GIA FE35 (GIA Laboratory Bangkok Field Expedition 35): April. 28 -April. 09, 2012: Madagascar

2012 seems defenitively to be a on the right tracks to be a year that will please many blue sapphire lovers: In March the author lead an expedition for the GIA Laboratory Bangkok to Sri Lanka in order to visit a very interesting new blue sapphire deposit near Kataragama in the south East part of the "Gem Island" (see here)

During the Songkran holidays (The Thai / Sri Lankan and Burmese new year's celebration) while I was working on the study of that new material, Philippe Ressigeac, a gem merchant recently graduated from GIA Thailand and living in Ilakaka (Madagascar) informed me about the discovery of a new sapphire deposit in Madagascar. His partner, Marc Noverraz, just told him that blue sapphires and also fine rubies were reportedly found near the town of Ambatondrazaka, a rice farming center located between Madagascar capital Antananarivo and Andilamena, a gem producing region famous for its rubies The next day Nirina Rakotosaona, a Malagasy miner the author met several time in Ilakaka, confirmed this time from Andilamena the discovery and provided me some additional details about the stones he saw that convinced us that I had to find as soon as possible a plane ticket to Madagascar...

"Ruby and and blue sapphire from Didy, Madagascar"
Photo: Vincent Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

Discover here the GIA Laboratory Bangkok FE35 Expedition Report to Didy, Madagascar. It is including a very illustrated expedition report and an inclusion study. It was published on GIA Laboratory websites: here (in the GIA laboratory Bangkok Research Ongoing web page) here (in the GIA Laboratory Bangkok field report page) here (in the GIA's main website: www.gia.edu in the News from Research part of the website)

Now as traveling alone is not neither really safe or fun, I had to find a good buddy. For such an expedition, that guy had to be an experienced one... Luckily, two of my regular travel buddies: Jean Baptiste Senoble and Lou Pierre Bryl, were in Bangkok: There was just a small problem: Jean Baptiste was preparing his wedding, scheduled two weeks later and Lou Pierre and I were supposed to be his best men. To discuss the issue, we had one of these great diners with meaning and passionate discussions I really enjoy before an expedition.

That evening, Lou Pierre was hesitating.

"Going next week with you on a gem rush in Mada?", JB said. "Hum, that's the only acceptable reason I see for me to miss my own wedding... LOL".

He added: "Traveling few years ago together to Winza during the rush was one of the best experiences in my life. I would love to go with you but if I miss my own wedding because we get stuck in the jungle, my wife might not be really happy about it."

We agreed.

"But guys, if you miss my wedding because you are in Mada on that rush that will be the only reason I will accept for you guys to miss it.", JB added.

Lou Pierre was finally convinced. I had my team mate.

We had now to find some affordable flights to go to Madagascar and return on time for JB wedding. That was not easy but we found a solution with two stops: Bangkok to Antananarivo via Mumbay and then Nairobi: 18 hours to go and 19 to return. Our chances to be back on time? Well possibly one of two as we had that non confirmed flight on the return from Mumbay to Bangkok... Furthermore the correspondances were quite short, and the airlines different. Thus we decided to travel light with only hand luggages and the minimum necessary to survive 2 or 3 days in the muddy jungle.

Now we had to prepare ourselves. But for a field expedition to be succesful, the key points are not to have the right shoes or a good camera, it is first to travel with the right guys and follow few basic rules. Which rules? Well simply the "Rules of Field Gemology" that Richard W. Hughes (the author of Ruby & Sapphire) loves to give me regularly hard time about and is regularly asking me to write about them.

Here is may be a good occasion:

 

For that expedition, things were looking good: I had the full support of my boss at the GIA laboratory Bangkok and I had a lot of information about the place we were heading to. But still as I got more information about what was ahead of us I had some concerns.

Regarding the team it was close to perfection: Lou Pierre was on that adventure with me, then in Madagascar, I had a great many great guys ready to help:

- Marc Noverraz, from Colorline Ilakaka Ltd., a Swiss gem merchant based in Ilakaka whose help was invaluable during all our expeditions to Madagascar since our first visit there in 2005, was waiting for us at the airport with a good car and some supply.

- Then Nirina Rakotosaona, who already visited the mining site was waiting for us with fresh news in Ambatondrazaka

- Finally Nochad, a young Sri Lankan gem merchant I knew also since 2005 was waiting for us in Didy...

We had the right key people at every key place, a good car and supply. We had all a good physical condition. Not as good as Nirina's condition (he had lived in the jungle for about one year and was as fit for the mission as a samourai blade) but we were ready to be up to the challenge. Our only problem was time particularly when Nirina told us that we had to expect 12 to 15 hours of very tough walk through some thick jungle to reach the new discovery site.

"Gem Rush!"
In Ambatondrazaka a group of Malagasy miners are on their way to Didy.
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

On that expedition the combination of Rule Number 5 and Number 2 were a concern: We had enought time for the mission but if things were not going as expected and if we got delayed here or there, then difficulties would be expected.

On my side, that would not only mean that I could miss my return flight and miss the wedding of one of my best friends, but also it would affect my work in the lab on the Kataragama new discovery: The fact was with these unexpected discoveries in Kataragama and now in Madagascar, I was getting short in time in my work at the lab. First the Kataragama study was not yet published... That was not good: In theory we should complete the job on one expedition before to leave for the next one as if it is easy to start many projects it is difficult to finish one. And I dont like unfinished business. Then few days after my expected return in Bangkok I was expecting a very busy May 2012 month with the visit in Bangkok of GIA's Board of Governors and a scheduled expedition to Australia and Tasmania... So I had to return to Bangkok rapidly with the reference samples the laboratory was needing and soon enough to have to the time to finish the work on the Kataragama rush and do the work on Didy before to leave to Australia. Already, I had to tell several friends that I could not comply with the dead lines they had given me about some projects. Time was for that expedition a serious problem as if I had to miss that return flight there might be some unpleasant consequences. I was hoping that things were going to be fine...

In fact, as usual I have to say that once again I was somewhere lucky: The unexpected as expected was on the way.

First we had a flat tire few kilometers after leaving for Didy. Then Marc asked me: Ok, now we can continue with the spare tie, but well if we get anymore trouble then we will be stuck... We decided to return to Ambatondrazaka and loose few hours. Lucky wise decision as arriving to Ambatondrazaka we found out that we had a second tire that was going to be flat. After few hours we found new tires and went back on the road to Didy. Things went fine as the weather was good, but the drive had been hard and our car got stuck twice in deep mud... Luckily it had stopped raining for few days but it was clear to us that going to Didy would be a hell of a trip if it was raining. We were all thinking about the return... Yes indeed if rain was coming we might be stuck in Didy for few days.

