since 1986cers/images/stories/downloads/cers_1702.pdf · 2015. 9. 3. · alternatives of partners, insurance and bank accounts, education and degrees, to Plan Bs & Cs for zillions

CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 1

EXPLORERSCHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEA RCH SOCI ET Y

A N E W S L E T T E R T O I N F O R M A N D A C K N O W L E D G E C E R S ’ F R I E N D S A N D S U P P O R T E R S

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: CERS and village cavers in Palawan of the Philippines. A Yao elder lady. Earthquake news in Kathmandu. Suspension bridge across the Dulong River in Yunnan.

3 Last of the Pi Yao Minority People

6 A Tang Dynasty Temple (circa 502 A.D.)

9 Avalanche!

12 Caught in Kathmandu

15 Adventure to Dulongjiang Region: An Unspoiled place

in Northwest Yunnan

18 Blue Sky, White Peaks and Green Hills

22 Shake-Down Cruise of HM Explorer 2

26 Singing the Ocean Blues Musings on fish and commitment while floating in the Sulu Sea

C H I N A since 1986

V O L U M E 1 7 N O . 2 S U M M E R 2 0 1 5

30 Entering The Dinosaur’s Mouth

34 CERS in the Field

35 News/Media & Lectures

36 Thank You

CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY

A N E W S L E T T E R T O I N F O R M A N D A C K N O W L E D G E C E R S ' F R I E N D S A N D S U P P O R T E R S

EXPLORERSCHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY

C H I N A

V O L U M E 1 7 N O . 2 S U M M E R 2 0 1 5

With respect to the entire contents of this newsletter, including its photographs:

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2015. @ China Exploration and Research Society.

Please contact CERS for reprint permission.

Wong How ManFounder/President CERSJuly 2015

Founder / PresidentWONG HOW MANDirectors:BARRY LAM, CERS ChairmanChairman, Quanta Computer, Taiwan

JAMES CHEN Managing Director, Legacy Advisors Ltd.

HUANG ZHENG YU Entrepreneur

CHRISTABEL LEE Managing Director, Toppan Vite Limited

DAVID MONG Chairman, Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund

WELLINGTON YEE BILLY YUNG Group Chairman, Shell Electric Holdings Ltd.

Advisory Council:CYNTHIA D’ANJOU BROWNPhilanthropy Adviser

ERIC S. CHENVice Chairman, SAMPO Corporation

JUDITH-ANN CORRENTEPhilanthropist

DANCHEN Former Vice-Party Secretary of Tibet Vice-President, China Writer’s Federation

DR WILLIAM FUNGExecutive Chairman, Li & Fung Group

HANS MICHAEL JEBSENChairman of Jebsen & Co. Ltd.

KWEK LENG JOOManaging Director, City Developments Limited

DR MICHAEL J. MOSERInternational Attorney

TUDENG NIMATibetan Scholar

CERS Field Staff:WILLIAM BLEISCH, PhD, Science DirectorCAO ZHONGYU, Logistics SupportTSERING DROLMA, Education OfficerLI NA, Kunming Admin. OfficerLIU HONG, SpeleologistQIJU QILIN, Zhongdian Centre DirectorMARTIN RUZEK, Earth System ScientistWANG JIAN, Kunming DirectorZHANG FAN, China Director ZHOU CHEN SU, Speleologist Headquarters Staff:BRENDA KAN, Office ManagerXAVIER LEE, FilmmakerJOE LUNG, Web/IT ManagerTRACY MAN, Financial ControllerBERRY SIN, Logistics DirectorAssociate Filmmaker:CHRIS DICKINSON Editor:WILLIAM BLEISCH, PhDDesign and Printer: TOPPAN VITE LIMITED (852) 2973 8600

HOW TO REACH CERS:Unit 7 & 8, 27/F, Tower B, SouthMark, 11 Yip Hing Street, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong phone (852) 2555 7776 fax (852) 2555 2661e-mail: [email protected] Website: www.cers.org.hk

CERS TAI TAM RESEARCH CENTER(852) 2809 2557

President’s Message

Risk management is institutionalized into all big businesses today, perhaps with exception of rogue traders among leading banks. In life, risk management extends from practical measures to philosophical ones, from having multiple

alternatives of partners, insurance and bank accounts, education and degrees, to Plan Bs & Cs for zillions of activities, to religious options for those who want to manage their afterlife, just in case there is an afterlife.

In some ways, it reflects on my recent experience in Kathmandu. When disaster struck on April 25, the Nepalese and even expat residents of the country did not

have a choice. If they had, they would have chosen to avoid being in the middle of it. Whereas, for all the hype of the media on the deaths of foreign climbers on Everest, these were individuals who had chosen to take a larger-than-life risk in the first place; there have been 4.3 fatalities for every 100 summits. Had they chosen to climb K2 in the Himalayan range, second highest peak and even more dangerous than Everest, their odds of survival would be one in four, a bit worse than playing Russian Roulette.

It may seem insensitive to belittle those high-paying mountaineering “adventure tourists.” After all, my own profession as an explorer would seem to many people to be also a high-risk preoccupation. Close friends and supporters however would tell you otherwise. Why else would many high net-worth friends send their most-valued asset – their children - to study with us in the field?

I have never worried about the “danger” of circumstances supposedly integral to our work. Instead, as leader of our team, we have very exacting preparations, threading our way on safe ground. Danger should only exist with the same probability as predictions of another earthquake, despite dealing with much unknown in wilderness regions of China or its adjacent countries. Above all, it was not for thrill that we went out there “into the wild,” but to advance our knowledge of the world around us, just like early explorers during the Age of Discovery. This issue has an article by Dr. Bleisch describing avalanches that he and our team faced when trying to reach our study site in western Nepal, even before the earthquake hit.

I have always professed that in front of nature, humans are so humbled. So that same humbleness was with me when the 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal as I was stranded at the Kathmandu Airport ready to fly out.

Another article in this issue by myself describes surviving the devastating earthquake and the many aftershocks in Kathmandu. As all immigration officers left the airport as soon as the quake hit, I ended up walking out of the airport building without a stamp on my visa, and left again the following day by overstaying my one-day transit visa. Rare indeed for a page in my passport to have one entry stamp and two exits - April 25 and 26 - marking the time when nature not only decided our fate, but also gave some of us a wake-up call!


TOP TO BOTTOM:Dajiang Pi Village of northern Guangdong. A last family moving out of the village. Pointing to the now vacant Dajiang Pi Village.

LAST OF THE PI YAO MINORITY PEOPLE by Wong How Man

Liannan, Gunagdong

“Please, please join us for lunch. We are cooking anyway,” said Tang Mai De San, the 32 years old son-in-law of the family. I declined his truly warm hospitality as it was not just me, but seven of us in my team, and it would add undue work to their family’s very last day at this ancient house.Tang had just arrived by motorcycle at this now remote hamlet. And the road, it was only completed less than ten years ago. Soon it would be abandoned and lay to waste. Likewise electricity arrived last year, and after today there would be no need for it anymore.

Dajiang Pi was once a bustling village with over a hundred households and perhaps five hundred some odd inhabitants, one of the largest among the eight Pi villages of the unique Yao minority people of northern Guangdong. They are very different in both language and custom from all other Yao people of southern China. But today, we were seeing the departure of its very last resident family, that of Tang Wu Ji Gung’s, the last to move down the hill some ten kilometers away, to live in the new village by the road.

“We have no choice, the house is leaking everywhere, and every family had already moved out long ago,” said the younger Tang with his crisp Cantonese dialect. He was married to Tang Wu Ji Gung’s third daughter, whom by chance we gave a ride along the way as we drove up this windy and narrow road to the village. The other fellow who came with Tang is also a Tang, in fact everyone around was a “Tang”, the common last name of the entire clan. His name was Tang Chiao She Gui, another four-syllable complexity, and he was married to the second daughter in the family. Both men, the sons-in-law, were from Dajiang Pi village originally, and both left for Guangzhou to seek work.

“All young people have to leave for the city in order to find work. There is simply no opportunity here inside the mountains. In the city, we can make money and send home,” said the young Tang as a matter of fact. From their

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CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW:Elder Yao men with pipes. Firing a matchlock rifle during New Year 1984. A religious parade circa 1984. New Year ritual 1984. Misted hills of the Yao countryside. Yao mother with two daughters. A Yao baby today. Yao lady. Yao elder lady.

modern outfit like all city folks of China, no one would guess that they were from the Yao minority group.

The ladies in the house, four of them including the mother, were still dressed in the Yao’s blue jackets with white trimmings, dark pants with embroidered leggings, with a touch of brighter color on the head with a red cloth over a bun. They were rummaging throughout the very dark corners of the house, looking for items they may want to take along. The father, Tang Wu Ji Gung, was a 70-years-old Yao man of small stature, seemed a bit high on his last bottle of home brew of rice wine.

