, nuts & dried fruit (sealed to keep out ants).

Much Love,

Life in Suburban Kathmandu, Nepal

April 13, 2016 by Miranda Harton in backpacking, ecotourism, nepal, travel, volunteer, voluntourism

I had an adventure on a public bus from Changu Narayan to Kathmandu. It was blaring Nepali (or Hindi?) techno music and people were stuffed inside like sardines and kids were even riding on the roof.

I got off at the last stop and got a taxi to take me the rest of the way to my home stay location. It was literally in the shadow of Swayumbhunath, the Monkey Temple that I had visited once before. The house was four stories high with marble floors and steps. My room was located on the third floor but wasn't ready yet so I had lunch and tea and the fourth floor balcony and was warmly welcomed by a small army of pugs.

It's a pretty full house. The house is owned by Janak and his wife Pushpa and they have a daughter. There are at least half a dozen village boys that live on the second floor in order to go to school in town. During the day, the first floor functions as a daycare for another six or so special needs kids and two older ladies manage that group. Two sisters named Sonita and Anita from a village do all the cooking and cleaning. Then there are three bedrooms devoted to volunteers like myself and there were three others when I arrived.

Then there are the dogs. Based on the workaway profile, I thought they would all be strays, but it turns out they were quite the opposite. My job was to walk them in the mornings and evenings.

Rambo is a big, strong, somewhat intimidating German Shepard but his bark is bigger than his bite. I always had to keep him from eating other dogs poop on the road. Goldie and Whitie are two Retrievers named after their coat colors. Amy was a Boxer with way too much energy who took me for walks for the first two days but then was adopted by another family. Cherry is a cocker spaniel who had puppies a couple days after I arrived. There were three pugs: Puggy, the youngest, Abby, Puggy's mother and Sweetie, who was very pregnant (or maybe PUGnant - dog pun!). Then lastly there was a black German Shepard puppy who was yet to be named. Oh and Cinderella the street dog who just kind of hung around outside the house.

I don't personally support dog (or cat) breeding of any kind, especially when there are so many neglected on the streets, but at least I know the dogs here are well taken care of.

I think they had a generator because not once do I remember experiencing a power cut. The Internet was great and I had my room all to myself for most of the time. French toast was served daily for breakfast and Dal bhat with rice and veggies for lunch and dinner. The main food staples in Nepal seem to be bread, eggs, rice, potatoes and lentils (main ingredient in dal bhat.) And there was always a hot thermos of tea waiting in the kitchen. (I think more Westerners should adopt this practice instead of using single serve k-cups on demand.)

I really enjoyed my stay and felt like part of the family. It felt so much more authentic and personal. Pushpa even whipped out the steam machine and some cumin tea when I started getting the sniffles. That definitely wouldn't happen at a hotel.

Time just flew by and my week there was soon over. I am definitely staying again should I ever return to Kathmandu.

Rural Life in Changu Narayan, Nepal

April 13, 2016 by Miranda Harton in volunteer, voluntourism, travel, nepal, ecotourism, culture, backpacking

After the trek, my next destination in Nepal was a home stay in a village outside Kathmandu called Changu Narayan that I found on Workaway. I wasn't given an address or phone number but I had pictures of the host and his house from the workaway website so the driver was able to get me where I needed to go by pulling over and letting me show said pictures to locals, who pointed us in the right direction. The only option was the long and windy way uphill and we drove until we ran of road and I had get out and walk the remaining few hundred meters with my bags.

I was surprised to find several other workawayers at the home when I arrived, and even more surprised that the majority were from the US. There was also a couple of gap year kids from England, a girl from China and a guy from France. Add to that the other four girls from the States, which brings the total number of guests to nine. A few people were ill, one guy so much so that I didn't see him emerge from his room until 3 days later.

The house had a lovely facade but was quite modest on the inside. My room on the second floor had two mattresses on the floor each with a blanket and pillow and a glass coffee table. Standing on the balcony outside, I got a pretty good view of the surrounding hills and Kathmandu city in the valley below.

I claimed the mattress closest to the window and was thrilled that there was enough space for me to roll out my yoga mat next to it in the morning. Across from me were two rooms, each with actual beds and mattresses and a bit more furniture. We had a rather large balcony and a semi-functional bathroom which became non-functional the next day.

The menu and meal schedule was the same each and every day. A hard-boiled egg and two chapati for breakfast around 7:30, then first dal bhat with rice and potatoes around 10:30 then second dal bhat with rice, potatoes and maybe eggplant or zucchini around 7 pm. I bought some bananas in town to supplement the standard fare.

On the menu: dal bhat, rice and potatoes

I know it's rural Nepal and I'm not expecting to have all the comforts of home but I would at least like the toilet and shower that are advertised to work. The water pump was broken so the toilet could only flush after a bucket of water was poured down the bowl. And if you wanted to bathe, it was out of the same bucket. In both cases, you would have to take the bucket down to one of the community wells where water trickled out of a spout at a snail's pace. It could take at least 45 minutes to fill said bucket and you'd have to stand there to make sure no one moved your bucket off to the side so they could get water. I also filled my water bottle here and treated it with purification drops. Even though the water appeared fresh and clean and cold, I wasn't taking any chances.

But back to the bucket. After filling it up, you have to lug it back to the house and and use the water for flushing or bathing. So you can conclude that the toilet doesn't get flushed all that often since it's such a process - maybe once a day. And my room happened to be adjacent to the bathroom so the stench of everyone's accumulated waste gently wafts into your room all night.

Power cuts are pretty standard in Nepal but they were the worst here. We were lucky if we got 2-5 hours of power per day, but it was enough to charge my phone and I was glad there was occasional wifi.

Hoping the tree doesn't fall on the house

Then came the work. Instead of the gardening or helping around the house or village like that was suggested on workaway, the host expected us to cut down huge mother flippin' trees. The first day, we walked precariously through a field to a site far away to fell a tree. We all had to pull the tree down via rope so that it didn't fall on a nearby house. Then there was only a single saw with handles on each side so we would take turns sawing off branches and sawing the tree into sections. Turns out, I really don't like cutting down perfectly good trees in their prime, physically or emotionally.

Then, they decided they wanted to cut down another tree, this time surrounded by a jumble of power lines. By this time the sun was getting close to setting so if we stayed much longer, the arduous walk home would be in the dark. Three of us decided not to take any more risks and walked home while it was still light.

The next day, we returned to the spot and it started raining soon after we arrived. And not just rain, there was thunder and lightning too and the temperature dropped while our host expected us to continue using the metal saw. I gave up on the saw because I was not about to become a lightning rod but we soon went inside a nearby house to wait for the storm to pass. The family there was very kind and made us tea and gave us cookies and fresh peas from the garden. Then, our host and another guy popped cigarettes into their mouths and just as they were about to light up, I asked if they could please wait and smoke outside later because I am allergic to the smoke. (Seriously, I get a painful, throaty cough when in the presence of cigarette smoke.) They lit up anyways so those burning cigarettes might as well have been a couple of middle fingers. I walked outside and sat by myself under a makeshift tool shed.

The reason we were cutting down trees in the first place was so that the host could turn it into lumber and build an addition on to his house to accommodate more people. But I think he could barely handle the amount of people he already had. I understand how after losing his previous guest house to the earthquake last year, he was kind of desperate for money so I think he was taking as many people as he could get but the more people you have, the harder it is to keep everyone happy. He and his wife were sleeping in the kitchen and two guests were in their bed. The kitchen leaked in several places when it rained. The second floor bathroom didn't work properly and the house was not cleaned regularly, which is extra troublesome when you have so many people getting sick.

I think there should have been a bit more concern for health and safety. The family here no doubt has good intentions and all the other guests were friendly but overall I did not enjoy this experience. And that's ok. Not every day of traveling is going to be sunshine and butterflies. It does make further appreciate things like eating a variety of meals and functional indoor plumbing.

These are just some snapshots of rural life in and around the fields near the house that I liked and wanted to share:

Week Three Wildlife in Thailand

October 26, 2015 by Miranda Harton in animals, asia, backpacking, ecotourism, elephants, sustainability, thailand, travel, volunteer, voluntourism

For my last week at the sanctuary I switched over from elephants to work with the rest of the wildlife. These can be divided into a few sub-groups: two types of Bears, Primates, which include macaques, gibbons, dusky langurs and one Capuchin, Nocturnals comprised of several slow lorises, a binturong and leopard cats and other wildlife consists of deer, otter, birds, reptiles and some other miscellaneous creatures. There is also a slew of domestic animals that have been collected over the years: at least a dozen dogs, a handful of cats, pigs and piglets, a horse and too many chickens. I got to work with or for all of these animals at one point or another during this week.

The center cares for dozens of bears, most of whom were rescued from various places that thought it was a good idea to keep them as pets. You can literally buy bear cubs - and many other animals stolen from the wild - at some night markets throughout Thailand. They arrive unsocialized and malnourished as they were often fed soda, candy and junk food in small, cramped cages.