"Hope and long walk"
After a long day walking from Ambatondrazaka to Didy village this group of miner still have a long way to go to reach the new mining site, deep in the jungle where they hope to find fortune.
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

Then arriving in Didy late in the evening we had to take a decision: Should we try to leave to the mines the following day in the morning or should we stop for a day in order to try to see some stones coming back from the mines and collect more info about what was going on there... We had up to the morning to decide about that. The decision was tough to take as rule number 4 is about "Keep going!". As to reach our next place to sleep we had just 3 or 4 hours to walk we decided to stay for the morning and decide again after lunch.

During the morning we could see some interesting samples and meet a lot of interesting people. Things were going fine but as we were discussing about the afternoon schedule we had the visit of the gendarmerie, the local security forces in charge of the area. They informed us that they had the order to notice all the foreigners that they had to leave Didy and return to Ambatondrazaka before the next day at noon.

Well, that were bad news. We had then the choice to leave to Ambatondrazaka or to leave to the mines.The situation was the following: We had already some samples to work on at the lab andthanks to Nirina previous visits of the mining site, we had also some precise information about the mines inlcuding the GPS data of the new deposit. The main thing we were missing were samples collected on site by myself and photos of the mining activity there... Now if we decided to try our luck and go there, then according to our sources we had some very serious chances not to be back on time in Tana to take our return flight to Bangkok as schedule... and then it would be a big mess. Furthermore if we decided to leave to the mines and had the bad luck to meet again the local security forces, the next meeting would probably not be as friendly as the first one. After discussing with my team, everybody was in favor to return to Ambatondrazaka. As it was a joint expedition, we decided to stay together and play safe. The next day we returned to Ambatondrazaka with all the other foreigners and for few more days we did our best to see more stones with the help of our Sri Lankan friends.

In the meanwhile, as the police only asked the foreigners to return to Ambatondrazaka, I gave to Nirina Rakotosaona one of my cameras and he went rapidly on site to take some photos of the mining activity. He was able to return to Ambatondrazaka only few hours before our departure to Antananarivo. It was great: He had some great photos of the mining activity and some additional information. We had more than what we were needing for a first article on the subject and nevertheless there will be probably in the future new occasion to visit that area.

This is what I was thinking on my way back to Bangkok.

"Ruby and sapphire mining in the jungle near Didy"
Along a stream, timber loggers searching for gold during their spare time found some nice rubies and sapphires, within weeks thousands of people from all over Madagascar joined them seeking fortune.
Photo: Nirina Rakotosaona / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

In fact when I returned to madagascar at the end of July 2012, the Malagasy security forces had expelled all the miners from the jungle around Didy and all the foreign buyers from Ambatondrazaka at the end of June 2012. According to several gem merchants met in Antananarivo and Ilakaka, still few people were still mining secretly there...Nirina Rakotosaona, Marc Noverraz were back in Ilakaka working on a new sapphire mining project for Nirina and on collecting fine stone to make some colorlines for Marc. On our Sri Lankan friends side, most of them were also back in Ilakaka or in Sri Lanka. For them it was furthermore ramadan times... Nobody was willing to return to Didy. So going there would mean going there with no reliable local contact. Not really a good option based on Field gemology rule number 2 and 6.

So I decided for that new expedition I would be focussing on trying to finish the work I started on blue sapphires from Ilakaka- sakaraha and not to loose my time and the time of my friends on playing some mouse and cat games with the police in the jungle around Didy.

But still... I cannot stop thinking that it is too bad not to have been able to see with my own eyes these 5,000 miners working in the jungle there. Anyway, what was important was to get enough samples from multiple independant sources in order to be able to study this new material.

That was achieved and at the end this is all what matters today as I'm very happy to invite you to discover the following reports we published about rubies and sapphires from Didy after that expedition to Madagascar and before the complete report to be published on GIA Laboratory Bangkok website (here and here) and also on GIA's main website: www.gia.edu:

GIA FE34 (GIA Laboratory Bangkok Field Expedition 34): Mar. 17th - Mar. 27th, 2012: Vietnam

After the GIA Laboratory Bangkok FE02, FE08 and FE16 field expeditions to Vietnam respectively in January and May 2009 and then in April - May 2010, the author returned to Vietnam in March 2012 in order to continue working on several interesting project about rubies, spinels and pearls.

This time the main objective was to try to deal with some unfinished business about blue spinels.

As regular visitors of fieldgemology.org may know in May 2009 (GIA Laboratory Bangkok FE08) the author was traveling in Vietnam with several friends including one of his regular travel buddies: Jean Baptiste Senoble. For the author, besides training and evaluating young gemologists for field activities, the focus was to collect ruby reference specimens for the GIA reference collection. But as it had been the case with Tsavorite in 2009, Jean Baptiste was able to highjack the author's initial plans and interest him to a gemstone that was fascinating him: Blue spinels.
JB was in love with blue spinels since the day he saw in Bangkok a beautiful faceted gem reportedly from Vietnam that had been found by a Bangkok based gem merchant who really motivated people there to mine blue spinels: While the author was looking around for rubies, Jean Baptiste was asking for blue spinels. After few days he was able to find from a Yen The merchant two tiny highly saturated rough blue spinels. The color of the little stones was amazing: No tone, no gray were visible, they were stunning bright little "Jedi" spinels, far away from the "Dark Side": Their deep bright blue color was even matching without shame the window cleaning liquid used by our hotel staff... Not sure if the color was coming from cobalt or something else had then fun calling them "Windex" blue spinels.

The author was hooked.

Back at the GIA Laboratory Bangkok, the author had a new surprise as after studying the two stones: Indeed, GIA gemologist Sudarat Saeseaw found out that if one stone was natural, the other one was a tumbled synthetic! The author was amazed as once again it was a classic example of the "Dick's Law", presented by Richard W. Hughes in his masterpiece "Ruby & Sapphire" on page 113 ( and on his website at "Buying at the source" where you can see a photo of these two little stones and where this funny story was first published.)

Since then, the author was wondering about the origin of the bright blue natural stone. It is quite a classic. If most people when they see a nice gem are wondering about its price, for the author each time the same question is jumping to his mind:

"Where is it from?"

When we got the stone in Yen The, the answer was very classic: "An Phu"... Well, that was not helping very much as there are tens of deposits in the mountains around An Phu village and to visit and study all of them could take months of hard work due to the difficulty of the jungle covered karst mountains.

Few days after finding these lovely "windex" spinels, after a one day long expedition in the tricky mountains near An Phu, we could confirm that the source of most of the nice sky blue spinels found in the market in the Luc Yen district was a small mining site called "Bai Son", from the name of a very poisonous tree found there... But the saturation of the Bai Son spinels was much lower than what could be seen in the "Windex" like little gems...

We decided then to continue our quest and keep things a little bit quiet despite pressures from here or there to publish what we had so far. Yes it would be nice to write about these nice stones but we had yet no idea about where they were really coming from: Too many questions, not enough facts: A classic "unfinished business".