Next door at an antechamber stood two coffins, one on top of the other. Those were prepared a while ago, awaiting its contents which would be the aging parents. “Aren’t you bringing those down the hill as well,” I asked. “No, these would remain until some day we may need them,” came the answer from young Tang. After all, were the senior to decease, they may want to be buried in the old village rather than the new one where they find little affiliation to their past.

Funerals are very important departure, far more important than today’s departure from their old village. When I first came during Chinese New Year in 1984, I was still working for the National Geographic. At a Yao Village, I observed how a Yao Taoist elder chanted their mythical script, leading the Way for the dead in returning to their ancestors. It was believed the Yao came from China’s far north, and the Way would include stopping in numerous villages and towns, until their destination of where their ancestors came from was reached.

There was also a peculiar method by which such Taoist high priests were removed from their home if one should pass away. He would be tied, sitting


upright, to a chair. The roof tiles would be removed and the body, together with the chair, would be lifted through the house roof and taken out. That was to signify that his spirit would go to heaven. Today, no such ceremony is performed anymore. After all, there are few Taoist masters remaining in new villages and most young people have not even heard of such rituals, let alone have seen it.

Today only a very few of the eldest among the Yao could recite such rituals. Yesterday afternoon, we occasioned upon one such man, Tang Gu Ming Si Gung at Youling, another Pi Yao Village. After much coaxing, he agreed to sing a few chants of the Way. But after a couple minutes, at times with his hands gesturing a direction, he was determined to stop. It was leading nowhere, without someone dead to come along!

Nearby Dajiang Pi Village, all the terraced fields seemed to have been left vacant and no one were at hand to farm the land. Lower down the hill, with the karst limestone hills all around, there were some tea farm terraces. Those seemed to be well cared for. We managed to buy some local tea from a Yao lady who lived down the hill. But our most prized pieces of purchase were two old jackets and a baby carrier, all from the Tang family, probably would be left behind as rags had we not picked them up. Though worn and torn, they were treated like rare relic for our collection of minority artifacts.

Thirty years was a long time, especially during China’s break-neck pace of change of the last three decades. What I saw in 1984 was perhaps the last remnants of the Pi Yao’s traditional past. It was freezing cold on New Year’s Day that year, with icicles dripping down the thatch-roofed houses. People in traditional costume nonetheless came out in droves at local drinking parties. Some were hitting the gong, others blowing at buffalo horns, yet others firing off their long-barrel short-butt match-lock rifles while old folks with long pipes reaching to the ground stood by and watched with charming smile. All that had passed on quietly.

Today in Dajiang Pi Village, I could see the several modes of transformation, as houses evolved from thatch and yellow mud brick, to a few with solid green bricks and tiled roof, to finally those with plastered walls and lime white paint outside, signifying a gradual gain in prosperity and “wealth”. Today’s departure of the Tang family spelled the last of this evolution and an end to a generation, as the family move down the hill into a red brick house along the road.

From my vantage point looking out into the hills, the karst limestone with fog looked just like a traditional Chinese painting. With my mind drifting into history and the past, I felt both fortunate and sad that I was on hand just in time to observe the eclipse of the very last of the Pi Yao, out of their historical village into a mainstream but homogenous Chinese society!


A TANG DYNASTY TEMPLE(Circa 502 A.D.)by Wong How Man

Cao Xi, Guangdong

TOP: Main assembly hall of Nan Hua Temple.BOTTOM: Ancient pagoda of Nan Hua Temple.


The facial feature was vivid, despite being darkened by what looked like a layer of brown lacquer. But the expression was calm and serene, with eyes closed as if in deep thought, or in a state of meditation. Each feature of the face, including brow, nose, lips, chin, lines of wrinkles, seemed real. But then it was supposed to be real, a real body preserved with no preservative but through its spiritual attainment, since the Tang Dynasty some 1300 years ago. The temple itself is over 1500 years; to be exact, 1513 years since its founding in 502 A.D.

The seated body, at times called “embalmed” body, was that of the 6th Patriach Master Monk Hui Neng, a most revered figure within Buddhism in China and founder of the Southern School in what is now regarded as Zen Buddhism. s

Through him, Buddhism became popular not only to the elite class, but commoners throughout the nation. Indeed it was through his school of teaching that Buddhism spread beyond China, to Korea and Japan. How a simple peasant, relatively illiterate, became the highest master in Chinese Buddhism is more than myth and legend, but recorded well in history and lore of the religion.

Today, after many rounds of turbulence throughout the dynasties, ups and downs, destructions and reconstructions, Nan Hua Temple survives with over 300 monks. Just within less than a hundred years during the Yuan Dynasty’s rule, the temple was raided three times over. Perhaps the most recent, though not necessarily last, round of trouble came during the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s. Red Guards rampaged through the monastery grounds and tore up halls and altars.

Premier Zhou Enlai ordered in the PLA troops to use the temple as barracks, thus offering some limited scale of protection to the Tang Dynasty edifice. But it was not until after the Red Guards had taken down the embalmed body and slit open the back, in an effort to discredit the myth about the non-decaying body. Surprisingly they found the internal organs still intact and preserved, or so said accounts from the time.

It was after the Cultural Revolution and in the late 1970s when Xi Zhongxun, father of current Chinese President Xi Jinping, ordered the body of Monk Hui Neng reinstated and put back into a place of honor. The senior Xi was at the time the Party Secretary of Guangdong Province, dispatched from Beijing to clean out remnants and ultra-leftist elements of the important southern province. Against some radical sentiments, his now famous order was, “Agree or not, put Him back.”

Such a brave endeavor won Xi Zhongxun a lot of admiration lasting even to this day, as Fa Qi, a middle age monk, recounted to me. Fa Qi, a well-educated and intellectual monk originally from Gansu Province, is the de facto CEO of the monastery today. He was in charge of many of the daily routines, especially during such a busy time as Chinese New Year when tens of thousands of believers from far and wide come to pay respect and pray at the temple.

Fa Qi’s superior and abbot of the temple, the Venerable Monk Chuen Zheng, gave our group an audience at his large courtyard residential quarters. The senior monk, however, seemed very serious and never provided even a sliver of a smile. At his private altar were dozens of jade Buddha statues of all sizes, probably offerings to the monastery by pilgrims from all over China and the world. It would have been nice had he set these statues on public display in the many halls of the temple.

A free booklet included many of his pictures with a long procession of Chinese government dignitaries, successive party secretaries and politburo members who had visited the temple over the years. According to the same booklet, he also added many academies and disciplines of study during the fifteen years he presided over the temple after 1999. The temple has been fighting off attempts by the government


TOP TO BOTTOM:Embalmed body of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriach Master. Library of Nan Hua Temple. Fa Qi with Zhang Fan at a game of Ping Pong. Pilgrims making New Year offering.

to make it a tourist attraction, which would enable the tourism bureau to collect fees for entry into the temple. Such commercialism at some other famous temples in China has been loathed by Buddhists from all over.

Our team of seven arrived at Nan Hua Temple two days before Chinese New Year, and stayed inside the temple for two nights. We received special treatment arranged through my Buddhist friend, the renowned Master Monk Hsing Yun

of Taiwan. Our visit gave me occasion to refrain from my regular diet of meat, and I went totally vegetarian. The kitchen turned out some fine dishes, of which the most exquisite was the “fish” made from Tofu. Not only was it shaped like a fish, but the inside, and surprisingly even the head, tasted like real fish, with texture to match.

As we settled into our chairs at the office of Monk Fa Qi, he brought out some quality tea for us to savour. While chatting, Zhang Fan, our CERS China Director, saw four old and worn ping pong paddles sitting upon the side of a desk. Zhang Fan, a ping pong addict, inquired of Fa Qi whether he was a player. “Sure, I used to be a provincial team champion before I was ordained a monk,” came the answer. “But when I joined the Order, I gave up playing and it wasn’t until four years later when my father visited that he brought me my paddles, knowing that I needed some exercise,” added Fa Qi.

Soon Zhang Fan and Fa Qi were out in the courtyard playing a volley of matches. With his monks robe to the side, Fa Qi turned into a lion of a sportsman, playing a hard game against Zhang Fan. Though he admitted to not playing often, and that there was no match within range of the temple, Fa Qi beat Zhang Fan handily in three successive games. Watching his moves was like observing a Kungfu master in action. When it was my turn to play, I noticed the paddle I used had the imprint of Fa Qi’s finger mark on the handle!

New Year’s Eve was all quiet at the temple with few visitors. But upon midnight, firecrackers and fireworks were heard all over right outside of the temple grounds. Soon, huge crowd began pouring in after midnight, stampeding to be one of the first to offer up incense and joss sticks to the Buddha. The courtyard of the temple was lit up by the night fire of offerings. I retreated to my room feeling gratified, knowing that this New Year came with an auspicious beginning, from deep within the inner sanctum of a temple that is over 1500 years old, with the 6th Patriach Master Hui Neng’s spirit still radiating from his seated body high up on the altar.