Sun Bears and mostly black with a few tan markings and are known for their dragon-lady like long claws that I'm pretty sure they use mostly for digging because I've had to avoid several holes when cleaning their enclosures. They seem pretty small, until they stand up, and then they look pretty intimidating. We feed them a variety of fruit and often hide pieces in trees and tires and scatter it around their habitats to keep them stimulated. (Obviously the bears are locked in their dens when we do this.) We also sometimes stuff bamboo with pieces of corn and cucumber like a type of puzzle. Its really cute to watch because they usually sit down and play with it for a while before they finally pry it open; either by pulling out the piece of corn that acts like a cork or just breaking the piece of bamboo wide open. They're almost all adults but there is one mamma bear and a 12 week old cub that are heart-meltingly adorable. There are some really fluffy Asiatic Black Bears scattered amongst the bear habitats as well.

The primates are probably the biggest challenge because they are smart and they are cheeky. I learned this the hard way. Generally, we put their fruit and veggie salads in baskets and they reach through the fences to retrieve it. As I was feeding a macaque named Dollar, he swiftly reached through the fence and grabbed my teal blue sunglasses right off my head and promptly dismembered them. I also got a bit too close to one of the gibbon enclosures during feeding time and a hairy go-go-gadget arm came out of nowhere and grabbed my hair, jerking my head back pretty fast. I'm glad it was french-braided at the time, otherwise, he might have pulled some hair out completely.

A gibbon, or as I prefer to call it, a Grabbin'

There are several breeds of macaque, generally categorized by tail-type. There are long-tailed, stump-tailed and pig tailed and they abound all over Thailand. You'll see them lurking around temples and terrorizing villages. I guess I can't really blame them because people have taken over much of their habitat. The gibbons swing from tree to tree using their disproportionately long arms and make the most interesting and after while annoying howling sounds. The noises alternate between police siren and R2D2 and it always sounds like they are watching an intense soccer game where their team is really close to scoring a goal but the ball doesn't actually make it into the net.

I find the dusky langurs really creepy as their face markings kind of make them look like members of the Insane Clown Posse. They always come out of nowhere and clasp the cage at eye level with you, bearing their teeth and making little gurgly/clikcy sounds. A lot of them have chain link tunnels connected to their cages that are suspended high in the trees and they will try to poop or pee on you if the timing is right.

The nocturals were some of my favorites. The slow lorises are so cute, which is why there is such a huge issue with them being kept as pets. Despite their large, innocent-looking eyes, their teeth are poisonous and therefore often get yanked out without anesthetic to prevent their toxic bites. They are also night-dwellers so the daylight hurts their eyes and they are never feed correctly when kept as pets. These poor creatures get tortured then locked away in tiny cages just so someone can occasionally take them out and use them for their own amusement. Which brings me to my next point: photo props. Wherever the tourists go, the animal handlers follow, hoping to make a quick buck by exploiting their heavily drugged and/or sedated animal for pictures. DO NOT ENCOURAGE THIS INDUSTRY. Don't take pictures with wild animals when approached and don't go to tiger temples or anywhere else that promises safe interaction with an animal that would naturally want to rip your face off.

One last quick anecdote about the slow loris. I helped my team leader with nocturnals on my very first day of wildlife and somehow one of their cages got left open. He had the keys but it was dumping rain so I'm not sure how happened. I didn't find out until the next day, at which point I felt horrible, but luckily the same leader found the slow loris that afternoon in a nearby tree because as their name suggests, they don't move very fast. I was so relieved. And I do a pretty amazing slow loris voice, according to my roommates. :P

There are a few orange and green iguanas that reminded me of Miami. They never eat all their food and they love to have water sprinkled on them with the hose. There is one crocodile that gets fed one chicken per week by the Thai staff. There are a few birds of prey and a few non-native parrot species including a Macaw named Blue that will shout Hello (and sometimes expletives) at you as you pass by his enclosure. There is Bernie, the brain-damaged (dropped on his head by people as a fledgling) Cassowary that eats a lot of fruit and looks like a rather pre-historic creature. He looks like a cross between a colorful ostrich and a velociraptor and has the capacity to kill you but doesn't really realize it. The otters are freakin adorable and sound like living squeaky toys but their enclosure always smells a bit like dead fish because thats what they eat.

The pigs and chickens and deer can be a nuisance but are useful as the scavengers of the sanctuary because they eat all the leftovers from our dinner and scraps from food prep for the other animals and whatever the monkeys drop or intentionally toss out of their baskets.

If you've ever worked in the food service industry, volunteering for wildlife is a breeze. Its literally like working in a restaurant for wildlife: you prepare food, serve food and wash dishes. There is also a fair amount of pool and enclosure cleaning to keep everyone happy and healthy. When comparing it to the elephants work, it's more tedious and there is more to do, both because less people volunteer with wildlife and because there are so many more animals that require smaller meals. Working with elephants is like a series of sprints with lots of breaks whereas working with the rest of the wildlife is more like a daily marathon.

I also took on another special project utilizing my occupational skills. Apparently there was a falling out with a former designer and she sabotaged a nearly 40-page document detailing everything e new volunteer needs and wants to know. All the fonts were converted to outlines, rendering them inevitable, and the pictures were all unlinked, making the document useless for printing. I helped teach their assistant In-Design (the whole teach a man to fish vs give a man a fish principle) and helped rebuild the file as well. I was really grateful for this extra experience because I enjoyed getting to know Tommy the UK Sanctuary manager and Edwin, the sanctuary's Dutch Founder.

I was a bit sad to leave but I think three weeks was the perfect amount of time for me here. I would love to come back for another visit and encourage anyone else that loves animals to volunteer here!

Week Two with Elephants in Phetchaburi, Thailand

October 17, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, ecotourism, sustainability, thailand, travel, elephants, animals, volunteer

This was my second week working with the elephants at Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. It started Sunday with my first banana tree harvest. The whole elephant schedule kind of revolves around these trees. We harvest them, feed them to elephants then compost them. At least a dozen volunteers ride in the back of trucks and to various banana tree orchards in the area. We always have a couple mahouts with us who chop down the trees with machetes and we carry them to the truck. It helps that they always blast Thai techno music from the truck to keep us pumped up.

The trunks are quite deceiving and its impossible to tell how dense or heavy it is until you hoist it up onto your shoulder. They're also usually quite juicy and tend to stain whatever you happen to be wearing so the veterans are dressed in shabby clothes covered in dark brown blemishes. The best adjectives to describe this activity are tedious, sweaty and dirty. Occupational hazards include mosquitos, fire ants, scorpions, thorns, hidden ankle traps (vines, holes and uneven ground) and stumbling over typhoon-aftermath-level debris.

For some reason I started thinking about fashion catalogs/magazine spreads and how ridiculous they are. For example, in the last Anthropologie catalog that was sent unsolicited to me before I left the states, the first page showed a woman in an immaculate white dress painting a canvas in the middle of the woods. This dress must have been enchanted because somehow there wasn't a speck of dirt or a drop of paint on it. It's just ridiculous how much companies spend to make models draped in their apparel appear as if they are doing things that no one actually does in real life. I'd much rather see real people doing real things so I started snapping pictures and announced to everyone that I was taking pictures for The Harvest Collection Fall 2015 Catalog (see previous post for the series). At first I got strange looks and some resistance but after a while everyone really got into it. I assembled the pictures that night into a catalog and made up satirical text to go with the pictures. I described our grungy, filthy, peasant-like ensembles as "vintage, distressed, antique and exclusive."

So just as my bruised and battered foot finally healed, my phone broke. The screen on my iPhone 5 had been a bit dodgy for a while; the LCD was a bit detached from the rest of the phone and horizontal lines had been flickering across my screen for at least a month. One morning I discovered that despite being charged all night, the screen on my phone was black. I tried to turn it on and a white apple appeared in the middle of the screen like it was about to boot but then the screen just went black again. I did this several times fueled by a blend panic and frustration, but the same thing always happened. I decided to take it to town and ask the Thai phone guy in the village that sold me my SIM card to take a look at it. After suspecting the battery or the LCD screen was the source of the problem he failed to fix it and then determined that it was some part of the motherboard called the IC power component. He said he was going to Bangkok over the weekend and would try to find this elusive replacement part so my fingers are crossed that when I go back to see him again in a few days, my phone will finally be fixed because I've been phone-less in a foreign country for over a week now. You really don't realize how much you take something for granted until it's gone.

And now back to your regularly scheduled elephant programming…

This week I moved from working in the center with the most docile elephants to working in the new lands with the ones that are hands-off. It amazing how much elephants are like people; they all have their own personalities and socialize in groups and have their own individual preferences when it comes to other elephants and people. Boon Chuey and Dao Rueng are like the Plastics (Mean Girls Reference) of New Lands because they bully poor Duen Phen by trying to steal her food and exclude her from the swimming hole because she doesn't wear pink on wednesdays. Khan Kluey is the only male elephant and I call him the Hellephant because he decimated most of the trees in his enclosure and you can't come within trunk's reach of his habitat because he will try to grab you so he throws rocks (and sometimes tires) at us instead. His surrogate mom, Somboon, is much more chill and just wants to eat corn. Not the cucumbers or melon, though. Just corn.

We also discovered a pair of puppies in the bushes this week at New Lands. We strongly suspect that they were abandoned there intentionally by a local. They are both black and one has erect ears and a stumpy, docked tail while the other has floppy ears, a white patch on its chest and an intact tail. I named them Dingo and Domino, respectively, since at first we thought they were boys. But later we discovered they were actually girls and the mahouts started calling them Pancake and Cupcake. There are already over a dozen dogs roaming around the Center already so we couldn't transport them there so some of the volunteers pulled off all their ticks and gave them flea baths and even bought a bag of puppy food. Not sure how long they're going to be able to stay in New Lands so hopefully they'll end up at a local temple where they'll at least get fed by monks.