"Blue spinel rough from the Luc Yen district"
Details one two small pices of "Double Bai Son" rough spinels (meaning that the gem saturation is double compared to what is usually found in Bai Son area) seen in Yen The, Vietnam in March 2012.
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

In December 2009, Philippe Ressigeac, a young gemologist recently graduated from GIA Thailand asked the author for advice for his career. We knew each other well for about a year and I had a good idea about his projects, motivation and capacities. I was then thinking that Philippe could be a potential great traveling companion for future expeditions. I had to test him and give him an opportunity to do some good useful work. After few minutes I told him that he would have a lot to learn going to North Vietnam: Blue spinels were far to be the author's research priorities at the GIA Laboratory but were still a small unfinished business that was regularly bothering me. I was believing that he could do some useful gem hunting job there in North Vietnam as very few was known of these beautiful gem rich mountains. Philippe could be then very useful to the author as a scout to prepare the coming FE16 expedition to Vietnam scheduled in April 2010. That could be a great experience for him also to get few months of first hand experience about how things are going on in such gem producing area. Furthermore the French gemological Association was willing to visit Vietnam with 2 groups of 25 people in May 2010. I told Philippe that I could put him in contact with them and that I could arrange things for him to be they guide as my work at GIA was not enabling me to have the time to work on this gemological tourism project. Philippe was enthusiastic and within few days, Lou Pierre Bryl, a friend of Philippe and a veteran of the author's expeditions, decided to join Philippe in that quest.

The GIA Laboratory Bangkok FE16 expedition was composed of a great bunch of young gemologists and geologists with a passion for both gems and traveling. As usual Vietnam was for the author a great training ground to see if these young gemologists would be Ok as travel assistants for longer and tougher expeditions to Africa or Central Asia.

Our main objectives were of course rubies, but we had of course a keen interest also for blue spinels. If we could get several interesting deep blue spinel on marble matrix, we were not able to confirm the location of any primary deposit as visiting the places where the gems had been reportedly mined from we could not find any primary deposit. The difficulty in such humid jungle covered mountains is that any mining site is within few weeks or months covered by moss and vegetation.

After these 2010 expeditions, Jean Baptiste Senoble published "Beauty and rarity, a quest for Vietnamese blue spinels" an interesting article about hunting for blue spinels for "InColor", the ICA' magazine.

It was nevertheless still an unfinished business as the source for these little "jedi" / "windex" bright blue spinels were still unconfirmed.

In July 2011, in Poil, a small village in the French countryside, as each summer, a very informal but very interesting gemological gathering is taking place. During that event the author met Boris Chauvire, a young French geologist/gemologist willing to have some field experience. The author felling about the 22 years old young man was good and we decided that we could try to do something together.

As usual, the process was simple: I told Boris: "Well, if you want to travel with me: First take a plane ticket and join me in Bangkok next winter. Then, lets go for few weekend type expeditions to neighboring gem mining areas. If everything is fine, meaning that you dont give me too much headhakes and if you can show me that you can be a useful asset for such expeditions, then I might consider taking you as travel assistant on some longer ones for one or two weeks. Then again we will see if we can make plans for the future. The fact is that I don't feel good traveling on long serious expeditions to Africa or Central Asia with people that I don't know and/or that I've not trained". Finally before to go on any long/serious expeditions, it is better to know if we can feel good traveling together.

Boris then said: "Coming to Bangkok? Hum, I would love to, but that's not easy as I'm working on a master degree in Geology at Nantes University. But may be we could discuss the issue with my supervisor: Dr. Benjamin Rondeau?"

The good thing was that Dr. Rondeau was not far away. We discussed the issue and within few weeks we built what was looking like a good solution: Boris will come in Bangkok from January to April 2012 in order to do some field work in relation with his master degree... on the geology of the Vietnamese blue spinels!

Boris came in Bangkok on January 22nd 2012. The author introduced him to Philippe Ressigeac who was also for few weeks in Thailand. The feeling was good between them and two weeks later Boris and Philippe were on their way for Northern Vietnam with two Swiss friends of the author: Stephane Jacquat and Marc Noveraz.

"Marc Noveraz, Boris Chauvire and Philippe Ressigeac looking for gems at the Yen The morning gem market".
Photo: Stephane Jacquat, Feb. 2012

Thanks to Philippe knowledge of the region, to Stephane experience as a mountaineer, and to Marc experience as a gem buyer, Boris was able to become rapidly familiar with the country, the area around Yen The and gem trading in such place. During that first expedition they found that gem mining was very low in the Luc Yen district. It was to be expected as the "Tet", the celebration of the Vietnamese new year, was still keeping the local busy and it was still very cold and humid in the mountains Furthermore the local farmers/miners were too busy with agriculture and rice cultivation to get any interest in gemstone mining. The expedition was nevertheless far to be a waste of time as Philippe introduced Boris to some key local people and helped him to prepare the coming "harvest" expedition that was planned later with the author. That expedition was scheduled in March 2012, as late as possible in accordance with Boris time frame for his master degree that had to be completed by June 2012.

The GIA Laboratory Bangkok FE34 "harvest" expedition took place from March 17th to March 27th 2012. Boris Chauvire returned then to Vietnam with the author and an old university friend of the author: Maika Berrouet joining the expedition as a photographer to document it.

Things turned very well as the weather was very fine during our whole expedition. It was not raining. This is an important point in the jungle covered karstic mountains dominating Yen The and An Phu as the tough terrain in these mountains is very dangerous when the rocks are wet and muddy.

We were also lucky as the first day while meeting some Yen The merchants the author visited regularly during the past years, we could find some very interesting deep blue spinel parcels matching the "windex" window liquid... Nice! We spent few hours selecting interesting little pieces in these nice parcels.

"Selecting bright blue spinels in Yen The"
Boris Chauvire and Maika Berrouet selecting highly saturated blue spinels from some parcels seen in Yen The, Luc Yen district, Northern Vietnam.
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

Then thanks to the support of our Yen The friend: Mr. Shuan the next day we were heading to the mountains and the deposit that where these spinesl had been reportedly mined from. During the three days we spent scouting the mountains around Yen The we could visit several interesting spinel and ruby deposits, collect some interesting additional samples for the GIA reference collection and, thanks to Mr. Shuan work with the local miners between Boris two visits to Yen The, we had finally the pleasure to find in the mountains some marbles hosting deep blue spinels!

"A mystery getting solved..."
Boris Chauvire happy to have finally found some saturated blue spinels in their host rocks in the mountains of the Luc Yen district thanks to the help of some local Vietnamese miners.
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2012

Still the author and Boris will have to check at the GIA laboratory and in Nantes University if these spinels are indeed matching the lovely small natural "windex" stone the author and JB Senoble were able to get in May 2009. But obviously after 7 expeditions either lead by the author or by Philippe Ressigeac, an "unfinished business" was looking to be on the way to find a conclusion.

