Close call this morning. When I  went to grab  my toothbrush, I knocked the toothbrush holder out and it started to fall into the toilet. I thought, "Oh man, that's the end of that holder." But then it bounced off the edge of the seat, and bounced across to the other seat, and then miraculously bounced back up into the air where I was able to snag it. Phew.

Early day today. Up at 4. Will be on the road at 5. I am told it is a 5 or 6 hour drive to our destination and I'm warned that part of the road will be quite bad. "Jungle road" was the exact term used. I don't get much occasion to travel jungle road, but I've had numerous trips where I was warned about the road, and it turned out to be not so bad. I've seen a lot of terrible roads. My standard is still a road in the central plateau of Haiti where every time I drove it, there was a point where I would stop, get out of the vehicle, look at the rocks in front of me and ask myself if I had ever driven over this before and why. Still I'm excited about jungle road.

I am here! Didn't think it was going to happen this morning. Long story. Anyhow lots of exciting things happening here. This I think is really the place to be right now as this calender in my hotel attests to. For lack of a better way to put it, it's a great time to be alive I think.

Two great things about Thailand (there are many): chillis and ice coffee.

If you haven't been here, chilis appear in just about everything. You know how in Toronto if you ask for something spicy they might put maybe a half a green pepper in something and you still have to add hot sauce? If you're a pepper addict you know what I'm talking about. Well here, spicy is just about regular and if you ask for something spicy it might put it over the top. Plus on every table in every restaurant there's a container with chopped green chilis in vinegar, chopped green chilis in fish sauce, crushed dried chilis. Really it's a dream come true.

The other thing is iced coffee. I know that in the past few years iced coffee has become a thing, but it was a thing here long before it was a thing everywhere else. Plus it's dispensed on almost every corner. Between capsaicin and  caffeine, I spend most of my time here in a state of over-stimulation.

Last night I went the the famous 'night bazaar' here, which is one the biggest and best craft markets I have seen anywhere.  You can get just about anything you want from cheesy  t-shirts, to exquisite wood carvings. This time I also noticed a booth selling real estate. I barely buy souvenirs anymore unless I see something really great.

Well today is a  big travel day. To an uncertain destination. I suppose I am speaking metaphorically, but I also mean this geographically. If I was speaking metaphorically I could probably say that every day.

It's hot. So hot locals are saying it's hot. So hot the water coming out of the tap is hot. Not desert hot I suppose, but warmer than I would like it. Luckily I'm staying in a place for the next couple of nights with some sort of A/C which is bringing the temperature down from 'sauna' to 'just-slightly-more-than-comfortable'.

I'm in an airline airport lounge drinking free espresso and working on my laptop. Which pretty much everyone else around me is either on their smartphone or some kind of tablet device. Just 2 or 3 years ago, most would have been on laptops with a handful on phones in a similar scenario. Now I feel like some sort of brontosaurus pounding away on my keyboard with large hoof-like appendages.

I'm a little bit nervous about this trip, for reasons that I can't get into in much detail. If I tell you it's a question of paperwork I hope that will suffice and that I am  hoping it is favourably resolved soon. I will keep you posted as much as I can.

On a different note, when I was passing through customs in Europe, the officer said very little except,
 "Travel a lot?"
"Yes." my somewhat weary answer.
And  that was the entire sum of our conversation.

Salzburg, Austria, which is about 2 hours by train from the Munich airport. I had an all day layover so decided to try to add another country to my `collection`. The woman at the information booth laughed when I said I wanted to go to Austria, and told me it couldn`t be done with the time I had before my flight. So I went immediately to the train station and purchased a ticket. Granted I didn`t have a whole lot of time there, but had a chance to walk around, get someone to take a picture of me with the Austrian flag, and had time to stop for dinner in Munich on the way back (some sort of schnitzel type thing--not that great but local, and ordered in some restaurant where they didn`t speak much English.