Towards the end of the week, I got to work with the elephants in the Mid Lands enclosure. This is where the center is trying to form a small herd with Aunties Kaew Petch, La Ong Dao, Momma Pun and Baby Pin. Pin is the cutest little thing ever and acts just like a toddler; almost as much food ends up on the ground as in her mouth and she just wants to run around and play all day. Pai Lin, Nam Phon and See Puak are also here but I didn't work much with them. All together, there are now 15 rescued elephants throughout the refuge.

On my last day, I decided to taste the food I had been preparing for and feeding to the elephants for the past two weeks. I had a small bit of a banana ball and it tasted like unsweetened bran cereal mixed with sand and ripe banana. Not terrible. I also tried a slice of banana tree trunk which was crunchy and water, not unlike iceberg lettuce. I could totally see Dr. Oz touting is as the next weight loss miracle or trendy restaurants making an exotic salad out of it and charging like fifty bucks for it.

I learned so much and thoroughly enjoyed my time working with these amazing animals. For my third and final week, I will be working with (translation: feeding and cleaning up poop) a vast variety of other rescued and currently rehabbing animals native to Thailand so stay tuned!

Week One Wildlife Camp in Phetchaburi, Thailand

October 12, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, ecotourism, sustainability, thailand, travel, volunteer, voluntourism

How to live and work in the jungle:

Just accept the fact that you will never be completely dry or completely clean. Its so hot and humid that you will sweat while standing still and even after you shower you will still attract dirt and dust.
Resources are limited so you share everything; housing, bathrooms, meals, etc. I share my room with two other girls and the occasional gecko, cockroach or spider. We also have a dog and a cat that like to sleep on our porch and good luck filling up your plate if you're one of the last ones to arrive at meal time.
Animals are everywhere. We awake to the howling of gibbons and the crowing of roosters. We fall asleep to the sounds of dogs barking and elephants trumpeting. The camp is packed full of pachyderms, primates, bears, various domestic animals but the encounters you will have most often (whether you want to or not) are with ants and mosquitos.
Expect to work. A lot. This is not a holiday. The animals get fed before and more often than you do. Whole orchards of banana trees are harvested four times a week. Your day outlasts than the sun and there is only one day off per week. This is not a vacation. That being said, it's still a unique, worthwhile and rewarding experience. Just don't expect to just take a few elephant selfies and then lounge by a pool all day sipping cocktails.
Your wardrobe should be all quick-dry everything. It takes at least two days to dry cotton clothes and you will definitely want to master your sink-washing skills. There are two extremes in volunteer attire: those that wear as little clothing as possible (i..e. tank top, shorts, flip flops) and those that go for maximum coverage (boots, trousers, long sleeve shirt, hat). The former are much more succeptible to and often complain about bug bites and sunburn so I practice/highly recommend the latter.

I consider myself pretty fortunate when it comes to my accommodation here. Instead of the majority, traditional dorm-style housing, I was placed in one of three bungalows with a porch and a lovely view of the mountains, the lake and the gibbon islands therein. Within this jungle cabin are three beds a slightly subpar bathroom and three beds. My roommates are awesome. Alex is from Germany and Amy is from England. Technically we're all in our late 20's/early 30's but we feel like the geriatrics of the group. We all have our own ailments, assortment of medications and our room is perfumed with Tiger Balm every evening. We're probably the first ones to go to bed at night. We even have our own retired crime-fighter nicknames: Limpy Gimp, Fairy Bug and Blister Girl.

I spent my first two days with elephants named Thong Dee and Rungthip before being promoted to team leader of the duo for the remained of the week. They are both 'retired' from the logging and tourist industry and are over 60 years old. Rungthip has arthritis in her front legs and Thong Dee has cataracts and is mostly blind, but she still enjoys her walk in the woods every day! I feed them and clean their enclosures multiple times per day. So what does an elephant eat? Several times a day, they are served banana balls, fruits, veggies and banana tree trunks. We make banana balls (see recipe below) 3-4 times per day for these two and cut up loads of fresh watermelon, pineapple and corn on the cob. The mahouts slice up banana tree trunks with a machete and the elephants break through all the outer layers and just eat the tender heart of the plant, kinda like artichokes. They make quite a mess of these, so that's mostly what we clean out of the enclosures in addition to poop of course. All of these leftover go straight to the compost piles strategically placed throughout the camp.

(Thong Dee) Just out takin' my elephant for a walk. No big deal.

A Day's Activities at Elephant Care Camp:

06:00: (or earlier) wake up

06:30: First Shift; Gather baskets full of food and disperse to different enclosures

07:00: Make and serve banana balls

07:30: Compost

08:00: People breakfast (make your own)

09:00: Second Shift; Second serving of banana balls, Cut and prepare fruit

09:30: Vet visits and/or showers

10:30: Special Projects

12:00: People lunch (served)

13:00: Third Shift; Go for a walk, probably another shower, compost

15:00: Fourth Shift; Final serving of banana balls, compost, enrichment, transfer to different enclosure for the night

18:00: People dinner (Served) then free time and/or evening trips away from camp ** Check whiteboard to see your location/duties for the following day

Banana Ball Recipe:

Several bunches of bananas
1 bowl bran powder
3 bowls elephant pellets

Once peeled, mash bananas in a big metal bowl with your hands
Add one small bowl bran and mix by hand until the consistency of sticky dough
Gradually add three small bowls elephant pellets and hand mix
Roll into balls twice the size of your fist then feed to elephants

Volunteerspeak

There are several terms here that you learn on the job.

Mahout: a Thai man that takes care of and directs the elephant and gets to play with a machete. Each elephant has one that they more or less listen to obediently.

Enrichment: Basically hide and seek with snacks. We place pieces of fruit and veg strategically around their enclosures for physical and mental stimulation.

Composting: Scooping up elephant poop and banana tree carcasses and transporting them to compost piles via wheelbarrow

Everything gets reused or recycled here. The pigs and dogs eat our leftover food scraps and all plastic, metal and paper gets recycled. Everything else organic gets composted. We also have lots of filtered drinking water available so that hopefully cuts down on the amount of plastic bottles.

And I've yet to broach the subject to the carnivorous majority of volunteers here, but I find it hypocritical that everyone here is so gung ho about saving elephants and other wildlife, yet they complain that the meat dish at dinner is always the first to go. (There are usually three vegan/vegetarian dishes and one meat dish at every meal.) Why is the mass slaughter of cows, pigs and chickens ok (Thai people eat a hell of a lot of meat in light of being a Buddhist country) but killing and eating elephants or dogs is deplorable? (Well it is to us Westerners anyways.) I just don't see how you can consider yourself compassionate towards animals yet still consume their dead flesh on a daily basis...

The Harvest Collection

October 12, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, design, friends, inspiration, volunteer, voluntourism, thailand, art

Every other day a group of volunteers is rounded up to go harvest banana trees that we feed to the elephants. So how do you make harvesting banana trees fun? Turn it into a photoshoot! The fashion catalog is fake but the blood, sweat and tears is real!

Body & Mind : My Last Week in Sri Lanka

August 02, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, ecotourism, inspiration, life, sri lanka, travel, volunteer

So I'm still at the same beach house in Ambalangoda but this last week is all about relaxation and introspection. Two other girls are participating in this week's activities as well; one from Austria and one from Germany. The only things officially on the agenda are a daily morning massage, a short yoga class in the afternoon and then maybe meditation on Friday with a monk at a local temple. I supplemented the mind part on my own by devouring several books during my abundant free time. (I also still helped out with the turtles, too.)

BODY // MASSAGE

My morning ayervedic massages were performed by a small, smiley Sri Lankan lady name Udena. First there is the topless head, scalp and shoulder massage. (Beth, you would slip into a blissful coma and possibly die of complete, tactile nirvana.) I sit in a chair and she pours some herbal, ayervedic oil on my head then works it into my hair and scalp with a sequence of scratches and strokes. Then she braids my oily and slightly thicker hair. For some reason, I find head/scalp massage the most relaxing - it affects the entire rest of my body. After that, I lay down on the padded table for the foot massage. It's very thorough and relaxing with a bit of reflexology-ish pressure point stimulation. (Dad, you would fall asleep and instantly have dreams of walking weightlessly on cotton candy clouds.)

The first time, I thought she was only going to do my head and feet, but she transitioned on to rub down all the parts in between. Arms, hands, thighs, legs and then stomach and chest. It was a bit awkward for me because I've never had a boob-and-tummy massage before but its not bad. Then I flip over and she does the back of my arms & legs, my glutes and finally my back. My muscles are temporarily the consistency of banana pudding and it takes all of my willpower to convince my coarse motor skills to start functioning again.

At this point I'm covered head to toe in ayervedic massage oil. I looked at the bottle but it's all in Singhale so I can't read a word of it. I asked Udena what was in it and she said simply "herbs." So my last resort was to try to identify it by smell, which is my third failed attempt at deciphering what the oil is made from or what's in it. I can say it smells rich, savory, herb-y and earthy, almost like a mossy forest floor after the rain mixed with wood, mushrooms and maybe some nuts. It honestly smells and feels like I'm being tenderized and marinated in preparation for a large Thanksgiving-style feast. It's not a bad smell but I don't love it either.