GIA FE33 (GIA Laboratory Bangkok Field Expedition 33): Feb. 28 - Mar. 09, 2012: Sri Lanka

After the GIA Laboratory Bangkok FE24 and FE30 field expeditions to Sri Lanka respectively in March 2011 and January 2012, the author returned recently to Sri Lanka at the end of February 2012 as some surprising news came from the "Gem Island". Indeed On Feb. 23rd 2012, Shamil Sammoon from Sapphire Cutters Ltd, informed the GIA Laboratory Bangkok that a new sapphire discovery happened near Kataragama, a sapphire mining locality located west of the famous Yala National Park. The area is a known sapphire producing area since the end of the 1970's (For more details read: Zwann P.C., "Sri Lanka, the Gem Island", Summer 1982 issue, Gems & Gemology) and the author and his team visited in 2005 and 2011. But if the place was known for about 30 years, it was mostly known to produce usually small included stones.

The new discovery had some serious exposure in the Sri Lankan media and visiting the island it was obvious that many people were living a blue sapphire fever. News about large fine blue stones were reaching Bangkok and within few days the GIA laboratory planned a new expedition thanks to the support of the Sri Lankan NGJA (National Gem & Jewelry Authority) who provided us some useful support and local contacts including the necessary introduction letters to pass the police check points protecting the access to the different mining sites.

On March 13th the GIA sent around the world its March 2012 G&G eBrief containing a short concise expedition report from that FE33 field expedition to Kataragama signed by Lou Pierre Bryl, Andrea Heather Go (Canada), Boris Chauviré (France) and the author. It will be available to non G&G subscribers in June 2012 at the following G&G eBrief archive

On May 02nd, 2012, the GIA Laboratory published on their websites (here and here) an extensive study about the new discovery near Kataragama. The study was written by Vincent Pardieu, Emily Dubinsky, Supharart Sangsawong and Boris Chauviré. It includes: - a presentation of the area, - the GIA FE33 expedition report, - some observations and comments about the geology of that new unusual deposit - and a detailed study of some of the samples collected on site during the expedition.

On March 12th 2012, a selection of four "GIA postcards" were published on NGJA's website from photos taken by the author during that expedition and that the GIA was happy to share.

As it seems that these photos are already been posted in many places, you might enjoy to find them here also:

Conditions for emerald formation at Davdar, China: fluid inclusion, trace element and stable isotope studies

Authors: D. Marshall, V. Pardieu, L. Loughrey, P. Jones and G. Xue.

Click here or on the photo to get the article

Abstract: Preliminary geological work on samples from Davdar in China indicate that emerald occurs in quartz veins hosted within upper greenschist grade Permian metasedimentary rocks including quartzite, marble, phyllite and schist. Fluid inclusion studies indicate highly saline fluids ranging from approximately 34 to 41 wt.% NaCl equivalent, with minimal amounts of CO2 estimated at a mole fraction of 0.003. Fluid inclusion, stable isotope and petrographic studies indicate the Davdar emeralds crystallized from highly saline brines in greenschist facies conditions at a temperature of ~350°C and a pressure of up to 160 MPa. The highly saline fluid inclusions in the emeralds, the trace-element chemistry and stable isotope signatures indicate that the Davdar emeralds have some similarities to the Khaltaro and Swat Valley emerald deposits in Pakistan, but they show the greatest similarity to neighbouring deposits at Panjshir in Afghanistan.

Keywords: beryl, China, Davdar, emerald, fluid inclusion study, greenshist facies, stable isotopes geochemistry

Read the rest of the article at the following link

Figure 1: Emerald crystals in matrix from Davdar mining area, Xin Jiang Province, China. The largest crystal is gem quality and about 5 centimeters long. Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok

This new article is based on the samples collected on site in China during the field expedition to the new Davdar emerald mining area lead by V. Pardieu in 2006 with the support of the AIGS and the Gubelin Gemological Laboratories (see expedition report and a brief gemological study of Davdar emeralds here). The geological samples collected during that expedition were then provided in 2007 to Dan Marshall with the support of the Gubelin Gem Lab.

For more information about Davdar emeralds, read also the article published in InColor Magazine (spring 2009) about Davdar emeralds in Collaboration with Jean Claude Michelou. (Download the pdf here).

All the best,

This post is not about one of the author expeditions or about an article he collaborated with, but it is about one friend, who was a great source of inspiration for the author's when he was still searching his way in gemology: I mean Georges Bosshart.

Last week while I was traveling to Sri Lanka I received the sad news that Georges passed away in Switzerland after a long and very courageous struggle with cancer. He was one of these persons that I would have loved to spend more time with. All my thoughts are today to the one he used to call his best treckking companion: His wife Anna.

The first time I met Georges Bosshart, it was in 2003. I was then working as a part time consultant for the AIGS laboratory in Bangkok, but I was mainly spending my time traveling to Burma to buy gems for my boss Henry Ho, the owner of the AIGS lab. Georges came to the lab while he was on an OPT (Off Premise Testing) mission for the Gubelin Gem Lab. On that occasion Georges was willing to use some of the advance equipment we had. For a young gemologist like the author, learning from such an experienced gemologist like Georges Bosshart was an occasion not to be missed. The contact with Georges turn to be extremely easy as we were sharing similar interests not only for gemology but also about traveling to gem mining areas (particularly in Burma).

"Swiss gemologists in Pailin, Cambodia!"
Left to right Georges Bosshart, Walter Balmer checking heat treated sapphires at a sapphire burner place in Pailin, Cambodia"
Photo: V. Pardieu / AIGS, 2006

That first visit was quite brief as it took less than one hour, just the time to make few analyses. Few months later, on a another OPT, he contacted us again and this time Jim Mullen, the AIGS lab director, made an agreement with Georges Bosshart that in exchange of the possibility to use the lab advanced instruments, he would spend some time showing to the lab gemologists how to better use them. Thanks to that on that second visit the author had the privilege to be able to spend two full days in the lab with Georges Bosshart teaching him how to better use the EDXRF, the UV-Vis and the FTIR. Then as out contact was very good, we also spent a day looking at the samples I collected in Burma during my gemology studies and discussing about them, gemology and our experiences traveling to gem mining areas in Burma. Georges was one of the rare persons to have been able to visit not only the gem mines of Mogok and Hpahant but also the small diamond deposit near Momeik.

These three days working on instruments and looking at stones besides Georges Bosshart were a major event for the author as Georges passion for gemology was very contagious: For the young gemologist still searching his way that I was then, his comments and advices were very encouraging and inspiring. After discussing with Georges, I had the great feeling that I was doing the right thing. Georges also convinced me that I could do much better because I had the unique opportunity to be a young gemologist based in Bangkok: It was then much easier for me to get some interesting samples to study visiting the numerous gem mines and markets located around Bangkok that it had been from him in his young days based in Switzerland. He encouraged me to continue going to the field in order to collect seriously reference samples, and then study them very seriously as he said it was the best way to get more knowledge.

In the weeks and months following Georges visit, I spent more and more time in the lab. I also started to travel more regularly to gem mining areas near Chanthaburi, Kanchanaburi and Pailin in order to collect reference samples at the mines, study them back at the lab and then I also started some heat treatment experiment with the help of local Burners in order to see what had changed in the samples after heat treatment.