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AVALANCHE!by William Bleisch, PhD

on the trail below Api Himal

The third avalanche stopped us, but it was the fourth avalanche that convinced us all that we had been right to turn back. I am in the Api Nampa Conservation Area in western Nepal again, back to try to retrieve the camera traps that we set high up near the source of the Chemaliya River last October, just below the cliffs of Api peak itself. We need to retrieve the traps to see what wildlife they have caught and also to bring them down the mountain before thousands of caterpillar fungus collectors enter the protected area later in the month. Unfortunately, a bit of freak weather has left several feet of snow accumulated in the upper reaches of the valley.

We arrived from Kathmandu after a two day drive from Danghadhi airport in the far southwest of Nepal. Reaching the small town

of Latinath at the end of the road after a long winding drive, we were met by dancing in the street, as it was the start of the Hindu festival of Holi. Bishnu Pandey and I were joined by local porter, Birendra Singh Bista from Marmate Village. Even though this is a remote region, like many people from this part of Nepal, Birendra has worked abroad. He used to work in India as a security guard for a government telecom company, but the company was privatized and the new owners hired retired Indian army as the guards, so he returned to his home.

We immediately set out hiking, continuing up the valley of the Chemaliya River. We managed to cover only 7.3 km that first afternoon, and we spent the night in a simple tea-house lodge beside the trail in Raobade Village. Tea houses are common along the trail. Since the valley has many villages but not one road, people walk in and out, and all goods are carried in on horses and mules in caravans.

The wind howled and it rained heavily during the night, but the day dawned clear, and we got an early start at 7:00. Soon we were making the “horrible” climb up the steep right face of the valley. Nearing the top, Bishnu and I heard a sharp thud as a falling stone landed near us. Then another stone, about the size of a baseball, went zinging by my head. I estimate it was not less than three meters away. I ducked for cover as

MAIN: First glimpse of the avalanche path ahead.


Bishnu scanned the sloped above, but no more falling rocks came down our way.

At the top of the climb the trail levelled off at about 2400 meters above sea level, winding through villages perched on the steep slopes high above the river. We stopped briefly for lunch at the familiar inn with a pet Himalayan Tahr. There we were joined by our local guide and partner, Dalbahadur Lothyar, and soon set off again, after registering with the local conservation area authority. We had had cloudy weather all day, and as dusk approached and we descended back to 2014, it began to sleet. It felt good to reach the last house, the place I call the Forest Inn, and have a hot meal. We had put in 11 hours of steady walking to cover 21 kilometers, climbing up 1,750 meters. My route recorder app also noted that I had burned an estimated 2,186 kilocalories. It was a good day’s work out, but I was too exhausted to do much more than change into dry clothes, write a few notes and fill my thermos.

The next day dawned clear and cold. Usually we start to travel early, after just a single glass of hot, sweet and spicey masala tea, but today we had a big breakfast of rice, bean soup and spicy vegetable curry. Lotyar and the porter prepared rubber boots for walking on snow by gluing pieces of an old rubber shoe to the bottom as cleats. Bishnu and I spent some time watching a group of Himalayan Langurs above the hut. We saw a large flock of Snow Pigeons. It seemed that the snow above had even forced the Snow Pigeons down the mountain to seek a more suitable climate. A Himalayan Griffin circled the snowy slopes above us.

We set off at 9:45, ascending the valley beside the Chemaliya River, first through sheep pastures and then up into old-growth forests. Repeatedly, the trail climbed up steeply to cross above cliffs that line the river, and then, just as steeply, descended back to the riverside again. I was still feeling the effects of the long day before, plus the added handicap of not being acclimatized to the 2,000 + meters of elevation. And, I had to face it, I was out of shape, paying the price for that week of dumplings and tang yuan in Beijing during the Spring Festival!

As we climbed, we could catch glimpses of a large white flood of snow debouching into the river up ahead. When we reached it, we found a ridge of white in our path that was piled up 100 meters from its base. With Lotyar in the lead kicking steps, we climbed to the top of the snow ridge. From there we could see into the shoot of the avalanche. Scoured by slides, it looked like a giant toboggan run, stretching up into the snow peaks high above us. As we crossed, I cast nervous looks up the shoot, but Bishnu, seemingly unconcerned, stopped on the snow to observe a troop of rare Assamese Macaques that were calmly foraging on the opposite bank of the river.

I was happier when we descended from the snow back into the forest and out of the path of any new snow slides. As we hiked on, however, occasional patches of snow in shady spots became a continuous sheet of snow that gradually deepened until we were calf deep in snow with every step. We found wildlife tracks in the snow, and passed a simple forest shrine beneath an old fir tree. We crossed another avalanche, but it was a smaller one with well-compacted snow. By now, however, the steep climbing and the snow, combined with my lack of stamina, was really slowing me down, to the point that I started to doubt whether we could reach our intended destination before dark. We stopped to discuss our options. I had brought a light one-man tent with me, but the others were counting on reaching a large cave shelter that night. The map showed that it was still 6 kilometers and several hundred meters of climbing ahead.


CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT:Himalayan Griffin circling overhead. A musk deer, one of the first images recovered from our camera traps in Api Nampa. Local guide Lotyar and the author. Avalanche debris covers our path. Looking up the shoot. Holi dancers on the trail.

I suggested that I could stay behind in my tent, but the others would not hear of it. I suggested turning back. Lotyar said he knew where all of the camera traps were placed, and he agreed to bring

them down in a week or two, as soon as the path was clear and the danger of avalanche was reduced. We finally agreed to push on. Bishnu and I had good headlamps, and the two of us could continue to follow the others’ footsteps in the snow after dark if necessary.

A few more steps, however, brought us to a third avalanche. This one was a vast field of loosely compacted snow covering branches and trunks of fallen trees. The loose snow would not support our weight. The porter, in particular, carrying an additional 25 kilograms, was sinking up to his waste with every step. In the end, it was he who called it quits, but this time, there was no discussion. With only three hours of daylight remaining to reach the hut below, we quickly turned around and started back.

I was starting to have second thoughts about wimping out when we saw the fourth avalanche in our path. The shoot was filled with fresh snowballs the size of basketballs and larger. They looked as if they had been rolled down the mountain by playful children intending to make hundreds of snowmen. We did not dally to make snowmen, however. This avalanche had not been here a few hours before when we had climbed up this way. There was no way to know how much more snow was waiting and ready to come down above us.

I was relieved to get across the last of the avalanche shoots and get on the clear trail back to the hut. We had made a good effort, but we had failed. All was not lost, however. Unless they had been swept away, the camera traps were still safe above. No caterpillar fungus collectors were likely to make the trip before Lothyar could retrieve them.

Still, I was disappointed. It was a long trip for nothing. To make matters worse, my route app told me that we had only reached 2,687 meters asl. Our cameras were placed up to 1300 meters above that. And, worse still, as if to mock me, the app claimed I had only expended 203 kilocalories that day.

But then, it was never programmed to account for snow and avalanches.

Post script: On April 25, 2015, after this reports was filed, Nepal was shaken by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter 77 kilometers northwest of the capital, Kathmandu. Avalanches and landslides triggered by the quake caused additional destruction and loss of life, particularly devastating the Lang Tang region near Nepal’s border with Tibet. Thankfully, Professor Mukesh, CERS’s partner in Nepal, has been in touch and reports that he and the team are OK, although “a bit shaken up.” As of this writing, however, more than 8,500 people are known to have perished in that quake and the subsequent aftershocks. CERS has provided modest funding to Professor Mukesh and NEBORS, the Nepalese NGO that he founded, to support their relief efforts.


Over the last couple days, the world, at least the world that is endowed with television, mobile service and modern media, had seen an overflow of news coverage about the devastating earthquake in Nepal. My account here, however, is not redundant, but first-hand and personal.Timeline: 11:50 Kathmandu International Airport. I just strolled out of the airlines lounge and was window shopping at the adjacent DutyFree shop. Momentarily the ground rumbled under me. Within a couple seconds, the earth shook and everything was falling off. People were screaming and scrambling around in chaos. Inside the DutyFree Shop, bottles were freefalling from the shelves. I squatted to the ground, trying to stay away from the glass wall.

There was no doubt in my mind that an earthquake just hit, as I had been through several, the one in Los Angeles in 1994 and Taiwan in 1999. But this one felt particularly long and strong, later confirmed to be 7.8 in magnitude. I got back inside the lounge. Pieces of ceiling fell from place to place. Entire magazine racks fell to the ground. One large piece of ceiling barely missed Berry, sitting on one of the lounge chairs. The place looked like a terrorist had just stormed through.

CAUGHT IN KATHMANDUSurviving a 7.8 earthquake with grace and reflectionsby Wong How Man Bangkok, Thailand

At one corner, a lone monk in saffron red and golden tunic sat peacefully, as if nothing had happened. His only motion was his fingers, counting the beads of his Buddhist rosary. I walked back out and looked around. The entire waiting hall was vacant, even all the immigration counters I had just walked through. Debris and bags lay around. Surprisingly the Emergency door next to the lounge was chained shut, with two, not one, padlocks!