If I could, I would fold her up and put her in my pocket so I can continue to experience her magical massage powers throughout my travels and share them with others. But, I just don't think the rest of the world is ready for the massage equivalent of self-actualization.

MIND // BOOK CLUB

Walden | Henry David Thoreau, 1854

I finally finished Walden after starting it months ago. This is because 1) I read it very sporadically, and only during my travels, 2) its 373 pages of tiny type and 3) I frequently had to make note of and look up definitions to tons of antiquated and/or SAT-level vocabulary words.

Basically, it's his adventure in self-reliance and self-reflection while living at a house he built on Walden Pond. There's a ton of satire, great poetic descriptions and narration, philosophy, advice, observations and even some rather prophetic predictions. I'll read it again or possible several more times and more quickly now that I have several words defined in the margins.

Paper Towns | John Green, 2008

A roommate of mine left this book so I picked it up and decided to give it a try. I finished it in under 48 hours, not because I found it particularly enthralling but because it's an easy read and I have a lot of free time.

I was expecting it to be your typical vapid YA novel describing the same old tired high school stereotypes but I was surprised to find I could actually relate to it. Girl is fed up with conventional life (in Florida of all places) and decides to leave everything behind in search of something more substantial.

A good part of the plot is built around poetry by Walt Whitman: Song of Myself and Leaves of Grass. I coincidentally just finished reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Both men were writers and part of the Transcendentalist movement in America during the nineteenth century. So, a lot of the underlying philosophy overlaps between those two books, despite them being written over 150 years apart.

I also like the message of trying to see people for who they really are, not what you expect them to be. The irony is, in high school when I would have been the ideal target for this book, I was definitely more of a Q but now several years later, I've definitely transitioned to being more of a Margo.

TRAVEL TIP #3: BOARDING PASSES MAKE GREAT BOOKMARKS!

The Fault in our Stars | John Green, 2012

There was a small, makeshift library of left-behind books in the corner of the common area. Since I had just finished Paper Towns, a friend suggested I read another book by John Greene called The Fault in our Stars. It's about a couple of star-crossed teenagers with various forms and stages of cancer. Kind of a modern, more maladies version of Romeo and Juiet, sans suicide.

It's a great insight into what it feels like to have a terminal illness and makes you appreciate your own health for sure. I wasn't a fan of the ending, but I think it's referencing the inceptional, fictional book-within-a-book An Imperial Affliction which just ends leaving several questions unanswered. I plan on watching the movie at some point next week in Malaysia when I have more reliable internet.

I Wonder Why | Thubten Chodron, 1999

Curious to learn more about Buddhism and meditation in anticipation of visiting the temple later that week, I read I Wonder Why, a free publication that I picked up earlier at a temple in Singapore. It concisely and simply answers the questions asked most often about these aforementioned topics. It was written by a Californian turned Buddhist nun who started meditation and visited Nepal in 1975 and was fully ordained in 1986 in Taiwan. Very interesting and makes it easier to comprehend some of the more complex topics, especially since she has the Western perspective and wasn't just born into the culture.

BODY // YOGA

After the peak heat and humidity of the day had waned slightly, our Yoga teacher Sasantha would arrive around 5 PM via motorbike. He wore white Kundalini-style yoga clothes was trained in and teaches Hatha style.

Along with Om chanting, he would open and close our practice with Ayubowen (Wishing you a long life; Singhale) instead of Namaste. I tried to go in with an open mind, but I felt like this class was way too basic, maybe on par for toddlers or geriatric clients. There were a handful of poses that I recognized but there was also a lot of filler like glorified stretching of feet, hands and fingers and laying down in savasana for several minutes in the middle of the practice, which I have never done before, and really felt like it interrupted the whole flow. But he did mix in a noticeable amount of meditation, which I liked.

The worst part was the insects. I put on citronella oil but the mosquitos and flies still buzzed around us. I can't think of a worse hell than trying to meditate amongst mosquitos. I'm still grateful for his time and effort and was a nice, relaxing, not-too-sweaty way to end the day.

I still continued to do my own Vinyasa practice almost every morning alone in the common area of the beach house. Last week, a few German girls took notice and asked if I could teach them. I ended up teaching two short classes (with simple moves that I was confident I could describe and direct) on two different mornings with up to four girls attending each class.

MIND // TRIP TO THE TEMPLE

On Friday afternoon, I and the two other girls participating in B&MW piled into a tuk tuk to make the journey to the nearby Shailathalaramaya Temple in Karandeniya, built on a hillside about two centuries ago. It's claim to fame is a 35 meter long reclining Buddha statue, the longest of its kind in Southeast Asia.

The temple was particularly packed with people due to it being a holiday related to the full moon called Uposatha Observance Day or Poya Day. (This would explain why both the Post Office and our favorite Ice Cream place were closed on Friday.) So, we were lucky to get an hour, or any time at all really, with a monk there named Somissara. He was an amiable, 24-year old monk that just radiated happiness. The only space left for our meditation was in their narrow little alms room, where lay persons brought all kinds of food offerings for the monks.

He had great English and gave us his life story in a nutshell, including coming to live at the temple at age 7, how he started meditation and his more recent travels across Europe to teach meditation. He recommended starting with Metta (or Loving Kindness) meditation. The goal of this practice is to cultivate a strong wish for the happiness of all other people and animals. We were instructed to close our eyes for 10 minutes and repeat the mantra I wish for all to be well and happy. I edited this a bit to I wish for _______ to be healthy and happy and made it into a med-lib™ (meditation + mad-lib, get it?!), in which I would fill in the following blank with things like: my parents, my sister, my friends, all beings, etc. (Is it coincidence that when I grabbed my phone to take pictures of the temple directly after the meditation, I noticed a rather happy WhatsApp message from my mom?)

The time went by pretty quickly and even though my eyes were closed, the darkness faintly seemed like I was moving backwards through a tunnel, passing under sporadic overhead lights. However, I couldn't hold the traditional cross-legged position for the entire time. One of my legs started to go numb so I shifted a few times. I raised this concern to Somissara afterwards, and he said it's normal and totally acceptable to shift your physical position when meditating.

Then he gave us a brief tour of the statue, the temple and the grounds. I really enjoyed and appreciated the time he spent with us and approached to shake his hand, but just as quickly recoiled because I suddenly remembered that we're not supposed to touch or take pictures of the monks out of respect for their holiness.

Reminds me of my grandma's quilted creations

The Moonstone Mine and My Shiny Souvenir

Unrelated to Body & Mind week, my last excursion was to a Moonstone Mine in Meetiyayoda. It was a typical tour-then-try-to-sell-something experience, but while white moonstones are found all over the world, blue moonstones are so rare that they (supposedly) are only found in this single village in Sri Lanka.

Traditionally, the moonstone is known as the Traveler's Stone and is supposed to be especially protective when one travels by night or upon the water when the moon is shining. The blue, or cat's eye, variety is believed to promote clarity, focus, awareness and balances energy.

Upon hearing this, I decided I needed one immediately so even though I'm not typically a "ring person," I purchased a sterling silver ring set with a small blue moonstone for 10,000 rupee ($75 USD). I'm sure I probably overpaid a bit but it came with a certificate of authenticity and I'm directly supporting the Sri Lankan economy.

The Cat Savior & Spectacular Sunsets

My last and completely unanticipated experience that I need to mention happened Friday night when a group of us were walking towards town for ice cream after dinner at the beach house. We are regularly escorted by Milo and some other street dogs, as we were on this trip, but they suddenly and uncharacteristically broke into a full sprint. I saw why as a small cat scrambled up a tree limb. The cat fell and in what seemed like a nanosecond, it was then in Milo's mouth, being shaken violently.

What happened next was kind of a blur. I didn't really think - I just reacted and kicked the dog, not hard enough to really hurt it, just enough to startle her. She dropped the cat and I reflexively tried to grab the cat and move it away from the dog but instead felt claws puncturing my flesh. I flinched and spun around to see the cat safely behind me. I stood between Milo and the cat, yelling at Milo to go away, until the cat disappeared to safety. Thankfully the other dogs were gone and Milo eventually retreated as well. (I'm choosing to believe that the cat is totally fine now and eternally grateful for me saving it's life.)

Only then did I stop to evaluate the damage done to my finger. I had a long, jagged scratch almost the entire length of the inside of my right ring finger - the one with my new moonstone ring on it - that was trickling blood and I was super thankful for another girl in my group that had a first aid kit with her and handed me an alcohol wipe and a band aid. I used them immediately then cleaned the wound more thoroughly and applied Neosporin when I got back to the house.

Last but not least, I need to share pictures of some spectacular sunsets we got to admire this week!

Bug Bites, Bruises & Bikini Bandits

July 29, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, ecotourism, life, sri lanka, travel, volunteer

Traveling Sri Lanka hasn't been all sunshine and sea turtles. There are some not-so-fun bits as well.

For example, someone stole my bikini while it was drying on the line outside this past weekend. Seriously, who does that?! WHO DOES THAT?! Who wants to wear something that has been on someone else's crotch? The crazy thing was, my shorts and tank top and everything else that was drying was still there. It was literally just that one multi-colored, Lycra and Spandex masterpiece that went missing.

