Hello from Thailand! Our group of 10 students have all arrived safely in Bangkok and have been making the most of our first week here. We are so lucky to interact with our Thai colleagues and friends from Kasetsart University, who have been incredibly welcoming and helpful to us every day. I’m not sure what we would do without them! At this point, we have all adjusted to the 11 hour time change, but I’m not sure if all of us have adjusted to the extreme heat. Temperatures are upwards of 90 degrees every day, so were are trying our best to keep cool and do a mix of indoor and outdoor activities. Currently, we are in Kanchanaburi, which is West of Bangkok and our home base at KU. We spent the previous 4 nights in Bangkok, visiting places like the Chatachuk Market, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, the Wat Pho temple, night markets, shopping malls, and more.
One of the highlights of our first few days in Thailand has been meeting with people involved in the cave rescue of the boys soccer team. The rescue is a powerful story that I followed very closely in the news last July, so I was really excited to hear from people who were actually involved in the incredible effort. In the morning, we met with a geoscience faculty member of Kasetsart, who was involved with the 8and worked to pump water out of the caves. After seeing a huge rain storm in Thailand last night, it is definitely easier to imagine how the cave could flood so quickly with a sudden afternoon torrential downpour. Dr. Chaipron Siripornpibul told us that he had the opportunity to go into the cave and enter the same chamber the boys were trapped in months later, which must have been a surreal experience. He also taught us more about the process of cave formation, the wide variety that exists, and the curious formations that can occur inside of them, which must be one of the reasons he likes studying them.
Later that afternoon, we headed into town to meet two more individuals involved in the cave rescue. It was an incredible opportunity to hear from Vern, a British cave diver, and Josh, a caver who is fluent in both English and Thai. Vern was invaluable to the rescue with his 48 years of cave diving experience and called in two of the British cavers who ended up discovering the boys. He talked about his experience in the “war room” during the rescue, sometimes needing to be blunt with Thai officials about what needed to be done after assessing the situation. Josh owns an adventure company and was influential in the communications that led to the final plan to dive the boys out of the cave. He talked about a particular powerful moment when he translated the thank you message from the parents of the Thai boys to the English-speaking divers. I’ve read countless articles about the cave rescue, but nothing quite compared to hearing these rescuers speak first hand and seeing their pictures of the war room and their rescue plans drawn up on a white board. I also learned something that I had never read in the U.S. news – 4 additional men who were working in the cave became trapped and were rescued from the cave very early in the search for the soccer team. The Thai government did not want to publicize it, but it just adds another layer to the mission that I was formerly unaware of. The rescue of the soccer team is truly an amazing feat that was accomplished through the work of individuals from so many different countries and backgrounds. It required the work of people with such specific skills (I mean, Vern said there’s only 3 people in the entire world who are both anesthesiologists and have experience cave diving, and thankfully the man from Australia was able to come) and groups that speak a variety of languages. Huge thank you to Dr. Passakorn, who also played a role in this incredible rescue, for making these meeting happen!