My boss Henry Ho noticed then rapidly my increasing interest for gemology and soon accepted that I was somewhere lost for the gem trade. In September 2004, a little bit more than one year after meeting Gorges Bosshart for the first time Henry Ho proposed me to become the Director of the AIGS Laboratory. I accepted with pleasure and passion...

In December 2006, few weeks before leaving Thailand to work as a gemologist for the Gubelin Gem Lab in Switzerland I had also the pleasure to welcome again in Thailand Georges Bosshart with his wife Anna and two other Swiss friends: Walter Balmer (who had just left the Gubelin Gem Lab to start a PhD at Chulalorkorn University in Bangkok) and Michael Kremnicki from SSEF. We went on a field expedition to the sapphire mining areas near Chanthaburi and then to the ruby and sapphire mines near Pailin. It was a real pleasure to spend some time with Georges, this time in the field, help him to visit Cambodia and use that occasion to thank him for these very inspiring days we spent together in Bangkok. Again we had some great discussions about some of his favorite subjects like green minerals or Burmese diamonds.

In December 2001, ten years ago, the author became a gemologist...

This new blog is a little bit unusual as it is not about a place the author visited recently.

When you plan to visit a mine located on the top of a mountain, there are moments and places where it is nice to stop for few seconds, breath. Enjoy the moment and the beauty of the area. You can have a look down to the valley and study the track you have walked, then you look up to the mine and see what still needs to be done... You may also look inside yourself and feel weather you will be able to make it or not.

This blog is about one of these moments.

"The author with U Aung Ko, one of his gemology teachers in 2001 and the Director of the G.G.A. (Gem Genuine Association) gemological school in Yangon, Myanma (Burma)". Photo: Jean Baptiste Senoble, 2006

Indeed in March 2001, after four months studies, he graduated from the G.G.A. (Gem Genuine Association) in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma) and then in December 2001 after six further months studying gemology at the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) campus in Bangkok (Thailand), he got his G.G. diploma.

10 years... It is long and short at the same time. The author hopes that you will find the following of some interest, even if it is in some way very naive and personal. But may be those willing to study gemology and searching their way into the gem trade will find here some reasons not to give up and find some good advices.

This page is dedicated to them and to all the people who helped and mentored the author during the past 10 years.

"The author receiving his G.G. diploma from the hands of Christopher Keenan, then Director of the GIA Thailand school"
Photo: GIA, 2001

Introduction: "Past is Prologue"

The author's gemological studies in South East Asia were the consequence of a long personal quest that the author will present you chapter after chapter in the coming few days and also the beginning of a great personal adventure that will take him to be a gemstone buyer in Burma, a gemology teacher and a lab gemologist at the AIGS in Bangkok, Thailand. Then he will become director of that gemological laboratory. After some work on treatments and particularly the lead glass and the beryllium treatment, he will focus more on origin determination of gemstones starting an ambitious field gemology program to collect reference samples in mining areas. He will then move for 2 years to Switzerland in order to work as a gemologist specialized on origin determination of colored gemstones at the Gubelin Gem Lab in Lucerne. Finally he became GIA's first "Field Gemologist", a position he enjoys each day for the past three years.

Regularly the author is told to be lucky to have such a great job. Well yes. But it was a lot of hard work to become "lucky".

Shakespeare wrote: "Past is prologue...". The reader might possibly wonder why a young countryside French guy like the author decided to study gemology in Burma and then in Thailand? Well as in most cases, there is the long story and the short one.

In the next few days the author will invite you to discover the long one as a series of 10 short chapters (one chapter, one year... 10 years? 10 chapters? Ok, that's a private for a "toon" who might read these lines one day if she has some time to loose). But as not everybody might be interested in the author's detailed long stories, here is the short one: The point is that, even before to get a serious interest for gemology, the author had a deep passion for traveling. Deciding to invest a year studying gemology was a great opportunity to discover at the same time another country, learn not only about gems and gemology but also about gem people, their culture and the gem trade. Now when you realize that most of the rubies and sapphires going into the gem trade weather they are produced from traditional sources like Burma or Sri Lanka or from new deposits in Africa will probably travel one day to Thailand, that choice makes a lot of sense. As I found out later, it was indeed a good move for the simple reason that:

"The gemstone trade is not truly just about sciences, arts, money or even gemology. It is mainly about people."

The author's point is that if somebody is interested in studying wine, the author, as he was born from a wine making family near Bordeaux in France, would recommend him to study in France. Studying wine in Thailand could be great (as studying gemology in France.) but my point is that when you study wine in Bordeaux (or may be Burgundy...), it is a different experience for the simple reason that when you leave your school, you are still surrounded with the wine culture: If you are truly interested in wine, you can then use your weekends to visit vineyards, shop for fine bottles in local cellars, witness the "vendanges" and the following wine making process, meet wine makers and traders, build a network of friends and contacts that might make the difference later for your career, and of course you can also have the pleasure to build your own expertise in wine going for lunch or diner in one of the numerous local restaurants and experiment how good wine is a key component of fine French food and social culture.

In fact while selecting the right place or the right school to study, it all depends on your personality, on the school specificities and your project. If your project is to live in Paris and to find a way to make a career with one of the famous French jewelry brand names like Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Dior, Chanel, Chaumet, Boucheron or JAR then studying gemology in France, few hundreds meters from Place Vendome, might make sense, particularly if you find out that several former students from that school are currently working in the company you would like to join. But if you are more on the adventurer side and dreaming about going one day to buy gems in the jungles and the mountains of Asia or Africa, or if you want more quietly to discover gems and at the same time discover what is going on in these Asian emerging economies, then going to study gemology in Thailand for six months might be a great move.

But don't get me wrong: I don't mean that a "smart" choice that fits your personality and your project will be a guarantee for success. The wannabe gemologist will still need to work hard to be successful: Along the road, there will be positive and less positive experiences, but as I repeated to many young people coming in Thailand to start a career in relation with gemstones:

"You will be able to say that you have failed only when you will have decided to stop trying."

In the author's experience knowing what you want to do and taking some smart decisions will definitively help you to success. It is like preparing an expedition in mountains: To be successful in the gemstone trade you will need to schedule and to finance your studies and may be as it was the case of the author you might have to accept to work at the beginning for a very low salary, just to be able to get the experience you need to complete your profile and enable you to get a better position few months or years later... It might surprise some of the readers but it took seven years to the author, working as a gemologist, to be able to get a position with a salary enabling him to save some money at the end of the month while doing what he likes to do. Gemology is a very competitive business, it is difficult to make a living with gems if you don't have a real professional level, and to get it, there is no choice (particularly if you were not born from a gem merchant family) you will have to work hard and not just hard but also very smart... As we know: "Rome was not build in one day", and with gems, experience is really very important. The author's point is that if you don't take the right decisions, working hard, might turn to be more or less useless. Thanks to his mentors, the author got great advices and was able to make the right choices. Thanks to that he became quite successful in what he was doing. Then one day, when things were not very easy, he got the opportunity to be "lucky"... It had been a lot of hard work to get the chance to be "lucky" that day but it was worth it.