And it's my most comfortable and favorite one, too. All my ladies know how hard it is to find the perfect swimsuit, especially one that stays put and keeps everything covered while you're swimming and spiking volleyballs. There are so many variables to consider: boob size, butt size, torso length, tummy toned-ness ... The struggle is real, y'all.

I also have 78 small red bites all over my arms, elbows, knees, everywhere. Even two on my face. I know they are not mosquito bites. I've narrowed down the suspects to bed bugs and/or ants. I didn't start getting them until last week so I know I've been getting bit in bed at night. I've since switched mattresses and now I've switched to a completely different bed so hopefully the siege of red spots will stop. Thankfully they don't itch but I've been slathering on the calamine lotion and Neosporin anyways. What bothers me even more than the bites is the fact that this incident proves I am not in fact superhumanly resistant to bugs and their bites as I had previously liked to believe, mostly because I never ever get mosquito bites. Like ever.

I have a huge, disgusting bruise above my left knee that's turned every shade and color of a moldy rainbow. I don't even remember how I got it. Maybe I ran into the corner of a tank or got hit with a full bucket of sand or water. No idea. (Although I have told some gullible people I was attacked by a sea turtle.)

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I've also been incapacitated and extremely sick for 24 hours, sprained my knee during a rain-drenched hike from hell and got a 'bow thrown into the back of the head on a public bus.

But ya gotta take the bad with the good. I've felt the best and most accomplished right after I've overcome some kind of obstacle. Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.

Turtle Tales and Rip Tides

July 26, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, friends, sri lanka, travel, volunteer, voluntourism, turtles

Last weekend I got a henna tattoo. I designed and drew a lotus out on paper first and would have liked to draw the henna design on myself, but obviously I can’t really reach the spot in the upper middle of my back. The tattooer took a few liberties with my design that I didn’t realize were happening until they were already done. And by then it was too late. I'm sure no one else noticed the edits and general sloppiness that I did, but I can become pretty perfectionist when it comes to my designs. Sigh. Once an art director, always an art director, lol. Here’s the original design compared with what ended up on my back.

However, I’m still grateful for that and every other experience I’ve had here.

This was week two working with the turtles. More feeding, more shell scrubbing and more tank cleaning and sand transferring. Thursday was a particularly long day as we cleaned the 11 tanks in one morning then carried bucket loads of fresh sand from the beach and into the nesting area. Nesting season doesn’t really start until September, but Isuru said since we were such a strong group, he wanted us to rotate and refill the sand now. Shoveling and carrying sand is literally the worst job we do here and we had to do it three times this week.

A bit of drama unfolded on Thursday while I was practicing handstands on the beach. Captain (our lead coordinator in Ambalangoda) had warned everyone not to swim in the ocean this time of year because the water and rip currents and very rough and unpredictable. After getting covered in sweat and sand, everyone wanted to jump into the ocean to cool off. Two girls got caught in a rip and swifty carried several more meters away from the shore. The first girl managed to get out, but was overpowered by a wave that knocked her into a rock formation that jutted out of the water. She came up onto the beach, coughing and bleeding from several wounds on her legs. She sat and started crying - mostly from shock, I think - and other volunteers comforted her poured fresh water on the wounds to wash out the sand.

Meanwhile, the smaller girl was still stranded in the water, so Isuru jumped off the rock jetty Hasselhoff-style with a flotation device in tow and swam in her direction. He got to her in just a minute or two then helped her swim parallel to the beach until they were out of the rip and could swim to shore. By this time, all the volunteers and several locals were gathered on the beach to watch what happened. One impulsive local guy with good but misguided intentions dramatically dove into the water with all his clothes on as if he was going to save the day, but swam in the complete wrong direction. Isuru and the little Belgian girl were back on the beach before the local guy was. She was completely fine and had stayed calm the entire time.

That night, Captain called an emergency meeting at the house to determine “who had the problems with the sea.” The two girls reluctantly raised their hands and then he repeated his lecture about the dangers of the ocean this time of year for everyone’s benefit. It turns out, the unruly sea season also prevents us from releasing a few of the healthier turtles still at the compound. They could also get smashed against the rocks and are more vulnerable to being captured, killed and eaten by fisherman due to the lack of fish in the turbulent waters.

On Friday morning, we arrived at the turtle compound as usual, ready to cut up fresh fish for the turtles’ third weekly meal. We meandered around the tanks, and one volunteer alerted us to Tank 1 “I think this turtle is dead.” It was a new arrival (an Olive Ridley) that had been brought to the center the previous weekend with missing fins and several shell injuries; some old and scarred over along with some fresh wounds. It’s eyes were closed and it wasn’t moving so Isuru came and checked it’s pulse and confirmed that it had none. It must have died sometime during the night beacuse we had just seen it alive and cleaned its shell the previous day. In my completely non-medically-trained opinion, it must have had some internal problems as well because it physically didn’t look any worse off than the rest of the injured turtles.

We buried the turtle in a hole about waist deep on the beach. Isuru placed a old, tattered shirt at the bottom of the pit before placing the turtle on top of it. I asked why and he said it’s “good for next life.” I wanted to find a small rock or something to serve as a gravestone, but was unsuccessful.

It just so happens that a nest of dozens of Olive Ridley eggs and turned them in to the Turtle Project. They are almost the exact size, color and shape of ping pong balls, but are a bit heavier. Isuru dug a deep hole and buried them on site in the nesting area that we had just spent several days re-sanding. They’ll have a much better chance of hatching here than on the beach since like I mentioned earlier, it’s not currently nesting season.

Although we were sad one of the turtles died, it seemed serendipitously appropriate and balanced that we also had a nest of eggs that would bring forth new life. We witnessed the circle of life in one morning (cue Lion King music.)

I’m determined to name all the turtles before I leave. When I arrived, only one particularly aggressive loggerhead was named Mafia. Since then, I’ve named a few others: Nugget, Rocket, Lefty, Stevie, Grandma, Fountain, Teeny and Casper. Who knows if the names will stick after I leave, though.

Our famous Albino turtle, who I call Casper.

Thursday night, a group of us went to Hikkadua for dinner, since it was several peoples’ last night in Sri Lanka. We got caught in a heavy rainstorm and dashed into the nearest restaurant that promised Pizza on the sign out front, once it let up a bit. I ordered a veggie pizza slightly bigger than my head and it was a welcomed respite from the bland noodles and rice and watery curry that we eat all week at the house.

After we all gorged on pizza and pasta, most went back to Ambalangoda but a handful of us stayed to head to a bar and meet up with Isuru and the Swedish boys. We socialized and had one drink before heading home, ourselves via tuk tuk. We arrived at the house to find the gate locked, even though we had gotten permission to stay out past curfew. I climbed over it to go find someone with a key, but by the time I returned, everyone has managed to pry the gate open just enough to squeeze through.

Group Photo: Easy, Isuru, Ellen, Me, Lianne, Coffy, Elodie, Kirsty, Kirsten, Theo and Hanne

Eco Update: Sri Lanka

July 21, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, ecotourism, sustainability, travel, volunteer, voluntourism, sri lanka

The most common, and most fun, method of transportation around here is the auto rickshaw, also called a tuk tuk or a three wheeler. It’s kind of a hybrid between a golf cart and a motorcycle and transports a driver and up to three passengers. I’ve had several tuk tuk rides since arriving in Sri Lanka so I was curious to find out how efficient and eco-friendly they are (or aren’t.)

Since they are so much smaller than standard vehicles, they get much better gas mileage; typically 35 km/liter (or 82 mpg) of petrol and their CO2 emissions are about a third less. Older models have two stroke engines, which cause a lot of particulate (soot) pollution. Newer models with four stroke engines more thoroughly burn the fuel and are more efficient. The Sri Lankan government actually banned two-stroke engines in 2007 to reduce air pollution so most of the tuk tuks here should be four stroke, but I’m sure the old ones still slip through the cracks. (Source)

So overall, I can confirm are much more efficient and also cost much less than traditional taxis. And did I mention, they’re just so much fun to zip around in? They effortlessly swerve right around busses, bikes, pedestrians, cows and whatever else happens to be on the road.

Living in the beach house sans air con, hot water and basic appliances also saves a lot of energy. They also cook in bulk for the house and the food seems to be pretty local. Lots of rice and noodles and pineapple. Sri Lanka has the best pineapple I’ve ever tasted by the way; the perfect mix of tangy and sweet. I also avoid buying a bunch of plastic bottles and just keep refilling the same one with the filtered water that is provided for us.

However, there is no recycling anywhere in the country. I seriously cringe and possibly even twitch every time I have to scrape food scraps onto plastic bottles in the bin because I am such a serial recycler at home.

The turtle compounds are 100% natural and sustainable as far as I can tell because all we use is sea water, sand and coconut husks to clean the turtles and the same plus a few tools to clean the tanks. I confirmed with our coordinator, Isuru, that the fish we feed the turtles is caught by local Sri Lankan fisherman. (I even get to feed some leftover fish to a smart, little kitty that I named Latte since she has milk and coffee colored fur.) The only environmental concern I can discern is the paint we use to add to the hodgepodge murals on the walls.

The garbage that accumulates on the surrounding beaches does the most immediate damage, so I bought some garbage bags in town and initiated a clean up effort. In around an hour, we filled five bags, mostly with plastic bottles, orphaned flip flops and pieces of styrofoam. Most people are just apathetic or ignorant or both here and there is trash everywhere. Each time I try to think about a solution for one problem here, it invariably leads to thinking about more problems and more possible solutions and can become an overwhelming and vicious cycle.

