here’s a selection of photos from the thailand vacation 2008.

the prehistory part: when four friends (lisa, stefan, mathias and markus) weren’t able to find a sufficient period of time to visit a fifth one (rene), they had to rearrange. the result was a thailand trip of 5, in 3 stages.

part one is about the first week, when mathias and i visited rene¹ in koh samui, thailand.

highlights include: take-away food everywhere (i mean it!), loads of exotic fruit including durian, dinners on the beach, thai food in general (especially curries!), a thai massage right by the beach, coconut drinks (basically just coconuts split open) on the beach, ang thong marine national park, sleeping right at the beach, fried insects, bioluminescence, ...

i’ve recently had the chance to see the ASIB: Algensammlung am Institut für Botanik der Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck (algal collection of the institute of botany).
in the little laboratory room, there are some 1500 specimens of aeroterrestrical algae and cyanobacteria (cyanoprokaryotes) stored and cultivated. every strain is grown in its own little test tube, and the entire chamber is cooled down to 12 degrees celsius to slow down their metabolism and make them low-maintenance.
the oldest specimen was collected in 1920.

apart from the scientific importance of such collections, i was impressed with the beautiful array of algae in nearly every colour.
 

[view photos: algal collection of the institute of botany]

here’s a glimpse of what the second half of september was like:
cindy and larry byers came to visit austria, and we went to vienna, salzburg, fuschl, hallstatt, zugspitze, south tyrol, ...and included some "goode olde innsbruck tyme" as well.
for some reason, the only time i actually find myself looking at austrian sights is when somebody travels 9.000 km to be here...

this set of photos in no way does justice to their visit, but it’s the start of my catching up on photo-blogging.
 

[view photos: the byers visit - 17 photos, 14 days]

walking through the rain in khao sok rainforest, thailand

"we walked for hours through the tropical rainforest in what can only be described as ...the rain." - douglas adams

greetings from koh samui, thailand :)

coconut drink at the beach

about 30 degrees every day, REALLY cheap mango shakes (made from fresh mangoes, 60 eurocents at one restaurant), green curry (80 eurocents) and thai style cuisine w/ lots of coconut milk, little food-stands everywhere... i’m in heaven.
[more...]

with the heavy day-to-day thunderstorms, i kind of wonder why i didn’t try this earlier:

flashes of lightning in tirol

after a rather exhausting day of work, i can look back at an unexpected encounter:

en: lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros), with pup
de: kleine hufeisennase (rhinolophus hipposideros) mit jungtier

in case you can’t tell which is which: the pair of pointed shapes in the lower right is the mother’s ears. its baby is clinging on tightly and makes up the left half of the furry ball.
like all young microbat babies, it’s hanging with its head up at first. later on, the preferred position will be head down.

this summer, i’m working in a project to support certain species of bat indirectly by aiding their respective habitats. although i didn’t expect to see one of the nursery roosts themselves, i did today. the number of bats in this colony is rising, and a high percentage of the females (such as the one in the photo) are currently raising their young.
it was clearly the highlight of the day.