Within minutes, there were several aftershocks and more debris fell down. I urged the calm monk to join the rest of us and leave the building. There was no way to get out except through the gates. By the time we got out, hundreds of passengers and airport staff were already outside where a few airplanes were parked. There was no doubt all outbound flights would be canceled, and inbound flights diverted, as the earthquake might have done major damage to the runway. The airport was hastily declared closed, yet with many of us stranded near the runway.

Every time there was a tremor, the police cordoning us off from the runway would ask all of us to please sit down. Many colorful passengers, especially those from China, were busy taking pictures and selfies. I chose to sit close to the monk who turned out to be from Lhasa, on his way to Bangkok on my same

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Bird on old building. Buddhist shrine survived quake. Hotel pool-side breakfast. Collapsed kiosk in hotel. Hotel guests camping in garden. Street of Kathmandu after quake. Passengers taking refuge at airport runway. Airport lounge with fallen roof. Headline of quake.


by the swimming pool. All other toilets were deemed hazardous as they were inside the main buildings. Drinks and cookies were served before finally the chefs brought out their cooking devices. For dinner, everyone was fed cooked instant noodles.

As more tremors were predicted by the government, and actually delivered from time to time, no one was allowed back into their room for the night. Benches were set up in the garden and guests given towels and blankets to fight the chilling night air. The look of both the garden and the guests was bizarre; we looked like a bunch of refugees or hippies, hunkered down in this five-star hotel. The only other stars were those in the sky looking down at us. Being used to camping as part of my career vocation, I set up a cozy corner slightly away from the crowd, including two garden umbrellas over my bench, just in case. In the middle of the night, rained it did, though only a drizzle.

I was awakened twice during the night, both times by tremors, once at 1am the other 5am. By the second time, I decided it was time to get up and look around. Most guests were still huddled under their blankets over benches or roll-out folding beds. The hotel seemed ghostly quiet at the first light of dawn. But things would never be the same. Many must have died.

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flight. His calmness and praying seemed reassuring. There were plenty of backpackers, as to be expected of tourists with Nepal as destination. One western young lady sat next to us, with her eyes closed and two hands manipulating calm air as if in deep meditation. Maybe she was readying herself to take flight. Kathmandu, in the shadow of the Himalayas, must host many such soul-searching souls.

It took hours before airline officials informed some of us that our flight had been canceled, and ushered us through immigration counters with no one attending, re-entering the country with no stamp or visa, and back to the check-in counter. There we searched through luggage piles to locate our own and were soon outside the airport where hundreds were stranded trying to get in. I was lucky to find a tiny taxi, and we got back to the Dwariska Hotel, a five-star outfit where I had stayed the night before. Along the way, few cars were running whereas a lot of people were walking in every direction.

Back at the hotel, there was no way to get back into a room. All guests were asked to vacate the building and converged at a garden space a bit away from the structure. This hotel was like an edifice of exquisite Nepalese historical architecture, with wooden engraving and motifs throughout. Some damages had been incurred, but it seemed the structure was relatively safe. Yet the Nepalese owner had been asked by the government to ensure that all people leave the inside of the buildings, for safety and in case of further quakes and aftershocks. More tremors did hit throughout the evening and into the night.

The suite where I had stayed the night before was intact. But directly below my corner window was a collapsed bar kiosk. The roof had crashed to the ground, taking with it the pastry and drink bar below. All electricity was gone and one auxiliary generator was set up to help charge phone batteries. Guests of the entire hotel depended on one toilet


Given the city’s crowded districts and that many houses were more like sheds and home-built brick/mortar houses, I feared for the worst for many of Kathmandu’s citizens, let alone those in mountain enclave villages to where help could hardly get.

By 6am, our hotel managed to set up a pool-side breakfast table, with basic fruit juices, bread and cereal. I felt it was a preciously good meal, despite having been living a camp life for decades of my career. Tremors came and went. We heard that the airport was reopened and a few guests with morning flights left to try their luck. By 10am, the hotel got us a taxi and we too left for the airport. The crowd there was beyond description as the building, outside and inside was jam-packed.

After almost two hours of lining up, we finally checked in our luggage and proceeded to immigration and the gate. In the past, I had been baffled by Nepal’s immigration form, having three boxes behind the space for name listing male, female and other. For once, I felt like putting a tick as “other”. The immigration officer thought nothing of my staying a day over my one-day transit visa. They were just eager to get passengers out of the country, tourists in main. Inside the terminal buildings, all shops remained close, including the lounge with all the falling ceilings from a day ago.

There was a Thai Airways plane sitting at the gate, dispatched from Bangkok to take all of us from yesterday’s flight out of Nepal. The Lhasa monk was there in front of us, sitting in a wheelchair. He smiled as he recognized me. His wheelchair had given him much priority and he came through without joining the long line and crowd. Around 1pm, we finally boarded our plane.

While waiting inside the plane, another big aftershock hit, later said to be 6.7 in scale, enough to be considered a major quake on its own. Everyone inside the terminal building at the gates was shepherded out onto the tarmac again. Finally at 2pm, the cabin door closed and we were given permission to take off. As the plane was pushed out, I could see another huge Indian Air Force cargo plane sitting next to us. Supplies were pulled

out of its drop-down backdoor, including crates of bottled water and huge bags of instant noodles. Passengers including women in Indian dress were lining up to board, obviously evacuation organized by the Indian government.

As our airplane moved towards the runway, I could see many other military planes parked nearby, including more planes from India and a few from Pakistan. There were also many helicopters readying for take-off and some coming in for landing. We finally took off on the runway and once airborne, I could see the city below with crowded dwellings. In between wherever there were open spaces like parks or empty lots, tents of various sizes in blue or orange were erected. These were obviously temporary dwellings for those displaced or moved out of their houses in case of imminent collapse.

As I finally landed in Bangkok, I rushed to dinner with a first-time friend whom I was scheduled to meet three times before, but failed each time due to circumstances, the last being the night before. Richard Blum is founder of the American Himalayan Foundation, set up over 30 years ago to offer assistance to the Himalayan region. With him were his colleagues including Norbu Tenzing, son of Tenzing Norgay of Everest. Norbu’s father and Edmond Hillary were the first on the summit of Everest, in 1953. Both devoted the rest of their lives to the welfare of the Sherpa’s of Nepal. As I was rushing out of Nepal, Blum and Norbu were waiting to fly in, in order to help and console the many friends they have made over the years in that country.

Such dangerous endeavor made me reflect on something that happened earlier the same day. When I was squeezed among a huge crowd trying to enter the airport in Kathmandu, from behind came a voice, “please make way, please make way.” I looked around and saw an airline staff leading a line of several blind ladies trying to enter the airport building. Everyone quickly shoved themselves to the side and made a passage for these special passengers.

Perhaps without their sight, they felt a little less unfortunate at this time of anguish and anxiety during one of the most trying times for the people of this mountain kingdom. Many of us endowed with vision and other senses have become more and more sightless and insensitive to the human tragedies around us. While our own project in the westernmost part of Nepal is small in scale, we hope to leave a positive impact in this country, compared to the devastating impact from nature that we must learn to live with. May those who died rests in peace, and those of us living gather strength and resilience for a brighter future, yet not forget that every single day we live by the grace of nature and higher forces.

CLOCKWISE:Indian and Pakistan relief planes. Dining in Bangkok. Pilgrims evacuated at airport.


Located in far northwestern Yunnan, the Dulongjiang Range is one of the most remote areas in China. The region is separated from the outside world by Mt. Dandanglika in the west and Mt. Gaoligong in the east. No roads, only dangerous trails, connect it to outside. It takes three-days for the one way climb over the natural barrier of Mt. Gaoligong pass, where the hostile conditions have caused many deaths, including scientific expedition personnel before 1999. The Dulong River, a major tributary of the Ayeyarwaddy, cuts through the region directly from north to south. In the flatter places along the river lives a mysterious ethnic group, the

ADVENTURE TO DULONGJIANG REGION: AN UNSPOILED PLACE IN NORTHWEST YUNNANCheng Huang, Doctoral candidate and Xueyou Li, PhDKunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of SciencesField work supported in part by CERS

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Dulong People. The Dulong are one of the rarest ethnic groups in China, with about 7,000 people according to the 6th national population census completed in 2010. The Dulongjiang Range is their main residential area.

MAIN: This humble church could hold 40 persons at Xiongdang. The small house on the left is a kitchen room for Christians.

CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 16 CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY

I trekked four times into the area in the past year for mammal surveys and inventory. This area impressed me a lot by its biodiversity and unique culture.

A biodiversity hotspot

The Dulongjiang Range is part of the Hengduan Mountain Range. As the result of erosion of big rivers over geological time, the terrain is characterized by steep mountains and complicated landforms. Because of the high vertical elevation differences, vegetation cover in the area is diverse with high heterogeneity. Most of the area is remote and difficult to access due to the complex terrain. The less-disturbed areas harbor a diverse mammal community. We used camera traps to study medium to large sized mammal in the Dulongjiang Range between October 2014 and April 2015. Fortunately, our traps captured the Gaoligong Takin (Budorcus taxicolor), an endangered ungulates with large body size.