The only thing I was caught off guard by was a boat tour on the Madu River that we did last week. The boats are old with really crappy engines that smell and spew fumes into the air and water. And I know they’re just perpetually running all day taking groups of tourists through the mangroves and to have their feet nibbled by fish. They also exploited a baby monkey and a baby crocodile for pictures (in hopes of tips), which I didn’t like.

There is definitely lots of progress still to be made in Sri Lanka but I think I am staying pretty true to my sustainable traveling philosophy here.

Turtle Time

July 19, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, design, food, friends, sri lanka, sustainability, travel, volunteer, voluntourism

Along with a handful of other volunteers, I enjoyed a five hour train ride from Kandy, which is inland towards the mountains down to Ambalangoda located on the Southern Coast. We were all up well before the sun as our van to the station picked us up at 4 AM and our train left a bit after 5 AM. We were in second class and were glad to be the origin of the train so we all had seats. The cars filled up along the way to the point of standing room only when we reached our destination. The view was mostly scenic, starting with the virid jungle landscape in the north which gradually morphed into a rocky coastline with rather aggressive waves. Sometimes we passed by bits of civilization, a mix of modernish urban buildings but many more crude structures constructed with clapboard and tin roofs.

The first house at the beach was full, so we were sent to a second house about 5 minutes walk down the road. The room was on the second floor of the house and contained two recently vacated bunks with lots of floorspace and a ceiling fan in the middle. We had two large doors that opened to a balcony that overlooked our front yard. Our bathroom was also larger and mere steps from my bed. Still no hot water, A/C or internet, but a vast improvement from my accommodation in Kandy. I even got a little carried away and went so far as to speculate that my British roommate Claire and I might have the room all to ourselves for the rest of the trip. But then two Chinese girls showed up the next day and took the top bunks, but they were fine.

We started working with the turtles the following Monday morning at 9:30 AM. We're not allowed to wear sunscreen or bugspray or anything that can contaminate the tanks or turtles. My new Aussie friend Kirsty and I arrived a bit early to visit the puppies that were penned up near the turtle compound. Some other volunteers had rescued a few litters from the streets prior to our arrival and had been spending a ton of their own time and money taking care of them, hoping to get them adopted or at least to proper shelters. (Sadly, the project ended up getting shut down and the puppies had to go back on the street. But at least they got a bit of a head start.)

I have never seen so many dog balls in my life. This is why there is a such a problem with stray dogs in Sri Lanka. There is a group that consistently hangs out around the house, the beach and the turtle compound. A couple look decently healthy but there is one that walks with a gimp due to a front paw that broke and never healed properly. And others I've seen around the city are dirty, sick or heartbreakingly emaciated. A lot of trash washes up on the beach because we're pretty close to the Marina and people just throw their trash overboard. I bought some trash bags and gloves in town and fully intend on leading a beach cleanup next week.

Anyways, our first task was to cut raw, sardine-like fish into small chunks to feed the turtles. There 8 living tanks and 2 feeding tanks. Each turtle is transported by hand to the feeding tank in order to keep the main tanks cleaner. I like the stimulate some of the healthier ones by throwing the bait in different parts of the tank so she (90% of our turtles are female) can get some mental and physical exercise. But others need more help. For example, there’s a blind turtle that we have to hold steady and feed with chunks of fish on sticks, or as I prefer to call them, fish-kabobs. If an airy-shelled turtle misses her fish chunk, we sometimes have to push her down so she can eat it off the bottom.

There are a few main reasons that sea turtles end up here. A common problem is that air gets trapped in their shells from getting stranded and dehydrated on the beach and subsequently, they can no longer dive for food. This can be corrected over time with medication but it takes several months. Some of the turtles have also swallowed plastic bags mistaken as jellyfish but the only thing we can do is wait for them to poop it out.

Most of the turtles in the disabled compound are missing a flipper. Or two. Or three, in the case of one unfortunate turtle we call Nugget who has just one lonely back flipper. You can almost always assume a turtle is missing a flipper because it got caught in a fisherman’s net and the fisherman will almost always just cut the turtle’s fin off instead of taking time to properly untangle it or risk damaging his net.

There’s a baby turtle with one eye, one with a crooked jaw, a few with shell damage and last but not least, an ultra rare albino turtle that has a metal grate locked down over her tank because some locals would otherwise steal and/or eat it thinking it has magical powers.

Tank cleaning (breathe through your mouth)

We also regularly clean the tanks and the turtles themselves. This is time consuming, but 100% eco-friendly and sustainable. For the turtles, we take them out of the tanks and onto the sand for a scrub and a rinse using sand, coconut husk and seawater. We remove as much algae as we can and remove any leeches or leech eggs that we find. The tanks are also scrubbed with sand and rinsed with seawater but we use brushes and squeegees instead.

We work the first shift in the morning for a few hours, break for lunch during the heat of the day then go back in the afternoon for a few more hours.

The worst chore is hauling sand out of the surrogate turtle nest area since its the off season. We literally have one shovel and about a dozen plastic or rusty metal buckets that we use to carry sand out of the enclosure and out to the beach. Once all the old sand is out, I’m sure we’ll bring new sand in to replace it.

Of the seven species of sea turtles in the world, five are native to or nest in Sri Lanka. We care for four of these including Hawksbills, Green Turtles, Olive Ridley and a couple Loggerhead turtles, because Leatherback turtles are too big to fit in any of the tanks. There are nearly 40 turtles in total. They are all endangered or critically endangered due to several reasons, which can all be traced back to people’s greed, ignorance or apathy. Major threats include the illegal sea turtle shell trade, commercial fishing, marine pollution, poaching for eggs and meat, beach erosion and development, oil spills and invasive species predation.

We had one quick excursion this week: a boat cruise on the Madu River. Our group took up three small motorboats and sputtered around the river and the mangroves. Included in the trip was a fish massage, which at sounds to me like it might be someone slapping you with a dead fish, lol. In reality, you stick your feet in a pool of fish that supposedly suck the dead skin and bacteria off your feet and toes. It was such a weird feeling and I was a bit conflicted from an empathy standpoint. I honestly didn’t notice a difference in my feet and feel like it’s kind of a tourist trap but I can say I did it. On the way back, we stopped at a floating coconut vendor and drank coconut water straight from the source.

Friday night, the girls and I took a couple tuk-tuks to the nearest tourist-y town called Hikkaduwa. We were excited to find a nice hotel with a bar and celebrated with cocktails. Mine was pretty disappointing since I ordered the Caipirinha that was listed on the menu but I watched the guy pour rum into my glass instead of cachaca. I called him out on it and he said they didn’t have any cachaca but I didn’t want to press the issue further and be that obnoxious American even though I got gypped.

We found a beachfront restaurant called Tigri and savored the best dinner we’ve had here in south Sri Lanka. I splurged and got a glass of white wine, a veggie-packed dish called Tigri Kankun and split a dessert all for just under $10 USD. The night time tuk-tuk ride back was exhilarating on the open road between the two towns. If I closed my eyes, it felt like I was flying.

We liked Hikkadua so much that we decided to go back on Saturday, after having to pack up our stuff and move to the first beach house since ours would soon be overrun with Chinese schoolchildren. I bought an awesome tank dress with a creative local design at one of the shops and we had an amazing lunch of burgers and a veggie sandwich for me. Hikkaduwa is the closest place we can find coffee drinks, Western food and wifi. We casually strolled into the hotel pool area and tried to blend in as we set up on some obscure deck chairs, but were quickly approached by an attendant and told we had to pay 1,000 rupees each to use the chairs and the pool for the day as non-hotel guests. We slunk back to the beach and spent some time there in the sun and the surf before heading back to Amabalngoda because Claire had a taxi and subsequent flight to catch that evening.

Stray cows come and go in the front yard

Giant, random Buddha on the road between Ambalangoda and Hikkaduwa

Kandy, Sri Lanka (Cultural Orientation)

July 15, 2015 by Miranda Harton in asia, backpacking, food, friends, travel, volunteer, voluntourism, yoga, sri lanka

I’ve had lots of great experiences but limited internet so this is going to be a long one! (But there are also lots of pictures!)

ARRIVAL

I arrived at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka mid-morning on Sunday. I knew I would need cash for pretty much everything so I tried to use about three different ATMs, all of which denied me money and displayed messages saying that my card was ineligible or reported lost.stolen. After connecting with my Green Lion volunteer group, I used the free airport wifi to skype my bank, but was cut off mid-call due to the shoddy internet signal. (I actually ended up having to borrow money from a new friend until I could sort things out with my bank four days later. But I was thankful this was the worst I had to deal with because another girl was without her entire suitcase for several days due to the fault of the airline, so a lot of us pitched in toiletries and clothes for her to borrow until it arrived after several days. Travelers are the best!)

Five of us and our luggage were piled into a van for the three hour journey to Kandy in the mountains. This ride started out a bit terrifying because although there are only two lanes painted on the road, there can be up to 5 or 6 lanes of busses, trucks, cars, motorbikes and tuk-tuks. Our driver was swerving all over the road and honking erratically, not unlike everyone else. After the first dozen or so near-misses, we relaxed and listened to Abba’s greatest hits. Which was blaring out of the speakers for nearly the entire trip.

