Chasing Mirages

Finally, after months and months of delay, here is the last episode of the Southwestern Adventure.  Thanks so much for sticking with me through this trip!  Hope you enjoyed the pics and the captions.  I plan to follow up on these issues by exploring the downstream effects of China’s damming activity on its Southeast Asian neighbors.  Especially worrying are China’s damming of the Lancang River, known as the Mekong in southeast Asia, and the Nu River, also known as the Salween.

If you have contacts at NGOs or government agencies in Southeast Asia who are working on international river issues, please let me know.

Here is a map of our approximate route during this episode.

Happy year of the rabbit.  Here are pictures from Episode 5.

Click here to see a Google map of our approximate route.

Here is episode four of the Southwestern Adventure.

Click here to see our approximate route during this episode.

A reader in China told me that the pictures were loading really slowly so I made the pictures in this episode much smaller.  Hopefully this results in a more enjoyable viewing experience.  Please let me know when you have any complaints or suggestions about the site.  I will always do my best to address them.  I live to give.

Here’s the third episode of the Southwestern Adventure.

Click here for a Google map showing the route on which these pictures were taken.

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I sincerely apologize for the lack of posts in the last few weeks. I’ve been struggling mightily recently with a couple of big topics:

1) What are the most effective ways to support and promote environmental protection in China?; and

2) What would I like to do/what am I able to do for the environmental cause in China?

I have yet to figure these questions out.  As you could probably tell from my last post, I am quite pessimistic and discouraged about what can be done without some major systemic changes.

On a smaller scale, I’ve also struggled with how to present the pics I took during the Southwestern Adventure.  I think I’ve finally come up with a prudent way to do this that is hopefully entertaining and informative while also adequately “safe”.

As always, I highly encourage comments. I will always do my best to reply to them, and even when I don’t, be assured that I really appreciate them.  I dream about comments and the people who leave them.  Yes, I just told you the secret of how to appear in my dreams.  Now start commenting!

This post includes pictures from the first several days of the trip, covering the approximate route showed on this Google map.  Several other galleries are upcoming.  For your enjoyment, I’ve included captions on a large majority of these pictures.  Please let me know if you have trouble seeing either the pictures or the captions.  If you are not satisfied by the size of the photos afforded by the gallery view, you can right-click on individual pictures and select “view image” to see larger versions.

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