Now let's stop here for a while. Tomorrow and each of the next following nice days, the author will post an additional chapter to that blog telling more in details, chapter after chapter, how was able to combine his passions for gemology and traveling and how he became 10 years ago a gemologist. The author hopes that the next chapters will be found useful for people willing to start something in relation with gems. He also hopes that the people spending some time reading that blog will not feel too much bored by that long and quite complicated story...

 

Chapter 1: From the "Black Prince" to Mandalay.

Chapter 2: A French Jeweler in Italy.

Chapter 3: A man called U Phone Gyi.

Chapter 4: A crazy project.

Chapter 5: Kunming, from naive dreams to cold realities.

Chapter 6: Books, letters, hope and shadows...

Chapter 7: Meeting U Kyaw Thaung...

Chapter 8: Gemological studies in "The Other World".

Chapter 9: Paris, GIA Thailand and first Field Gemology experiences.

Chapter 10: Getting a first job and 10 years working as a gemologist. (Scheduled to be released on Jan 23rd 2011)

 

"See through the eyes of Jean Marc Aubert, one of the author's friends from his time at Bordeaux Science University, here is a funny game related short biography of the author written in French (sorry for the non French speaking visitors), that was published in 2004 in a French strategy game magazine. Courtesy: Jean Marc Aubert"

Chapter 1: From the "Black Prince" to Mandalay.

I got my very first interest for gems while reading the novel by Joseph Kessel: "La Vallee des Rubis". It was about Mogok (Burma) and its rubies. That interest increased later while studying sciences in Bordeaux University (France). It was not really coming from my chemistry studies but from something completely different. Besides studying sciences I was actively involved in the organization of LARPs (Live Action Role Playing Games) with a group of friends. I was enjoying working on creating scenarios for fantasy and historical medieval type events. In such aspects I found that gems were of great interest particularly while I was working on a project based on the "100 years war between France and England". Studying in detail the life of one of my favorite characters, Edward of Woodstock, famous as the "Black Prince of England", I came to learn about the existence of the "Black Prince Ruby". For few weeks I did my best to learn as much as I could about that gem. Its history was already fascinating to me but there was something more: It was just amazing to me that what was probably the world's most famous ruby was not really a ruby but actually a spinel... How come? From that mystery came my very first interest for gemology, rubies and spinels. An interest I never stopped studying since then.

I bought my very first gems in Vietnam while traveling in 1997 near Yen Bai on my way to Sapa. I was approached then by a man introducing himself as a farmer who found some rubies in his paddy fields. He told me that he needed money as his wife was sick and needed some medication. His stones were five nice rough waterworned shining colorful gems. It was like candy to me... Few minutes later I had 5 rubies in my pocket and $500 less. The stones turned to be synthetics.

"The author (right) with Anne Riou (left) and Christophe Gilanton (center) posing in Bagan, Burma in February 1998."
Photo: An unknown Japanese tourist, 1998

In February 1998, as each winter, I was backpacking in Asia with two of my friends: Christophe Gilanton and Anne Riou. They were not really what we could call members of the gem trade. I met Anne in London while I was studying chemistry in UK in 1995 and Christophe in 1996 while I was studying business in Toulouse (France). Anne is now a school teacher while Christophe is working in IT. We were then visiting Mandalay, one of the former capitals of Burma.

I was excited to visit Burma. One of my projects was to visit Mogok, the famous valley of rubies I read about when I was young. Visiting the gem market in Mandalay I had some fun looking at stones and buying another nice ruby, faceted this one, that I paid $100.

For few days my friends and I took two different paths: They had a visit to Hsipaw while I had an interesting solo adventure traveling to Mogok with U Phone Gyi, a Burmese man I met the day before near the Irrawaddy River. That's a very long story but to make it short I will say that few days after that encounter this U Phone Gyi took me to visit some sapphire mining sites near Mogok. There while speaking about gems with a group of Burmese miners and dealers, they asked to see the stone I bought in the market. I learned then that the ruby I bought few days before was obviously "Pyinthi" meaning "French"... What do you mean by that, I asked? Then the Burmese dealers told me that for more than 100 years French are famous to have discovered the way to make synthetic rubies. Thus the Burmese word for "French" is used to describe synthetic gems. Well that was the second time I got cheated. U Phone Gyi told me then few words I like to remember: I had to be careful with gems as if this gem trade can be seen all about love and trust, there are two nasty devils called greed and ignorance messing with it... It was a nice Asian indirect way to tell me that I had been stupid particularly as it was the second time I did such mistake. These 2 days around Mogok were just like heaven to me, but I had soon to return on Earth and we had to escape from the area. Finally we were able to return safely to Mandalay. Waiting for my two friends to return from Hsipaw, I spent my time with that interesting Burmese man meeting gem people around Mandalay and looking at gems with a focus on his favorite gems: Star rubies and star sapphires. Wonderful days...

Later on our way back to Yangon, while sailing slowly on a merchant boat from Bagan to Pyay for days, I took some time to thing about my life and these recent Burmese experiences. I had some great discussions with my friends about what happened in Mandalay and around Mogok. As it happened several times in my life, while speaking ideas came and suddenly I realized then that gemstones were at the junction of everything I was interested in: Adventure, science, art, history, geography, nature, people... I had nevertheless a problem: So far I was cheated twice. Obviously I had to learn more about gems in order to be able to make the difference between genuine natural rubies and synthetics.

Back in Yangon, I was decided to learn more about gems. Visiting the Bogyoke market, I found the book "Ruby & Sapphire" by Richard W. Hughes. That was exactly what I was searching: The introduction "Something of myself" written by the author was an echo to my own wanderings and the rest of the book finished to convince me: Rubies and sapphires were found in many places I was dreaming to visit. I was convinced: Rubies and sapphires were really the connecting point of all the things I liked. The book became my favorite traveling companion when I was traveling around the world, taking tourists to visit Europe and Asia. Each time I had some time I was taking some pleasure to read again this or that chapter and studying it.

"The author posing in Venice, Italy during summer 1999 while working as a tour leader for FRAM, a Toulouse based French tour operator. Some people might note that I had then already by bush hat and my lozenge shaped glasses: That was my way to be easy to recognize by the people in my group in order to minimize the chances to loose somebody."
Photo: An anonymous French tourist, 1998

Chapter 2: A French Jeweler in Italy.

The main problem the author had for many years was that he did not really know what he wanted to do with his life. Meeting young (and not so young...) gemology students coming to study gemology in Thailand, I found that he was far to be the only one in such case:

In 1998 after some science and business studies I was working for few years as a full time tour guide specialized on Asia and Europe. I was very happy with my work and FRAM the company I was working with. I had nevertheless the feeling that it was, for many reasons, just a period in his life. Life was then like walking on a mountain. It was nice to visit so many countries and meet interesting people, but I had the feeling that I had not yet found my place. As I had no real goal, something was missing. In other words, as I was very involved in historical and fantasy type LARPs, I was often feeling (like many other young guys) like a wandering young knight searching for a quest that would lead me one day to some princess or some holy grail.