I feel like I could learn German. It just sounds familiar somehow. That`s what they taught us in school anyway, that German and English were two of the most closely related European languages. I had to learn what Flughafen meant for sure, (airport) so I could find my way back. In the end I made it back with plenty of time to spare. I sort of felt like going to the information booth and telling them, but I wasn`t sure what the point of that would be.

This is Hohensalzburg Castle. I did not actually have time to go and visit, as per the airport information booth advice.

Due to an unfortunate incident involving automotive fluids my travel bag of many years is no longer useable. Last weekend after an extensive search, I got a new one which seems to fit most of my (some would say excessive) criteria. I won't really be able to approve until I've  got at least one whole trip with it but so far so  good. One thing I've noticed is that I travelled so long with the old bag it almost became an extension of my body. I knew exactly where every pocket was and could sling it around virtually unconsciously. With the new bag I'm having to think about it. The pockets the balance a lot of little things.

Driving in Port au Prince is a nightmare. It is actually possible to run out of gas in a traffic jam. I sat stuck in traffic on a narrow street, basically one dirt track for about 45 minutes while two large dump trucks tried to make their way down this passage with  and  against a two way flow of regular traffic. Part of the thing is that some drivers drive right up to each other from opposing directions so that neither one has anywhere to move, and everyone behind them is bumper to bumper so then there's no where to go. Then everyone sits while that works itself out. Multiply that by two dump trucks and you get the idea. I would have taken a picture with my phone but several people have warned me that armed robberies are on the rise in town and smartphones are one of the things being targeted.

This is the Artibonite watershed. As you can see it straddles the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the source of the watershed being in the DR and the endpoint in Haiti. It is a critical river system in many ways, one of them being it is a major source of agriculture for Haiti. Proper management of this watershed would obviously require cooperation between the two countries. Funny thing is, it is even hard to find a map that shows the entire watershed. Existing maps I have found tend to show either the Haitian portion or the DR portion. It is as if the other half didn't exist or something. I had to create this map myself, such as it is. The little green triangles indicate the communities on both sides of the border where we are working.

Three days of training and practice in field research. This is a plot with bagasse compost as a treatment. Comparing it to rabbit compost and no compost at all.

I'm not sure, but I don't think there are many things quite as humbling as someone bringing you  a  bucket of water to bath in. And there's not a whole lot you can do  but say thank you. There is a shower here, but it is of questionable value, even when  it is working, and this morning it stopped working altogether. Bucket showers of course require a completely different strategy since you are required to wash while at the same time pouring water over yourself. If you haven't tried it you really should. It's kind of like driving and texting at the same time. Or what I imagine that would be like.

Last night there were June bugs everywhere. Or the Caribbean equivalent of June bugs. Sorry I can't tell you if they are different. But just like Canadian June bugs they were recklessly slamming into everything before falling to the ground and struggling helplessly on their backs. During the night they kept crawling inside my shirt and a few times I rolled over  on  top  of one to an unpleasant crunching sound. Fortunately  they  don't bite, and as far  as  I  know they  don't carry disease. They're like the insect equivalent of the lemming, harmless, but a little hard to understand. 

I'm sitting in our office waiting for a training to start. It officially starts at 9, but probably about a 3rd of our staff a going to be late, because of some demonstration which blocked traffic on the highway. Protesting a lack of work or something. Such is life here. Waiting. I wonder what percentage of my life has been spent waiting.

this is an historical moment for me and my blog. The first time i've posted from my phone. Admitting that I suppose only betrays how far behind the times I am although tapping an entire paragraph out on this tiny keyboard doesn't seem terribly efficient to me. On the other hand I have an entire hour and a half to hen peck out whatever nonsense I want so what's my hurry?

I'm wondering how many times I sat here at gate A9 of Terminal 3. A bunch, maybe 40 or 50? Enough times to figure out how to be the first one here in the morning. It's like getting to the office early.