We surprisingly arrived all in one piece and after removing our shoes at the door of course, were sent to our respective rooms. I was the last of six to arrive in my room, which was tucked away in the corner of the third floor.

ACCOMMODATION

I ended up really disliking my room, mostly because it was too small for the six bunks (three sets of two) that occupied it. Three German girls had been there for several weeks and their stuff was everywhere. Then what little space was left was taken by and English girl and Dutch girl who arrived just a bit earlier than me. I had to lean my rucksack against someone else’s bed frame and there was literally no more room on the floor so I had to keep my backpack my top bunk with me, which occupied a significant portion of my already tiny sleeping space. The mattresses were ultra thin and I could always feel the metal bars of the bunk frame beneath it. The pillow felt like I was sleeping on a soggy sack of flour and we were each given two thin, tattered bed sheets which never stayed tucked in. I always slept on top of them both because it was still too warm at night for any kind of coverings.

My bed was against the wall and under the single oscillating fan which blew directly over my bed so I didn’t really benefit from it’s cooling effect. Of course there was no air conditioning so we often kept the window open at night, which consequently let in mosquitos and the stench of cigarette smoke. The bathroom was tiny and I was grateful for a flushing toilet, but the space was wide open so whenever anyone took a shower, everything inside got wet. We did have hot water sometimes, but I actually crave cold showers after accumulating a layer of dust and sweat everyday. I saw several other rooms with ceiling fans and a bit more space so I know every room wasn’t exactly like mind. There were only two outlets so it was a battle to get your phone charged. I was pretty proud of how I was able to Macgyer my converter to be able to power the fan, my phone and at least one other device. We were also allotted two hours of slowish internet per night, which I really appreciate considered there is no internet provided at my new house in Ambalangoda. But, it was tolerable for a week, and the food and the new friends I’ve met helped to make up for it.

OBSERVATIONS

Honestly, before I arrived, the only two things I knew about Sri Lanka were that it’s an island located off the southeast corner of India and it’s where M.I.A. was born. Now I know the majority of the people are Buddhist (there are statues and temples everywhere) and there was a civil war in the north between the Singhalese and the Tamil Tigers that really only ended recently in 2009. In general, the men tend to be skinny and the women tend to be thicker and curvier. They wear a mix of traditional dress and western-style attire, with traditional being shirts and long sarongs for the men, midriff-baring saris for the women and sandals or flip flops for both. Everyone’s been pretty friendly so far and the kids get especially excited and always shout “Hello! Hello!” when they see foreigners. There are also stray dogs and garbage all over the streets.

ORIENTATION

Our cultural orientation started on Monday with some history and language lessons where we were taught a few phrases in Singhalese. Ayu Bowan is a common greeting and means I wish you a long life. You can also use this as a farewell phrase (kinda like Aloha means hello and goodbye.) We also learned some basic conversation starters: Mage Nama Miranda. Mage Rate United States, and pleasantries: Karunakarala means please and Isthuthi means thank you. The written Singhalese language is very lovely-looking but I can’t even begin to read a word of it.

We rode a public bus around Kandy and ended up thoroughly enjoying a showcase of traditional Sri Lankan dance, costumes and performances. It opened with the blowing of the conch shell and drumming, which is a traditional welcome. This was followed by the Pooja dance, the Panteru Natum, the Cobra dance, the Mask dance and few others. The most impressive for me personally was the duo of plate spinners who balanced like 7 ceramic discs each and then the two guys at the end who ate fire and walked across hot coals that were then set on fire and walked across again.

Tuesday was very touristy but informative. We visited a local Ayervedic (natural healing) spice garden where they grew and processed medicinal plants like aloe vera, cinnamon and ginger followed by a visit to the Kadugannawa Tea Factory Centre Garden where we had a tour and enjoyed a cup of Ceylon tea. Fun Fact: Sri Lanka is the second largest exporter of tea after India. Our last stop was Premadasa Gems & Jewelry where we watched a short video about traditional mining in Sri Lanka and then they attempted to sell us all kinds of shiny, sparkly things. This was pretty much the pattern all day: give the tourists a quick tour then encourage them to buy a bunch of stuff. Fun Fact: There are 28 different gems and precious stones found in Sri Lanka; almost everything except diamonds, rubies and emeralds.

Wednesday we split into groups and had traditional cooking lessons in the homes of some very talented local ladies. Cooking is huge here, and women can typically spend half of each day just cooking. I got to assist in the kitchen and use a coconut grinder to help make our pumpkin curry, banana flower “slaw”, fried papadils (which ended up kind of like puffy potato chips) and rice. We even ate the traditional way with our right hands, sans utensils. Everything was so fresh and flavorful. This was my favorite meal in Kandy by far.

Later that day, we visited a Buddhist temple and chatted with a nun with a shaved head and everything who was originally from England but had come to this temple after converting in Burma. She had an open dialogue with us about Buddhism, answered several questions and misconceptions and then led us in a short meditation. That was really interesting because she had a unique perspective of being able to compare it to the traditional Western lifestyle instead of being born into it, as they are here. Some monks get recruited really young at like 7 or 8 years old. I’ve seen some this young in town and at other temples in the area.

Thursday we visited the incredibly crowded Temple of the Tooth Relic, which was packed with tourists and devotees alike. Our guides encouraged us to buy flowers for offerings at one of the several carts outside the temple and it only cost 100 rupees (about 75¢ USD) so we obliged. It was more like a palace than a temple with ornate murals and sculptures everywhere. There was a horn player and two drummers at the front and a huge line that wrapped around the inside of the temple to actually see the tooth (of Buddha) so instead we just walked past the outside of the relic room. There were people everywhere offering prayers and fruit and flowers and tourists taking pictures and even groups of children on field trips in their adorable white uniforms and red ribbons.

After that, we took tuk-tuks, which is kind of like a cross between and motorcycle and a golf cart, up the hill to a wood shop and a batik shop. Again, they gave a quick lecture and then escorted us to their ginormous gift shops in hopes of us buying souvenirs. I finally gave in at the Batik shop and bought a small print of several birds roosting on branches called The Tree of Life.

It was a pretty short day so a couple other girls and I stayed in town to shop at the local markets. It can be overwhelming if you’re not used to crowded places with everyone promising you the best deal. “Special price for you. Student price. Volunteer price.” I ended up with an awesome pair of printed elephant pants and a matching purple t-shirt that were comfortable enough for traveling and conservative enough for temple visits.

Friday was our last official orientation day and we started it with a public bus trip and a steep hike to the Bahirawakanda Temple which housed a giant Buddha statue that overlooked all of Kandy. We took tons of pictures of the statue and the great view of the city below before having tea and being blessed by a young monk who tied white string around each of our right wrists. Apparently you are supposed to make a wish when you receive the string and then when the makeshift bracelet falls off, your wish is supposed to come true.

We then went back down to the city and visited a large Hindu temple where people were praying and offering fruit platters. Once the offering has been blessed, you get a little dot on your forehead and you’re supposed to eat the fruit. I’ve visited several Hindu temples now and they’re always so bright and colorful with intricate carvings. This one even had a bunch of flashing neon images of gods and goddesses that reminded me a bit of a casino. At lunchtime, we headed to Balaji Dosai pure vegetarian restaurant where we all enjoyed a roti-like dish with a couple different curries on the side. Either the spice was toned down for us or I’m finally starting to increase my tolerance!

That night, a group of about 20 of us packed up and loaded into three vans around 11 PM for a three hour drive to Adam’s Peak (or Sri Pada). The plan was to arrive around 2 AM and then hike to the top in time for sunrise. We figured we’d be able to get some rest on the way there - but boy were we wrong. The driver of my van at least was swerving around the hairpin turns of the mountain road like a maniac and blaring whiny-sounding Sri Lankan music. There were no seat belts and no handles or anything to hold onto inside so we all just kind of tumbled over the top of one another each time we took a hard turn. One girl in the back threw up a few times and another had her head out of the window on the verge of puking, herself. When we finally arrived, it was dark so we all got out our flashlights and started up the dirt and stone-staired trail. It started raining so I put my raincoat on over my backpack and opened my umbrella. A few stray dogs followed us, which was ok and even a bit reassuring until a couple of them started growling and snapping at each other.

Sri Pada or Adam's Peak (More image here)

The rain only got worse and our one large group scattered into several smaller groups. I was struggling with the altitude since I’m used to living at sea level. I also started feeling a slight pain in my knee but I was determined to reach the top. The rain only got worse and flooded the trail. It got colder the higher we climbed. And the nonstop precipitation caused the steeper stone steps towards the top to turn into a gushing waterfall. I could feel my pants stuck to my legs and my feet sloshing around in the water inside my hiking boots. It literally felt like torture in the cold, wet darkness. I pressed on as much as I could until the pain in my knee was unbearable. This happened less than half a kilometer from the top, according to a couple who had already reached the peak and was on their way back down. A friend and I stopped at a police station on the way back down to see if they had any first aid supplies and happened to run into a different group of trekkers. One of them was a girl in her mid-twenties who happened to be training as a humanitarian aid worker and immediately wrapped up my knee and gave me some ibuprofen. The Sri Lankan police were very kind and offered us all hot tea, which was the motivation I needed to start hobbling back down the mountain. The sun came up at some point during the descent but the rain still never fully stopped. I was lucky I only found one leech as most other people were attacked several times.

