The JAL late-night flight was empty even though it was after the Japan Bon Holidays. I got the first beer without hesitation on the stable JAL flight and slept for 2 hours.

After getting an AIS SIM at the AIS shop in Suvarnabhumi Airport, I took a shuttle bus from Exit 3 to Don Mueang Airport for the first time. It is free of charge if you show your domestic flight ticket.

I arrived at Don Mueang Airport and had some time before lunch, so I first went to the lounge and had a bite to eat. After that, I have some spaghetti. Drinking beer in the morning.

The hotel cafeteria is deserted with few people. There seem to be few overnight guests.

I choose American-style breakfast. You can also choose Thai style.

This is the SciUS building, the center of exchange with the high school. The university's science department sends high school students (one class per grade, 30 students) to live in a dormitory for three years, where university professors teach science, mathematics, and English three days a week, and the students attend a local high school for the remaining two days to take other courses. To the local high school, a university bus employed for sending students, so you can imagine how blessed the environment is. Furthermore, students who live in Domi are provided with living expenses by the government, which is a far more generous arrangement than in Japan. I was very surprised at. (08/24, I made some corrections).

High school and university students on the campus of the Faculty of Science. In this country, undergraduates and university students wear uniforms, so it is difficult to distinguish them from high school students. However, depending on the day, high school students often wear T-shirts or jerseys with the school name on them. The university seems to have been holding events for the past few days, and there are many students and teachers from nearby junior and senior high schools.

This is a traditional tato, and its power is overwhelming. The teachers and I talked a little about Japanese "yakuza" tattoos.

This accommodation is located in the national park called PhuTaem, and is more comfortable for me than the hotel in the university. The Mekong River is flowing in the distance beyond the window.

Well, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and before breakfast, a bus took me to a sunrise viewing point. This is the earliest place to see the sunrise in Thailand. This is the most easterly point. The river in the lower right is the well-known Mekong River, and the other side of the river is Laos.

Unfortunately, the sunrise was blocked by clouds, and we returned to our lodgings. On the way back to the lodge, I explained a little about the geology, including the weathering of the honeycomb structure.

This is the university's own bus for SciUS activities. The way the budget is spent shows how Thailand is entrusting the future of science and technology to the younger generation. After getting drenched in sweat during the hot day of the geological field trip, it was a relief to return to the air-conditioned bus. In fact, there is a geological site (two mushroom rocks) on the other side of the bus, which I explained to the students. I asked him if he knew the name of a similar site in Turkey. But they said they knew it but could not name it (laugh). The academic term is HooDoo.

Breakfast at a restaurant in the park was local rice noodle soup. In short, udon noodles in Japanese. Udon is confusing with Ubon Ratchathani, because there is another prefecture called Udon Thani to the north of this area. I used to confuse the two until I came here.

In front of the restaurant, a local was selling dried almonds (bag on the right). I bought a bag of cashews (bag on the left) and a bag of cashews for 30 Baht, I think. Very inexpensive.

The trees in the park are covered with orchids of various species. There are not many flowers now, but this is the only one that was blooming nicely.

Before the afternoon activities, we took a rest at a nice cafe overlooking the Mekong River. The Mekong River in the rainy season is different from the dry season that I saw last winter. It is a real sense of a continental river. The other side of the river is, of course, Laos.

Back at the visitor's center, the guide told us what we would see in the park, such as the mushroom rocks and the murals of the ancients that we would see later. Before this I gave a talk on geology to the students. In this area (Korat Plateau), there are almost horizontal strata of Jurassic to Cretaceous in Mesozoic age. The strata in the plains are young, but the older strata are found in the surrounding higher areas. The students were asked how to explain the fact that the younger strata are exposed on the plains and the older strata are exposed on the slightly higher areas in the periphery. For this purpose, I prepared and distributed a 4-page document in advance, and explained the situation using a white board behind the guide. As expected of first-year high school students who have not studied geology, it was quite difficult for them. Some of the students were confused about plate subduction, and it was difficult to get them to understand the topic correctly in a short time. The student in the foreground is holding a handout I prepared.

This is the most important place in the park, where you can see many paintings left by the ancients from 3000 to 4000 years ago. It is a place where many drawings left by ancient people can be seen. The geology is mainly sandstone, and is considered to be from the early Cretaceous period. On the way back to the park, I explained that there was a place where cross laminae could be seen beautifully.

This is where the painting with the red color remains. The model is Dr. M, who teaches microbiology at a university. He got his PhD from Chiang Mai University. His English is the easiest to understand, so I ask him most of my questions. He is an astronomy fan, and showed us his wonderful eclipse pictures of the sun and the Milky Way with his SONY camera.

It is truly miraculous that paintings of animals and tools of daily life from 3 to 4000 years ago have been so beautifully preserved. The reason is 1) the surface of the white sandstone was suitable for the preservation of the paintings, but the pigments are not well understood yet.  2) the overhanging sandstone layer covers the upper part of the painting like a shade, so it is difficult for the painting to be exposed to light and the painting is not exposed to rain. 3) The site is not accessible and has rarely been visited by people. The paintings were discovered in 1994, and the study of the site is very new. Movie_iink

This is the location of the cascade we visited in the afternoon. You can see some potholes on the riverbed. The person on the left is Dr. S, a physics teacher who is taking care of me this time. After that, he dropped my sunglasses in one of the potholes, and a brave student went waist-deep in the deep water with his clothes on to rescue them by feeling his toes. I saw a great teacher-student warm story.

The day's itinerary continued with a final visit to this temple in sunset. It is commonly called "illuminated temple". The reason is shown in the photos below. There is a drone flying in the left center. It seems to be surveying the site for the new building on the left.