We interviewed forest patrollers and local farmers, and they gave us information on the distribution of some endangered mammal species, like Capped Langur (Trachypithecus pileatus), Red Goral (Naemorhedus baileyi) and Gongshan Muntjac (Muntiacus gongshanensis).

Unspoiled culture

Rapid infrastructure construction is going on, but the Dulong People’s’s traditional virtues still remain, such as their rainbow-style costumes and their hospitality. They will invite travelers to their log house, sit around the huotang (a fire pit for cooking, warning and also entertaining), serve brick tea (like the nearby Tibetans’) and bake potatoes for visitors. In addition, the Dulong particularly prefer home-made corn liquor to share with others. They have many unique styles of drinking, of which the Xiala style especially shocked me. Even the old woman with tattooed face would hold a big wine bowl to toast with the guests.

Face-Tattoo

Tattoo has a long history in China, however the tattooed face is endemic in the Dulongjiang Range among the Dulong people. Nowdays, only 60 women with facial tattoos are still living, all more than 60 years of age. This custom has been forbidden by the modem Chinese governments for its harm to women, but was common before the 1950s. No confirmed evidence explains when and why this custom came into being. Typically, there are five reasons given: for beauty, to be distinct from other minorities, to avoid being enslaved by the Lisu and Tibetans, as a sign of adulthood, and as religious worship. In my view, the religious reason - butterfly worship - is the most romantic explanation, but avoiding being enslaved is the most realistic.

CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 17CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 17

Collecting and hunting

Several decades ago, the Dulong people were often short of food for one third of a year in the wet monsoon season, because the land in the Dulongjiang Range region is poor, barren and steep and could not support enough cultivated plants. Therefore the local people rely deeply on natural resources. Collection of non-timber forest products is a principal source of cash income. For example they collect precious Chinese herbal medicines during late March to early October, including Paris spp. and Coptis spp., and also more than 100 species of edible wild herbs. Recently, collecting herbal medicine has attracted fierce criticism for its unsustainable manner that may in result exhaustion of the resources in future.

Protein intake is essential for human-beings, however, the Dulong people’s livestock numbers and types are limited. That is why they are used to hunting mammals deep in the jungle using crossbow or traps, and to fishing by use of a simple net. That is, of course, before the establishment of Nujiang Provincial Nature Reserve. During a field interview, an experienced hunter said that his extended family could hunt 70 medium to large mammals in a year during the 1930s, which could support 12 family members for 6 months. This included takin, blue sheep and muntjac. Nowdays the medium to large mammal populations have become very low and they are protected by law. So the main prey now are small mammals, such as flying squirrels and bamboo rats.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:Rainy field work in October 2014 in the Dulongjiang Range. Local field guides, wearing leggings and knife and carrying big bamboo baskets by their forehead, cross a cable bridge. A face-tattooed centenarian at Mudang in the Dulongjiang Range. She is in good spirits and still can do lots of housework. An adult Gaoligong Takin passing down the trail was caught by infrared sensitive camera on November 24, 2014. When the meat is almost cooked, add wine, about 0.5kg/person. Then light the surface for a while to “clean the dust.”

Xiala

In Canton, people like to host guests by serving an elegant soup. The Dulong people instead mix wine and meat. They call it ‘Xiala’. What’s more interesting to me was the meat, which could be chicken, rat, bat, squirrel and everything else they catch.

Religion

Religious diversity is rich in northwestern Yunnan, as was shown in Delamu (a documentary film about the ancient tea route). In the Dulongjiang Range, the influence of animism was widespread and lasted for long time, until the late Qing dynasty when Christian missionaries came in. There are still many old churches that were built at that time, such as Chongding Church in Bingzhongluo, Gongshan. Until 2001, the Christians among the Dulong people accounted for more than 10% of the total population. Interestingly, the followers donate not only money and labor to build the community church, but also pigs and rice from poor families.

In a few words, the Dulong People are pure, honest and hospitable. Most importantly, their living conditions are poor and their livelihood strategies are limited. More attention should be paid to promote their economic development and to improve their living conditions.


“That is a very auspicious sign,” said Lama Neten with a sliver of smile, finally. It seemed at last we had broken the ice as he looked very serious and solemn when I first met him the night before, at a home down the hill. Though only 49 years of age, his demeanor was like that of an old teacher. After all, he is the abbot of a monastery with 120 monks, most of them boys. And they reside in this monumental castle of Gasa Dzong, the seat of one of the twenty Dzongkhags (Districts) of Bhutan and the northernmost, largest and highest of all the Districts. Below him, but above him in elevation, he controls another twenty smaller sub-monasteries, most sitting at dizzying height of the plateau bordering Tibet.

The architecture of Gasa Dzong, one of the oldest of the Dzongs dates from the mid 17th Century, with an impressive edifice rising above the surrounding forest at a spur, with a majestic snow range as backdrop. It looks out to yet another range of snow peaks, one of which rose like a monument of ice sculpture. I chose to come to Gasa based on a study of the satellite images just a few days ago when I was in Bangkok. The images showed that the area has an abundance of glaciers on the southern slope of the Himalayas, with high pastures among which I could expect to find yak herders roaming. I changed my entire itinerary of travels overnight, and landed in Bhutan heading straight to Gasa.

As I arrived at the monastery, I recounted to Lama Neten that I ran into three stag deer on my approach to the monastery, running off to two sides

BLUE SKY, WHITE PEAKS AND GREEN HILLSAnd audience with Her Majesty the Royal Grandmother of Bhutanby Wong How Man

Paro, Bhutan


of the road as if making way for me. I even captured in pictures one of the deer, a huge stag with a set of large anthers, looking at me from behind the trees. Lama Neten seemed surprised by my account, and mentioned that they usually only see the deer at night, almost never during day time.

Through Yeshi, our guide/interpreter who is an avid birdwatcher, the Lama related my encounter to a Buddhist story of the Tibetan saint Milarepa. While in meditative retreat, Milarepa was approached by a frightened stag deer being chased by a hunter and his dog. He managed to pacify both the dog and the hunter with compassion, and the deer was saved. This episode became an often-told story within Tibetan Buddhism.

Perhaps Lama Neten really believed in the omen of my visit. We had a great and warm chat thereafter, despite that soon he had to rush off to receive the Governor of Gasa District, making one of his rare visits to the monastery. But before we parted ways, I agreed to help the monastery with a new building that just started construction. Its purpose is to house a new school for the monks and lay children of the area, learning English at an early age.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Snow mountain of Gasa Dzong. Castle of Punakha Dzong. White-bellied Heron. A Stag Deer. Bago’s old house below Gasa Dzong monastery. Gasa Dzong, now a monastery, with impressive snow range as backdrop.

The government has provided the building costs, but nothing for the interior furnishing or equipment. Lama Neten had been most busy, traveling throughout his District in order to raise the money needed to complete the project. I promised to find him a Buddhist patron among my friends, as well as providing matching fund from CERS if necessary. In scale, the project is not too ambitious and quite modest, and it would pave the way with good will for many exciting projects I wanted to start in the surrounding area.

A road was just completed to the Dzong two years ago. Prior to that, it might have taken several days of trekking or on horseback to reach here. These days, the famous hot spring down by the river is visited everyday by Bhutanese from far and wide. Many cross the entire country, riding in cars on rough roads for two days to reach this famous medicinal spring enclave.

Five bath houses sit next to the river, including a walled and gated one for the Royal family. I took a dip with all the locals, together with many of the elderly ladies baring their tops. It seemed most natural, in a country where nature still reigns. Matching all the hype

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about Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness, everyone seemed particularly contented, especially while soaking in the hot spring.

Indeed my experience here had been most calm and relaxed. Our driver Shacha was extremely polite, driving slowly and carefully, even when we were on paved roads. Whenever he noticed us raising the camera, he would stop the car. At one point when a calf was frightened and parted with the herd, Shacha stopped his car, got out, and tried to usher the calf back to the mother.

We had one picnic lunch together by a clear mountain stream rushing by, with the white rhododendron in full bloom. Both Yeshi and Shacha ate quietly with us, showing utmost respect and modesty which made us a bit uncomfortable. They barely touched the dishes we shared, and ate two plates of plain red rice each, with simple spicy curried sauce over it.

While my focus in Bhutan is fixated on the high plateau, its flora, fauna and yak herders, it has to wait until we can build up enough local contacts to execute such projects. My personal interest relates to the yak herders’ culture, which in recent years has been much affected by the meteoric rise in prices of Cordyceps, a high altitude caterpillar fungus believed to have medicinal value for Chinese and Asians alike. Even the traditional means of dairy production has been sidelined, with it much of the age-old nomadic values, both in economic, cultural and spiritual terms.

This trip can be considered a reconnaissance for future trips to come, establishing some connections so that we can initiate multiple projects in the near future, covering a diverse range of disciplines. One such project may manifest itself sooner than I expected.