Back at the base, the vans and about half of the group were already waiting. Once there were enough people to fill up the first van, it took off and I was the only one left waiting for the rest of the group, who I assumed had reached the top. They returned pretty disappointed because although they went as far as they could, the actual peak was gated and locked since it was off season and they couldn’t even see the sunrise due to all the rain and mist. The ride back was even more miserable because we were all soaking wet and we had to sit idly for over an hour due to a downed powerline in the road. I really wish someone had given us a weather forecast and informed us it was off season before we left, but now I have a story to tell about that hike from hell I did that one time in Sri Lanka.

Voluntouring & Eco Travel

May 23, 2015 by Miranda Harton in travel, sustainability, voluntourism, volunteer, pre-travel, ecotourism

If you know me, you know word-splicing is a hobby of mine so I'm particularly fond of this word, not to mention the definition of it. I think it's pretty self-explanatory but just in case, volunteering + tourism = voluntouring. I've put a lot of hours thus far into finding tours, travel and accommodations that at least claim to make an effort to be eco-friendly and/or help the local community.

Voluntouring takes many forms. There are programs for single travelers, groups, families, and the durations and costs can vary wildly. In general, it seems like the more expensive a program is, the more it focuses on the tourism part, and the less expensive ones focus more on the volunteering part. Without actually experiencing any of them yet (however I will provide info and insight as these experiences happen), here's what I've learned and can recommend if you're thinking about trying to do some good while traveling.

IVHQ (International Volunteer Headquarters)
This New Zealand based volunteer organization was the most organized, affordable and thorough one that I would place at the top of my pile of research. They've placed thousands of volunteers in dozens of locations since 2007 and are pretty transparent about costs. They also offer a huge variety of projects & places for every budget from Argentina to Zambia. Each program has a flat $279 registration fee that basically supports the staff, administration, marketing, research, etc. Then you have the program fee on top of that, which goes directly to supporting that program, lodging and meals. The total cost depends on where you go and how long you stay. In any case, the cost becomes proportionally less per day the longer you stay. There's a ton of English-teaching opportunities but also childcare, wildlife & animal care, medical & health, environmental conservation, construction/renovation & more. There are even reviews from other volunteers that have participated in the projects scattered throughout the site.

Personally, I decided to participate in their Sea Turtle Conservation Project in Ambalangoda, Sri Lanka for three weeks, which includes an orientation to local customs and culture. During the week, I'll be protecting turtle nests, hatching eggs, taking care of and cleaning injured turtles and on the weekends I'll have free time to explore the area. And after a few weeks there, I have the option of participating in more recreational, locally-organized activities like trekking or enjoying some beach activities.

The process was incredibly thorough as I had both an IVHQ staff member and a local Sri Lankan contact communicating with me via email every step of the way. I have my own comprehensive profile page on their site that contains detailed program information, online training modules and checklists. I also had to provide IVHQ with travel insurance info, flight information, visa confirmation and even a background check from my local police dept. They are so thorough that this program is the best option if you've never traveled abroad before.

I have a really good feeling about this organization and this program so if you decide you want to plan a similar trip, you can use my Referral Code: 2f795f82.

Wildlife Friends of Thailand
There are also lots of independent, more geo-specific volunteer websites. I knew I wanted to do something with elephants in Thailand and found this Wildlife Volunteer website. With any of these smaller organizations, I recommend contacting them and talking to an actual person via email before making any solid plans. When I first found the website, they offered programs in Indonesia and Laos, about which I also inquired. Come to find out, the Indonesia program had been discontinued and my contact was really honest with me about Laos and said they were still working on developing the infrastructure for this program and had yet to have actual volunteers so I passed on that one. Their Elephant Sanctuary and Wildlife Rescue are the most well-established, so I'm spending two weeks and one week at them respectively. It's a really good sign if the website includes videos of the facility, owners/staff and volunteers, as this one did.

You also want to try to make sure that the local community also benefits from the program. I like that the director specifically addresses this and says they employ locals and that they have a good relationship with the community.

ResponsibleVacation.com
This site is an aggregator for a huge variety of both eco-friendly tours and volunteer trips. It's great if you already know where you want to go because you can search by region/country. With each description they get pretty specific as to how this trip differentiates itself as sustainable instead of just saying "It's green! Trust us!"

You don't really book anything through them directly; if you're interested in a particular trip, they put you in touch with the actual organizers. The majority of the options & tours were out of my backpacker budget, but you can find some more inexpensive alternatives if you look long and hard enough. Honestly it's hit or miss and some info might be inaccurate or misleading.

For example, I found a three week all-inclusive voluntour program in the Maldives with a huge range of dates that was advertised at the time as $1563 for 21 days which works out to about $75 per day (which was already on the higher end of my budget.) But, once I actually started corresponding with the company Rainbow Voluntours via email, a representative told me that specific trip was actually only offered from 10 Aug - 31 Aug (not the range I wanted), limited to 10 people and the cost listed was "starting from" and that I'd have to pay $1800 for that specific week, which upped the daily cost to $85 per day. If I wanted any other date range, which I did, it would cost me $1500 for two weeks and an additional $590 per additional week, so now my daily cost was up to $100/day. I was not happy and really felt like this was a bait-and-switch tactic and no longer had interest in booking anything with them.

But I also found a couple of eco-resorts (keep in mind this is not the western definition of resort) with which I had great experiences. The Paradise Eco-Resort near Siem Reap, Cambodia was exactly as advertised and offers a range of rooms for all budgets from $12 - $45 USD. They are super close to the temples at Ankor Wat, offer a super affordable restaurant on site and offer other local-led tours. The staff is also super helpful and responsive via email.

I also wanted to stay at the TCFD Eco-Logic Resorts for Charity, which was set up to support the Thai Child Development Foundation, but couldn't work it into my schedule. Once I started corresponding with TCFD, I found out the volunteer exchange (work in exchange for free lodging) was different from what was advertised on the responsiblevacation.com site, but everything else was pretty consistent.

I provide these examples so you don't get all excited like I did and start planning out an itinerary based solely on the info on an aggregational website before confirming details like dates and prices with the actual organizations. And on a related note, Google Drive is great for planning, organizing and comparing info. I utilized a spreadsheet in Google Sheets to compare locations, programs & costs and copied and pasted a calendar template into Google Docs to keep my dates straight.

Finally, there were websites that I can only describe as complicated, information chaos like Eco Friendly Vietnam. I mean, the information on this thing literally moves in like 5 different directions and makes me feel like I might have a seizure. Nowhere do they list any kind of pricing, a red flag to me, and their Environment Corner is just general information and travel warnings and I don't see how it relates to their specific trips. I think this is a case, where they are just trying to capitalize on the green travel trend. (You're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover but this is the 21st century so I will judge a business by it's website.)

Thanks to the internet it's both harder and easier than ever to plan your trip. There are so many options that it just comes down to researching the trip that's right for you and best aligns with your values and passions. Hopefully my insight and experience so far helps point you in the right direction. :)

Throwback Thursday: Kenya Memories

May 21, 2015 by Miranda Harton in travel, africa, volunteer, voluntourism

Most of my friends and family will remember my volunteer trip to Kenya in July 2013. But if you're not familiar with it, this has been my most memorable and impactful trip to date, as well as a stepping stone towards my upcoming trip. I was part of a group sponsored and hosted by the Whole Foods Market Team Member Volunteer Program, the Whole Planet Foundation and CTC International.

I had to pay for my vaccines and plane ticket and the company covered pretty much all the costs for two weeks in Kenya. Fundraising was encouraged, so I invented a Mirandathon in which I ran 26.2 miles barefoot on the beach over the course of a month and asked people to pledge money per mile or just make a donation. Honestly it wasn't terribly successful from a financial standpoint, but I was in great shape by the time I left for the trip. If I were to do it over, I would have something tangible in exchange for donations like vegan cupcakes or postcards made from photos from the trip.

Our group totaled 10 WFM employees from throughout the US ("And Canada!" - Lindsay) and I was a designated blogger and photographer for the trip. You can read the complete tumblr blog that I kept during the trip - which was a challenge because we rarely had internet access - and my favorite photos from Africa in the Pics section of my website.

To sum it up, we spent time meeting and interacting with microcredit clients throughout the country, visited other businesses making a positive impact in Kenya, had a short Safari which included interacting with protected rhinos in the park, met the Malaika mums who sew LIFE line products to support education for their disabled children, met a group of Massai artisan women and we spent the majority of the time working towards finishing Cafe Ubuntu, a bakery and coffee stop that would bring more money and jobs to the community. My fondest memories included seeing a trio of Cheetah brothers during our Safari, receiving a special gift to bless my home from one of the Maasai ladies and freehanding/painting the logo about 4 feet tall on the back wall of the bakery with nothing but a pencil and some oversized paint brushes.

Today, Cafe Ubuntu is thriving and expanding into a whole host of other projects and programs that are benefitting this little village in the Rift Valley. However, there are several more ways to support CTC & their mission closer to home by:
• becoming a donating Tribe Member
• buying a #loveisproject LOVE bracelet at American Eagle or LIFE line products
• and/or buying Allegro's Cafe Ubuntu coffee at your nearest Whole Foods Market.

It's a great cause to support because I can tell you firsthand that money is going directly into Maai Mahiu, whereas something like the (red) project is really nebulous and you're not sure how much money actually gets to Africa.