Far below, the lake water of the Sirindhorn Dam is desired, and the clouds are in brilliant sunset hues. In the upper left corner, a crescent moon like the eyebrows of a Heian-period courtesan is floating in the sky.

Now this is why it is illuminated. This temple uses fluorescent paint to emit light at dusk. This is a great idea.

Visitors play tricks with the LED light from their smartphones. It is quite tasteful. I was impressed by the fact that there were only Thai people in this place, not Japanese or Westerners, which is common in all tourist spots. I was impressed that such a place still remains in Thailand.

I returned to the old town inn again, but this time with a balcony unlike the previous room, which was more expensive on the reservation site, but for me the previous room was more convenient. The room was on the side of the road and there was a lot of noise from cars and motorcycles at night.

The door of the room was intentionally left as it was in the old one. I found one mosquito in the shower room, lost sight of it, and had trouble sleeping, but I would like to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes because dengue fever is very prevalent in this country now. In the shower, as usual, I put my choice of laundry under my feet and wash it with soap, then wash it quickly and hang it to dry.

Yesterday, I visited another national park, PhaChong Na Yo NP. The entrance fee for foreigners is very expensive. The seeds on the right are from the plant that makes this park famous.

These are the tropical butterflies that gathered in the canyon. There are many different species, and they are very interesting. The local teacher was very interested in taking pictures of these rare butterflies. Movie_link

This is another kind of orange butterfly, a little further down the valley. There is also a yellow one. 

Here are many fish in the basin of the main waterfall, the largest in the park. Children are playing with fish. The number of fish is amazing. Fishing is probably prohibited in this national park, but you can see the abundance of natural flora and fauna. All the students jumped into the water with their clothes on. I wondered what they would do with their wet clothes, but they had brought several changes of clothes and changed later in the restroom.

This is the highest waterfall I have seen in Thailand in terms of height and volume of water. Students are taking pictures. The next picture shows the sandstone cross lamina to the right of this waterfall.

There are many sedimentary structures in the sandstone beds here, but the cross lamina is still very impressive. I explained the formation at the mural, but here again, I asked the students to think about the direction of the water flow.

As is characteristic of tropical waterfalls, they look completely different during the wet and dry seasons. I found a good photo at the visitor center that illustrates the difference in water volume by month, and recorded it here.

Now, this is the hotel on the campus of the university. It looks spacious and clean, but the TV is old and PC cannot be connected. There was no hot water pot in the room or even at the front desk. However, after the event, there were almost no guests and it was quiet, and there was a 7-Eleven right across the street in front of the hotel.

Before dinner last night, a third grade student showed me around the local market. Here is my favorite dish, kai jiao (Thai-style omelette), at a restaurant. The students teach you how to put the ingredients of your choice into a container about the size of a film case. They fry it with two eggs. I don't remember how much it costs, maybe 45 baht. It should be multiplied by four in Japanese yen.

So we were able to have dinner tonight. The leftmost one is a gift from a student. The leftmost one is a gift from a student. The middle one is kaijao. The right one is probably deep-fried enokitake mushrooms sprinkled with spices. I think it was 25 baht. Coconut shake (30 baht) and, as usual, Chaan beer from 7-Eleven. After two days of hard work, I'm finally in a rest mode.

Since I did not have an electric kettle, I used the direct-heating heater you see here to boil coffee. I bought it on AliExpress or something like that.

The students invited me to have lunch at the university cafeteria and then showed me around the campus. This is Lotus Pond, which makes this area famous.

Ubon Ratchathani means Ubon (lotus) + Ratchathani (town)." Lotus is the symbol of the town, and this is a flower in front of the inn. This is a very beautiful flower.

He took me to several temples in the city. This is one of them.

This is a huge wax decoration of local origin. It reminded me of the "Nebuta" of Tohoku. This is a candle, but it does not seem to be lit on fire. It was so huge that they hold a contest every year to see how beautiful it is. It was quite a wonderful sight.

This is a souvenir shop near the temple grounds on the way back from the temple. I was surprised to see that even such a small store accepts electronic money, and almost no one pays in cash. The person buying the souvenir is the teacher who guided us around.

First of all, I talked about the discovery of exoplanets to the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Science, and gave them a hands-on experience. The students and the professors in the front row were very pleased. The contents of the lecture are as follows: http://seagull.stars.ne.jp/Articles/Japanese/Exoplanets.pdf I concluded by talking about the possibility of encountering aliens (Drake's equation) and what we should do for that.

Here are some of the drawings and practical exercises we did over the next few days for the high school students in the SciUS course on earthquake related topics. I didn't take many pictures, so I will explain in detail later at the university. This is the "original flour fault experiment" using a small slide case I brought along.

This is a picture taken a few days later. This was my first time using a laundromat overseas. I did not understand how to use the machine (it was displayed in Thai language only), but there was an elderly lady who kindly showed me how to use the machine. She also translated the instructions displayed on the machine into English.

The laundromat is located outside the university grounds, and access to it is through this small gate across the grounds in front of the lodge to the road. The road is very busy, so you can cross a pedestrian bridge to reach the various stores in the student area.

This is the pond in front of the inn, and as you can see, there are many different colors of lotus in bloom.

One day, the teachers invited us to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. We were treated to sushi and tendon. They tasted just like Japan. I was impressed. Oshinei" is the name of the restaurant, which is a Japanese word. It is a chain restaurant sometimes seen in the Issan region.

We bought some durians, although the season is almost over as well. The fruit vendor is now sorting through the produce.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring it into the hotel room, so we ate it as a snack after lunch. Of course, it was only one of the three of us, but the name of the Queen of Fruits is not a given.

Local market. Local vegetables are lined up in a narrow space.