In summer 1999, a year after my expedition to Burma with Christophe and Anne, I still working as a tour guide for FRAM, I remember a specific day while I was traveling with a group of tourists in Italy to visit Venice, Verona and the lakes of northern Italy. For about one year I had an interest for the gem trade and I was searching (quietly...) a way to start something in relation with gems. When I had some time, I was not missing an opportunity to read this or that chapter of my favorite book: "Ruby and Sapphire" by Richard W. Hughes. A French jeweler who was traveling among my group of tourists noticed these readings. The jeweler came to see me and we had a very interesting discussion. It was one of the great things working as a tour guide: It was not only about visiting many beautiful and fascinating places, but it had also often the chance to meet a lot of people. Some of them had very interesting lives and great stories to tell. They were on holiday. I was their guide. They had some free time and some of them were happy to talk. Often these conversations were very meaningful as at the end of their life, few people have any reason to lie to somebody they will probably never meet again. In that case the author does remember that he told the jeweler about his very naive desire to try mixing gems and traveling. The jeweler said that it would be very difficult in his opinion as if there was an easy way to make a living with gems and traveling, then he would not be a jeweler in countryside France. That was not really what I wanted to hear, but it was something I would often think about during the following years...

He had several interesting points:

He said that if just the fact of traveling to the source in Thailand, Vietnam or even Burma and buying there gems was enough to make a good living, then pilots and air hostess would be millionaires: They are not.

Of course he said, I could buy some gems here or there and sell them to my friends but his feeling was that it is quite a dangerous idea to build a business model based on making profits on your friends: Just make a mistake (like buying synthetics as the author already did twice...), sell it to a friend and the result can be a pure nightmare: Everybody will probably find out about it. You might then loose their trust and may be also their friendship if you don't deal correctly with the issue. He was preaching a convinced one, as I never feeled comfortable to sell a stone to a friend: Usually I prefer just to offer them the gem they like... Furthermore, it is also important to understand that gems are not food: After few months, he said, when all your friends will all have bought from you a fine gem, you will need to find other customers because they will probably not need another stone...

Gemstones are not salads, he said, if you don't understand that point: You will fail. That was a very good point I would remind since then and that I recently refreshed in association with www.conservationgemology.org on the presentation I gave in May 2011 at the ICA congress in Rio de Janeiro.

But the main weakness he could see in the author very naive project was that the author had no family in the gem trade:

I had Nobody to advise me, nobody to provide me some useful business contacts... No mentor.

He was right: I had a serious problem with that project.
A good book was obviously not enough...
One solution was making a lot of sense: I had to find a mentor.

Well, that's something easy to say but not that easy to find. Mentors accept to advise you usually if they feel that they are not loosing their time with you. I had then not a real idea about what a mentor could be. One of my friends, who happened to be a serious fan of star wars, was enjoying speaking about the Force, Jedi Masters and their padawans,... Basically his vision of my problem was that I was a wannabe young padawan searching for some Master Yoda to teach him the way to use the Force and to help him to stay away from the Dark Side... The reader might think at that point that the author has possibly some mental problems, but rapidly the author found that it was nice to use that Star Wars terminology. Indeed it was fun and clear but the main advantage is that it is not related to any specific religious background. I found it very useful many years later when I started myself to mentor some young gemologists that my old French university friends and myself like to call my "padawans" as I could explain to any of them independently of their personal religious beliefs what I was meaning in a way that would be seen as fun and acceptable.

Returning to the discussion that day in Italy with the French jeweler, I was starting to wonder about who could be my Jedi Master? Who could spend some time advising me?

Immediately one face came to my mind: U Phone Gyi, the Burmese man I met in Mandalay, took me to Mogok and for several days shared with me his love of star rubies and sapphires.

"The author discussing with U Phone Gyi on January 02, 2000 in Mandalay near the river banks."
Photo: GIA, 2001

Chapter 3: U Phone Gyi.

I decided to return to South East Asia during winter 1999-2000, in order to meet U Phone Gyi, spend some time with my girlfriend and get some additional personal knowledge of Thailand, its people and culture. After some disappointment with my girlfriend, instead to spend the millennium New Year's day with her, I decided to focus on my quest. I traveled again to Mandalay, alone this time, to meet again U Phone Gyi, celebrate with him the millennium and ask him if he could teach me what he knew about gems and become my mentor...

May be at that point I should introduce you U Phone Gyi. That will be a long story but you might find it interesting:

U Phone Gyi was exceptional to me in many aspects. He was very simple in many ways. He had a lot of knowledge but still a tremendous curiosity. He was one of these people from another time who had a life full on unbelievable adventures and who would tell you about them as you would tell your last Sunday searching mushrooms in the woods near your house... He was a kind of poet with an disturbing fascination for light and darkness. Obviously he had seen, lived and possible done a lot of terrible things in his life. He had many shadows in his mind but he was not loosing as occasion to smile, live and laugh. He was usually very serious in all what he was doing: speaking, looking at gems but also sadly drinking and gambling. Extreme in many ways he was nevertheless often very wise. Very educated he was speaking a very good English and Chinese... Weak in appearance he was tough and sharp like a blade of the best steel. He was one of these complex personalities: A survivor of many dark and few bright days and he used to say... What he was telling about his life was just fascinating to me: According to what he told me, he was from a good wealthy Burmese family from Yangon, he studied zoology at the university as he had a passion for natural things. But he was also rapidly involved in politics and joined the BCP a group of communist insurgents operating in Northern Burma. Then under circumstances that are not clear to me he then joined to the KIA (Kachin Independence Army) and got married with a Kachin woman. He was later arrested by the Burmese military regime and spent 3 years in jail where he told me to have experienced forced labor. At some point in his life, it is not clear to me today if it was before or after his arrest, he also worked as a jade miner in Hpakant (Kachin state) and as a gem trader around Mogok. Thanks to his knowledge about gems, the nature and the areas along the Chinese border he told me that he was making a living as a small gem dealer, buying gems in Mogok or Mandalay and selling them in Mandalay or in China. He was also working as a translator or as a kind of public writer. He was living what was looking to be a simple life in a small house in Mandalay, between with his wife and his lovely 7 years old daughter. As everybody he had also his share of shadows. Many of them in fact... It was what he was calling his dark side. He was not hiding them to me due to the circumstances of our first encounter:

Meeting with U Phone Gyi on Mandalay river banks... On February 13th 1998, U Phone Gyi found me seated at his favorite gambling spot. If I was simply enjoying the morning on the riverbanks of the Irrawaddy River, writing things on my diary, on his side he was coming to gamble with his friends. But as he told me later,

"Your presence was disturbing for us as we were not feeling comfortable with a young foreigner seated at their table and witnessing our shameful addiction to gambling: You see Vincent, as a foreigner, you are a guest in our country and it is our duty to show me a good image of Burma. We could not let you look at us gambling and drinking as we were willing to do..." So he told me that he came to me with as objective to find a polite way to make me leave the place.

