Challenging Field Conditions

It can be very rainy in Vietnam and these wet conditions meant that the forest was filled with leeches. While a leech bite is not harmful, their saliva does prevent the area of the bite from scabbing over so a small bite can bleed for hours. This was more messy than painful, sometimes the only way we knew we had been bitten was from the bleeding!

It is interesting how working conditions can be very different for different types of scientists. For both our herpetologist and mammalogist, in order to find the most interesting specimens we had to hike far into the forest. This was tough work with steep hills and heavy equipment and everyone was soon tired. Our marine biologist however was looking for snails that lived in local rivers. He found exactly what he was looking for just a few steps outside our car on the main highway and not even a little short of breath! Just by wading in rivers, though, he was at risk for catching schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease associated with water snails.

You can barely see the team through the thick branches as they hike up toward the research site.

Even where we stayed varied from location to location. Some study sites were within walking distance of a simple hotel. The most productive sites for reptiles and amphibians or mammals however were deep in the forest where we needed to camp for days at a time. Sometimes we would rely on the home of nearby residents for shelter.

	Camping
	The research team sets up camp deep in the forest of Yen Bai.
	Hotel
	Hotel rooms were simple with few, if any, amenities.
	The Frontier Station
	Mosquito netting is rigged above the sleeping bag to keep out mosquitoes. The picture is hazy from smoke coming from a fire in the center of the home.