Just below the Dzong monastery of Gasa, I had dinner at a home in a small village with only five households. The house of Bago is sixty-five years old, soon to be torn down to make way for a new house the family wants to build. Bago’s own age was listed on his ID card with birthdate as January 1, 1942. He thought he is older, though in those days, no one really recorded their birth date. We wanted to convince the family to preserve this wonderful traditional house, hopefully to be used as a future base of our operation into the high plateau. The worn wood, walls, ladders and all were like whispers from the past, telling tales of a time gone by. It also looks out to a most beautiful scenery, with the Dzong castle rising behind, the snow range and peaks in a distance, and green hills and valleys below.

The family even has in their chapel, one of the most important relics of Bhutan. One shoe, in red and with embroidered shell, was bestowed on ancestors of Bago’s wife, by Ngawang Namgyel, the first Zhabdrung Rinpoche who came to Bhutan in 1616AD when he was exiled from Tibet. He was considered the founder of Bhutan. With luck and blessing, we hope to save this particular house from demolition, and maintain it into the future with some useful and positive role.

As if the encounter with the stag deer was not enough of a good omen, while driving back to the capital of Thimphu on the same morning, I ran into a beautiful bright green snake of over two meters in length. Just moments later, two Assamese Macaque monkeys crossed the

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Young monks of Gasa Dzong. Royal Grand Mother, her sister Tashi and nephew Dasho Benji, with How Man at Her Royal Palace. Neten Lama of Gasa Dzong. Picnic along the road. Princess Kesang showing a thangka gift of the 13th Dalai Lama. Monks and guests of the Restoration Center. Monks of Gasa Dzong.


road in front of us. As we descended down to Phojikha, before reaching Punakha Dzong with a most impressive castle, I spotted the rarest of birds, the White-bellied Heron. There may be less than thirty birds remaining in all of Bhutan. It is also one of the most endangered birds in the world with perhaps less than two hundred birds worldwide. Capturing it with my camera, though like a silhouette at a distance, was the epitome and most satisfying moment of the entire trip. By now, I have caught on even culturally, having my head shaking from side to side, as we rode through bumps and hitches over the unpaved road.

Topping all these, however, was during my final day in Thimphu, I had an audience with Her Majesty the Royal Grandmother. At 85 years of age, she is the only Royal Grandmother

in the world. We met six years ago when I first visited Bhutan in 2009, accompanying her on a yearly religious offering journey to some of the most important monasteries, making blessing for the Royal Family and the people of Bhutan.

On this day, however, our meeting was in her beautiful Royal Palace, up on the hill above Thimphu. Joining us at the meeting was her 91-years-old sister Tashi, and her nephew Dasho Benji, an older gentleman who is a most knowledgeable naturalist and has been crucial in establishing many of Bhutan’s environmental and nature protection policies. Benji’s multiple portfolio included serving as the country’s Chief Justice in the 1980s.

With the Royal Grand Mother and her sister, both Princesses of Sikkim, we had a wonderful discussion, over tea and some delicately home-made snack. The two sisters reminisced their younger days. In Kalimpong, their father entertained many early explorers on their way to Lhasa in Tibet. Besides big names like Alexandra David-Neel, one particular gentleman the aging sisters are most fond of and talked about at length was Dr Joseph Rock, my predecessor at the National Geographic who contributed many stories to the magazine between the 1920s to the 40s. I promised to send to the Royal Grandmother books on Dr Rock that I have in my library.

Select guests of their family included, for six months, the 13th Dalai Lama when he was in exile from Tibet. As a token of appreciation, the family was given a rare Thangka by his Holiness, which today is in the possession of the Royal Grandmother. I was later shown this rare piece of art by Princess Ashi Kesang Choeden Wangchuk, a favorite granddaughter of the Royal Grandmother, notable through bearing exactly the same name as her grandmother. She is also a cousin of the current King. Sometimes known as the Baby Kesang, she is now in charge of the Thangka Restoration Center, staffed by monks of Bhutan, and devotes her entire time and energy to this very important undertaking.

With her soft and tender hand holding mine, the Royal Grandmother and I chatted over many subjects endearing to her heart. Educated by Jesuits of the St Joseph Convent at Kalimpong, she later studied in the UK. After marrying the Third King of Bhutan, she has been a wonderful patron to all the monasteries of the country, making sure that they receive adequate funding and support, including restoring many religious sites to their former glory. Her latest project is of monumental proportion, supporting over the years publication of the murals and Thangkas on Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), founder of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

As a parting gift, Her Majesty signed for me, with golden ink, that very important religious volume on Guru Rinpoche, as best wishes to my future endeavor in her beloved country. I asked for Her Majesty’s Royal blessing to our projects, just as a small child would need blessing, until he gets older and take on a life of his own. I noted to her that this important work is not a coffee table book, but an object of spiritual dimension that would take up a place of honor in the private chapel at my home in Hong Kong.

This morning, we had a sprinkle of spring shower, and the high mountains were clothed in a shade of fresh snow. In a few months I hope to return, when the sky is blue, the peaks are white, and the hills green.


SHAKE-DOWN CRUISE OF HM EXPLORER 2 by Wong How Man

Palawan, Philippines

“Just take out the H and the N,” I curtly suggested to Bill. I was referring to the name stitched on our China Explorer caps. Next thing I knew, Bill used a red pen and painted over his hat with a CERS logo. Within a minute, the yellow lettering on red had the H and N merged into the background. We both nodded approvingly as now it read, “CIA Explorer” rather than “CHINA Explorer”. Before long, my cap had the same two letters removed by cutting out the stitches. The alteration should serve us well!

“It’s all your fault,” I protested as Bill laughed at my intrigue. “I got the idea reading the book you just gave me on Wild Bill Donovan,” I rationalized. He had bought me the book on the cheap at a second-hand bookstore in Robinsons Place, a new mall in Puerto Princesa. The book on the New York Times Best Seller List was about the man who founded the OSS, short for Office of Strategic Services, during the Second World War. The OSS became the predecessor of the CIA, and Donovan is considered the father of it all. It became a nest of a worldwide web of intelligence and espionage secret agents. Reading it gave me many insights, and some inspirations.

The cap and what seemed a joke had its real-life practicality. We were working in Palawan, the southernmost province of the Philippines edging on the disputed Spratly Islands. No one would entertain seeing a bunch of Chinese (eight in our team of ten are Chinese), poking our heads around, both at sea and in caves. Zhang Fan

led a team of CERS cavers from Yunnan, and I am here to launch our shake-down cruise of an outrigger boat we intend to use for study of marine life, headed by our head scientist Dr. Bill Bleisch.

It didn’t help that the Philippines military forces had just finished a ten-day joint exercise with the United States Forces, noted by many military observers as a show of force and unity regarding the contested Spratly Islands. Before our arrival, I had reached out to several friends with high-level connections in the Philippines. One friend living in the U.S. introduced me to the security consultant of the current Palawan Governor Jose Alvarez. Perhaps due in part to our exploratory status at a sensitive time, I had difficulties reaching out to him. I could not blame him for not hosting a group of strangers like us. On the second day of our arrival, Palawan, including its capital Puerto Princesa, was all quiet. Everyone was at home watching TV or listening to the radio covering the fight between their much-loved native son Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Just a day before, I saw at the airport an entire Air Asia plane painted with “Manny Pacquiao” as its livery. Despite that Filipino men like betting, no one seemed to be betting on Mayweather. That evening, the mood seemed gloomier than the dark clouds over the horizon. Perhaps the weather in May was good for Mayweather; he defeated Pacquiao in points and was declared the champion with a streak of 48 wins.


While Pacquiao was still licking his wound and injured pride, another fight was looming as we pulled out to sea the next day. With the radio on board crackling like another boxing match, our crew was listening eagerly to a Recall election with ex-mayor Hagedorn challenging the incumbent Bayron. By night fall, the match was again settled, this time with Bayron retaining his seat with some 5000 votes over his challenger, an approximately 60-40 win. This time around, many men won money, as betting was severe.

Jocelyn, my long-time Filipino helper, became our project manager during the time we were in Palawan. She was crucial in helping me choreograph our two-week escapade here. Her home by Honda Bay, naturally, became our temporary base. Near to her house, we saw many roadside shops putting up posters rallying support for each of their own choice of candidate. Even my team had gotten familiar with the faces of both Hagedorn and Bayron. The following day, I noticed one shop had both candidates’ faces posted outside the house. It may seem strange, but not that strange when we realize how politics work, like donating to both parties in the U.S. election.

At Robinsons Place, Bill found a store specializing in solar equipment. I rushed over to the store and had my Solar Impulse moment. In short order, I decided we must rig up a system for our new boat, the 21-meter HM Explorer 2. Talking to Castriciano the manager, I realized a panel size of 67cm x148cm would offer 120W of power stored in a deep cycle 12V battery. Through an inverter, it would provide enough juice to run all the lighting and charging of electric appliances; mobile phones, computers, camera and filming equipment, even an electric fan for my tiny sleeping compartment. Furthermore, the size of the panel would fit perfectly above our open-air toilet and could shade us from the torching sun. It turned out to be a wonderful investment.

