The Paradox of Our Age

We have bigger houses but smaller families;
More conveniences, but less time;
We have more degrees, but less sense;
More knowledge, but less judgment;
More experts, but more problems;
More medicines, but less healthiness;
We've been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more information to
produce more copies than ever but have less communication.
We have become long on quantity,
but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;
Tall man but short character;
Steep profits but shallow relationships.
It's a time when there is much in the window,
but nothing in the room.

... His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama


On December 31st I decided to go on a Trek though the local jungle/forest near Jungle Way, Koh Chang Island. This was an awesome experience because I was lucky enough to have Lek (the owner of Jungle Way) guide us on the trek. Lek has grown up on on the island, actually living on the same property that I was staying on... and is extremely knowledgeable about the surrounding wildlife and plants in the area.

We started our trek at 9am and first stopped at the end of his property, which is acres and acres of Rubber Trees. Here Lek explained the process of Rubber Tapping. This was awesome because I took a Future of the Forests class at SFSU last year and we learned about this exact process! So it was truly exciting for me to witness it first hand.

Once the trees are around 5 to 6 years old, the harvest can begin. The incisions are made in a left downward spiral, just deep enough to tap the vessels without harming the tree's growth, and the sap is collected in small buckets. This process is known as rubber tapping. Older trees produce more latex, but they stop producing after 26-30 years.

It seems easy, but Rubber Tapping is hard work! It can starts as early as 2 am... The coolness of the early morning air encourages the latex to flow thus improving the yield. This process will continue on until early afternoon. From there the latex is poured into molds. Then formic acid is added to coagulate the liquid latex.... NEXT the hard block of rubber is put into a machine that flattens it out into sheets (as seen in my pic)... and vuwwwala! :)

The rest of the Trek was spent hiking alllll around looking at different areas and of course, sweating! I think I am all Trek'ed out for a long time. We got back to Jungle Way around 5pm... and I was comatose.

The END :)

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