While waiting for all the final installation, my team and I went off on an overnight drive and excursion to El Nido in the north of Palawan. It is known as the most popular tourist destination because of the exquisite scenery of limestone hills jutting out of the ocean.

The pristine water offers perfect locations for diving and snorkeling among the many coral reefs and sandy beaches.

The following evening, May 6, we were finally out at sea. Just as the ocean receded at low tide at dusk, we waded out to the HM Explorer 2 anchored off shore and boarded our boat. Provision for the next several days were towed out on our two Zodiac inflatable boats that we imported when we flew into the Philippines. Together with two 4HP Yamaha outboard motors, they accounted for much of the 450 kg of luggage; recorded as we paid over HKD17000 for excess weight. Finally these excess baggage were

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:Calm morning in Palawan. A sea eagle looking at the world up-side-down. Star fish at sunset and low tide. Calm bay at El Nido. Misty El Nido morning. Dr Bleisch photographing in clear water. A banded tropical fish. Explorer with new cap. New CERS logo disturbing water. Dr Bleisch modified hat.

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paying us back. They were later to serve as the most convenient tenders to off-shore islands or during multiple dives when our mother ship lay anchored.

Registration of the boat remained a monumental task. There was an array of registration categories. We decided HM Explorer 2 should be under private/fishing/passenger multiple usages. We were asked to explain where HM Explorer 1 was, which of course is based in Myanmar. It could take up to six months or more to acquire all the permits for us to roam freely around the extended coastline of Palawan. All coast guard stations had already been informed that the HM Explorer II was not yet registered. But for now, the marine office would keep an eye closed if we were to test the boat only near its home base. That would allow us to make some island hopping in the vicinity, nonetheless offering spectacular opportunities for snorkeling, with its many islands, coral reefs and beaches.

Over the next three days and nights, we sailed and lived on board the HM Explorer 2. There were ten of us in our team in addition to five crew members handling the operations of the boat. Fishing with line became the most frequent preoccupation, with us sustained on our own catch. There was one occasion when Bill and I took a Zodiac and went shopping from tiny fishing boats floating around the ocean. From three such boats we managed to buy five octopuses for a pittance of 50 pesos each, the equivalent of barely US One Dollar. But without installation of high power fishing lights, we could not yet head far out to sea for the tuna, for which the season had just started.

I always felt that fishermen going out to sea leave home with hope, for a great harvest, whereas families staying behind waited with anxiety for their safe return. For me, my anxiety to go after the tuna was building up to an obsession. I used to live above Pasadena in a mountain cabin outside of Los Angeles. One of my neighbors who occasionally stayed up in the Angeles National Forest was famed Nobel physicist Richard Feynman of Caltech. I remember the book “Tuva or Bust” about his obsession, after seeing a postage stamp, to reach a little-known place in Soviet Central Asia. For me however it will be “Tuna or Bust”. I will not give up until I see firsthand the Palawan fishermen pulling up one of those huge tuna at sea, reportedly weighing up to150 kilogram. But until we have our boat totally outfitted and registered, my much anticipated episode would have to wait. Besides, for now, the forecast predicted a typhoon on its way. Zhang Fan’s team of cave explorers finally had their first flavor of climbing on May 10 when we embarked on another excursion to nearby karst hills. Limestone formation are everywhere throughout Palawan but one major concentration falls in the vicinity of the Underground River at Sabang, a World Heritage Site. Many tourists flock here because of the UNESCO designation.

Our team first visited a cave open for tourism, the Ugong Rock. Small in scale yet offering novices some experience of climbing, the excursion ended with a thrilling ride on a zip line from high up the rock to the valley below. It was nice to know that such tourism features were owned by the community, with proceeds shared by those living in nearby villages. Unlike in China, where such


CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:HM Explorer 2. Dining on deck. Puff Fish. Loading for voyage. Dogs at El Nido resort town. Our abode at Jocelyn’s home. Dining chamber. Octopus for dinner. Air Asia with Manny Pacquiao livery.

natural assets, while supposedly owned by the state, are often farmed out with favorable terms by corrupt officials to unworthy business operators who pay the highest bribe. We heard of many extensive cave systems in the neighborhood and promised to return shortly.

We stayed that night at the beach-front Tribal Lodge, advertised on its sign as the beautiful and budget resort. With cottages facing the ocean, the Spratly is only some two hundred kilometers to our west. Next door to our lodge was the Daluyon Resort, and further down the beach is the posh Sheridan Beach Resort. Those two resorts charged US140 and US175 per night for their cheapest room respectively, compared to our paltry total of 6500 pesos (US150) for taking up seven of the eight rooms at the Tribal.

We literally took up the entire lodge, including its restaurant and kitchen, ordering seafood in abundance. The feast for dinner included grilled sting ray and garoupa, sautéed and fried squid, and an assortment of other fish. It gave me tremendous pleasure, knowing that our deal also gave us use of the same beach as the pricey resorts next door, breathing the same sea breeze, and enjoying the same perfect sunset, but for a fraction of the price.

When I come back and get on the HM Explorer 2 again, it will no longer be a shake-down cruise. I will begin exploring over 1700 islands off the shore of Palawan; coral reef, tropical fish, sea turtles, bird’s nest, caves and all. As Jacque Cousteau noted near the end of his life-long career in exploring the ocean, Palawan offers one of the best arrays of marine life and ecosystems for a marine biologist. And for an explorer like me, it would offer a paradise of kaleidoscopic proportion.


Back on the boat, I found myself spontaneously bursting into song, singing all the sea shanties I could remember at the top of my voice.

My father was a fisherman all of his life;And he courted a mermaid one fine night;And out of this union, there came three;A porgy and a sea horse, and then there’s me!

We were on the island of Palawan, the southwestern frontier of the Philippines. For our first explorations, we had come to El Nido on the northern tip of the island, traveling by car instead of boat, a change plans at the last minute when it became clear that our new CERS research vessel, the HM Explorer 2, would take months to register. Without our own boat, we were constrained to join one of the tourist circuits. “Today you are doing tours A and C,” declared the tour guide, before he quickly rattled off the names of our destinations. He was obviously all too-familiar after many repeated trips. The beaches and near shore were crowded with visitors, mostly young Filipinos from the city, together with a few trendy young European and Asian tourists. But once I got in the water, I found that I was only occasionally dodging a dog-paddler in a life buoy or a bikini-clad swimmer on the surface. I eased my body and my mind into the smooth flow of breathing through a snorkel tube and began to enjoy the view. The cares and worries of the last few weeks seemed to wash away as I slowly moved my fins and the warm sea water began flowing over my body. I started to take in the view. The clear warm water was underlain by reefs of multi-coloured corals between towering cliffs of karst limestone. I was in my own world.

SINGING THE OCEAN BLUESMusings on fish and commitment while floating in the Sulu Seaby William Bleisch, PhD

Palawan, The Philippines


And what a world it was! I had studied scuba and coral reef natural history every weekend during two years when I worked for the Sabah Wildlife Department in northern Borneo. I managed to find the time then for several dives on Sipadan Island, one of the world’s top diving sites. Since then, I had not had the time or the money to go back. My one dive in Hong Kong was a disappointment of cold murky water and few fish.

El Nido was my return to paradise. Snorkeling even in the shallows allowed close up looks into the lives of dozens of species of brightly coloured fish. I watched a pair of Clark’s Anemonefish dart in and out of the tentacles of their host. When I entered Secret Lagoon through a tunnel in the rock, a Regal Angelfish with startling colours hid below in shadows. Despite my best effort, I could not get a clear picture of its blue and yellow splendor. But a Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse serviced a patient Checkerboard Wrasse, picking off parasites in return for a free meal from the gleanings. Our guide showed me the location of a well-camouflaged Reef Stonefish lucking under an overhang in the coral, its dangerous venomous dorsal spines the only obvious part of its body.

After those first glorious dives, it was hard to get me out of the water. I snorkeled in five more sites at El Nido during our one day visit, then grabbed every chance again during the new few days after our return to Peurto Princessa and Honda Bay on the east coast of Palawan. We took out our own CERS boat on its unofficial launch in the Bay. Although all stations had been informed that the HM Explorer 2 was NOT registered yet, there was an unofficial understanding that we could travel about in the near shore waters near its home base.

At Honda Bay, there were many undeveloped reefs to explore and many more new species of fish to discover. Diving deeper and longer as my confidence returned, I saw more and more. I came across a Fringe-eyed Flathead, another master of camouflage, resting on top of a coral head at about 5 meters below. In the coral rubble, a Dendritic Jawfish had constructed a burrow by tossing out stones one by one. This brave little fish guarded the entrance to its tube, keeping a wary eye on me. I later learned that the male, not the female, broods the eggs, keeping them safe in his mouth without eating anything for days until they

hatch. Nearby, a Reeftop Pipefish, patterned to match the rubble bottom, crept along in slow motion, its tube-like mouth revealing is close relationship to the well-known sea horse. Like the Jawfish, it is the male pipefish that broods the eggs, carrying them under his abdomen.

An even odder family arrangement emerged from an anemone, which was host to what I

sCLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:A pair of Twotone Tang, Zebrasoma scopas. Five-banded Seargent Major, Abudefduf vaigiensis. Blue and Gold Scissortail Fusilier, Caesio caerulaurea. Blue-striped Surgeonfish, Acanthurus lineatus. A pair of Spinecheek Anemonefish, Premnas biaculeatus. Moorish Idol, Zanclus cornutus. Nido sea and clouds.


thought were two more species of anemonefish. One sported the classic orange and white pattern of the cartoon Nemo, while the other was larger and dark. The two species seemed oddly congenial, sharing the same anemone in peace, but I thought little of it until I checked the field guide later. There I learned that “the female of the Spinecheek Anemonefish is usually 2 to 3 times the size of the male and less brilliant.” So the large drab fish was the female of the pair! Odder still, the book informed me that the small male can change sex to become a female, should the opportunity arise.

Cleaner fish, poison fish, camo fish, transgender fish! Not to mention the diversity of invertebrate life – the starfish, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, sea squirts, snails, clams, crabs, hermit crabs, jellyfish, anemones, and the multi-coloured corals themselves. There were Chocolate Chip Sea Stars and cobalt blue Linckia Sea and armless Cushion Stars, and the long thin body of a Banded Sea Cucumber writhing like a snake on the bottom. Banded Featherdusters yanked their rosettes into their holes when I approached, and the white animated tentacles of a Spaghetti Worm squirmed over a coral while its body hid in a crevice. Giant clams, their shells buried in the corals, poked out their rainbow coloured mantles.

Later, diving in a sea grass bed, I followed several Sea Wasp Jellyfish at a respectful distance, fascinated as they throbbed to stay in the line of the current. This species is the most dangerous jellyfish in the world, and it causes fatalities almost every year. An entirely new class of neurotoxins was just discovered in its venom. This is the kind of stuff that makes a naturalist’s heart race.

Later, as we ate a lunch of freshly caught fish, it was Howman who shook me from my ecstasy and reminded me that all is not well in paradise. “How come the coral here is not colourful like in the other reefs?” he asked. I thought I knew the answer – coral bleaching - and it reminded me of the tragedy looming for all of those of us who love coral reefs and their life. Coral bleaching was first described in 1984. By ten years later, it was being seen regularly in Asia and throughout the tropics. Careful comparison of bleaching events with sea water temperatures revealed that bleaching was associated with water temperatures that were above the maximum experienced by the reef in a typical year. Global sea temperatures rose measurably over the last decades, and there is now no question that this is the result of humans digging up gigatons of fossil fuel each year and dumping the waste carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This has made the bleaching events more common and more frequent.

The mechanism of coral bleaching is now known, too. When the individual coral polyps become stressed, they may eject or digest the algae that live symbiotically inside their bodies. It is these algae, in many varieties, that give the corals their various colours. Bleaching also leaves the coral more vulnerable to other stressors, and repeated bleaching can lead to whole scale death of the coral organisms. With the death of the coral, the entire ecosystem that depends on the coral habitat changes dramatically. The multi-coloured fish disappear, and the numbers of animals and the diversity of species plummet.

My last dives were bittersweet, not only because I knew that we would soon have to go, but also because I became more attentive and aware of the many threats to the reefs and


the world of life that they support. Near one of the best reefs was a vast bone-yard of dead staghorn coral, seemingly empty of life. The evidence of overfishing was obvious. There were no big fish and very few groupers or parrotfish. Overturned coral heads and cracked branching coral showed the impact of past boat collisions and anchor dragging. The tops of coral heads were mostly dead where human feet had trodden. Much of the reef appeared to have been smothered by sediment washed off from agricultural development and road construction sites near the shore. As I swam, I thought about other threats to the reefs that were less obvious but somehow even more frightening. These were driven by actions taken by people who lived far away, and yet they could destroy even the most remote and best protected reefs. I was thinking, of course, about the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide that has occurred since the start of the industrial revolution. This has not only increased global sea temperatures through the infamous greenhouse effect, but it is also causing the acidification of the oceans, as higher carbon dioxide leads to higher carbonic acid concentrations in the seas. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that the acidity of the oceans’ surface waters has increased by approximately 30% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The full impacts on coral reefs is

CLOSEWISE FROM LEFT:A venomous Reef Stonefish (Synanceia verrucosa) lurks under an overhang.A Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) services a female Checkerboard Wrasse (Halichoeres hortulanus). Banded Feather Duster, Sabellastarte spectabilis. Giant clam, Tridacna sp. The highly venomous Sea Wasp Jellyfish, Chironex sp. Reeftop Pipefish, Corythoichthys haematopterus. Dendtric Jawfish, Opistognathus dendriticus. Fringe-eyed Flathead, Cymbacephalus nematophthalmus.

not yet known, but rising acidity has been shown to significantly affect the ability of reef-building animals to construct their calcium carbonate skeletons and can prevent the regeneration of damaged reefs.

These changes in the oceans are already occurring. They are some of the most obvious and frightening consequences of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. And, if nothing is done, it could get much, much worse. The fossil fuel-industry has publicly listed proven reserves on their books that are estimated to be more than two times greater than what can be safely burned. These corporations are banking on a future that might very well see the end of coral reef ecosystems as we know them.

Forget about glacial melting, super storms and regional drought. Now this is getting personal!

My repertoire of sea shanties turned towards the blues.“I am a young sailor, my story is sad;For once I was carefree, and a bold sailing lad.”

But, back in the water, the blues changed to anger, and then to resolve. It is high time to fight back.

It now seems inevitable that, sooner or later, the fossil fuel industry will be reigned in and that much of their “proven reserves” will become worthless “stranded assets.” (This explains the desperate lobbying by the industry to keep their outdated business plans in place for as long as possible. A recent HSBC report noted that the largest oil companies could loose 60% of their value if governments act to prevent global temperatures from rising more than the recommended 2 degrees C.)

Change is inevitable, but can we push it forward in time to save the coral reefs?

As we got back to shore and back on the internet at the Ling Nam, our favourite Chinese diner in Peurto Princesa, I wrote a note to my financial advisor to ask him if he could offer me any options for divesting from fossil fuel related industries – for the health of my portfolio, and for my peace of mind. I also got back in touch with my son and promised him that I would bring him to Palawan soon and teach him to snorkel. I want him to feel the tranquility and peace of this underwater world and to see a healthy coral reef at least once in his life.

And I want him to feel that he can act to change his world, not just sing the blues.

Note: All images were taken with a Panasonic DMC-TS5 underwater camera without housing generously provided by Shun Hing Education & Charity Fund.


“Watch out! It’s a snake,” Jocelyn yelled out to me. My one hand, now gloves off, was just about to reach out and grab what I thought was a vine hanging down from some branches. Luckily I missed the snake by just inches. It hung down from the branch in a semicircle, as if readying to strike. Barely 24 inches and brown in color, it could still incur major damage if poisonous. And if I should panic, the consequences could be worse than just a snake bite.

Below me was what is considered half way to hell in Chinese storybooks; between knife hills and a hot oil pan. I was literally walking on the edge of a sea of knives. The limestone rocks we had to cross to get to the entrance of the cave were pointed sharp

ENTERING THE DINOSAUR’S MOUTHExploring caves of the southern Philippinesby Wong How Man

Palawan, Philippines

on the top, and razorblade-like on the edges, with multiple edges to each rock. A tiny slip of the feet would land one on this sea of knives. Being bloodied would be a mild understatement.

I could not recall when was the last time that I sweated so much, but now I was dripping wet, forehead and neck, with my glasses fogging up from my body heat from time to time. And I was known to hardly sweat at all, even during exercise. I wondered whether the sweating was from the hard work, or from the fear of slipping. Probably both.

Now I was on my way out, after my half-day soiree with what was considered a virgin cave. The courtship was exciting and enticing, platonic though it was. The rest of my team, the CERS pro cavers, were still inside the nether regions of what the locals named Dinosaur Cave. The teams was trying to map this rather complicated labyrinths of a multiple-layered underground world. For me, the task was to safely navigate the treacherous sea of knives outside the cave. It


took about forty-five minutes of hiking, most of it over the sharp limestone karst, just to get from the cave head back to the road.

It all started a day ago, after our team began exploring an area of northern Palawan filled with limestone hills. Ugong Rock, a pseudo cave experience operated for tourists inside a twenty meter rock with a zip line from the top back to the ground, barely whetted our cavers’ appetite. By the afternoon, Jocelyn, my Filipino helper turned fixer, had skillfully made arrangements for our team to visit the “Hundred Caves,” an outcrop of limestone filled with underground natural caves with multiple side channels that were

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