He was a nice educated man, and after a short discussion he noticed that I was wondering about what was going on on these islands I could see on the river. There were some people taking regularly small boats to go there. He then invited me to take me there, not to the most busy part of the island as that place was according to him a dangerous place for a foreigner with its numerous opium dens and gambling places, but instead he could take me to visit the nice village on the north of the island. I had time to loose, I was curious, I was enjoying the discussion and despite the idea that may be it could be a trap, I had a good feeling with that man and I decided to trust him and to visit that nice village. Indeed the village was beautiful and we had a great lunch under a huge flame tree. We spend there three hours together speaking about life. I told him about my deception not to be able to visit Mogok, the famous valley of rubies that I was wishing to visit one day. The place was interesting me as I first knew about Burma after reading the novel "La vallee des rubis" by Joseph Kessel but the day before we had to drop our plans to visit it. U Phone Gyi then told me: "Vincent, if you really want to go to Mogok, we can go there together...I know very well the place and have many friends there". That was the start of a long discussion and the consequence was that following day I was with U Phone Gyi on my way to Mogok, an incredible expedition that I see today as one of the most significant turning points in my life. But telling that story would just be too long for that blog.

"The author while traveling as a young "padawan" near Mogok, Burma, in September 2001"
Photo: Hemi Englisher, 2001

Regularly U Phone Gyi was abandoning himself to that dark side going at night to the Irrawaddy river, its river banks and its islands... He told me that Mandalay was an extreme city. Hot and sleepy during the day, wise and spiritual at sunrise or sunset when the monks were walking along the streets collecting donations or when people were enjoying the last rays of the sun... but also wicked and dark particularly at night near the port and on the islands of the Irrawaddy River where reportedly opium, heroin, gambling, drinking, sex, sweat, greed and misery where blending with passion. According to him despite these darkness still there was hope. Beautiful, rare and durable, the stars were for him truly the gems of the sky. He had a special love for stars: He told me that when life had been very tough for him, suffering in the jungle while he was with the guerilla, or in jail or loosing himself at night near the Irrawaddy, still he could see these stars like distant symbol for hope. Now if the stars from the sky are impossible to catch, you can find stars also in the most precious stones coming from the Earth. He told me that in rare cases the best rubies and sapphires could also display a star. He was convinced that star rubies and sapphires were truly powerful talismans and in wicked places or during difficult times, it was important for him to have a beautiful star stone as a protection. He believed truly that the reason why he was still alive is that the stars loved him. When I told him that I read somewhere that rubies were symbols for health and strength and sapphires for the wisdom and the soul, his eyes shined and he said: Yeesss!

At the beginning of our adventure, I was wondering if he was one of these common crooks searching for tourists to cheat or if he was really that type of man he told me he was. To be honest, I never really knew if he had been indeed a member of that communist insurgent group, but I had the feeling only a incredible story could have produced such a unique character. And despite many concerns, I had a good feeling about him and I had really great time enjoying his presence.

On December 30th 1999 I arrived in Mandalay to meet him again. The stars were probably also loving me as I had no difficulties to meet him again. We had great time together. We talked a lot. We saw many nice star gems. I bought one of them including a beautiful star gem half pink and half white with very sharp and regular branches: The perfect gem to have to celebrate the passing from the 20th to the 21st century. Indeed I did very well with that little gem on January 01st 2000. U Phone Gyi was very happy and during the following days we started building some crazy projects dealing with nature, gems and traveling. When today I think about them I cannot avoid smiling as I was obviously very naive, but nevertheless it was a great period in my life and I learned a lot...

"The author traveling in Mandalay, Burma, with his old buddy Michel Tournerie"
Photo: Greg, October 2001

Chapter 4: A crazy project:

When I came to meet again U Phone Gyi on December 30th 1999, I did not arrived empty handed, I knew his love for star gems and I came with a small precious present: A nice Vietnamese star ruby that I bought during the last visit I had as a tour guide with FRAM in Vietnam. He was very interested by that gem, but not exactly the way I was thinking he would be. The star stone was very nice even if the color was a bit purplish pink. According to him the price I paid for it was not outrageous. He liked the gem, but not only because it was a beautiful little gem, but because he had never heard that quality star rubies could be found outside Mogok. He wanted to know more about the Vietnamese ruby mining areas: Was I able to visited them? No... Why? He asked me. Well, I had no real answer to give him and I was suddently feeling a little bit stupid. He then told me that unlike Burmese people like him as a young Frenchman and I can go everywhere around the world. I was even able to go to Mogok with him... So I could probably go to these Vietnamese ruby mines if I was willing to. If he was me this is what he would do as he was thinking that there could be some very good business opportunities between Vietnam and Burma: If I could find out the source of these gems we could have a good business partnership. Burmese people would pay a very good price for a fine star ruby...

I was feeling incredibly good as the man I was coming to see in order to ask him to become my mentor was more or less proposing to me. As I learned while studying business in France years before: You don't convince people with your arguments, instead you convince them with their own arguments, and you reach the master level when you can set up the things for them to feel that the idea is coming from them. I was just witnessing that. I was telling myself that If I had planned the things, it could not have been any better. In fact I had no hidden ideas with that stone, it was just a present. But a present that turned to be a wise one... The stars were indeed my friends as U Phone Gyi told me regularly! Lucky...

Back to planet Earth, he told me that for our project to succeed I should learn more about rubies. He could teach me about that and also I should learn to speak Burmese, if I could speak Burmese and get my skin more tanned, I could then travel in northern Burma introducing myself as a Gurkha, one of the descendants of the Nepalese soldiers from the British colonial times. The Gurkhas are still living in Burma and particularly in Mogok and many of them are gem dealers. That would be a good cover. For me to learn about rubies, learn Burmese language, get a tanned skin and to get some money, he had an idea that some old friends would describe as quite fun while most of the readers will probably label as completely crazy. But it happened that when he told me about that plan, I was not in Paris or bangkok: I was seated with my old friend near the Irrawaddy river in Mandalay. Everything was different as I was in the Other World, somewhere out of time and reason.

"The author on his way to the Namya ruby and spinel mines with Ted Themelis and Hemi Englisher (on the elephant) in July 2001"
Photo: Sorry but I don't remember, 2001

For me to learn all that at the same time, I needed to be able to spend about a year in Burma. He said that this could be possibly done with the help of some monastery. The plan B was more rock'n roll: We could go north in the remote Kachin state where his wife had some family. In that area, he said, there is no Burmese military. I could stay there as long as i wanted and he could teach me about ruby and even jade... I could learn about how to cut star rubies and to speak some Burmese and Chinese. Now to finance that year and our future projects, he had one of the funniest ideas I ever heard. An idea that now I think as "so Burmese...": We could capture some wild elephants and train them. Then when the elephants would be trained we could travel west through the jungles of the Nagaland to India. There we could sell our gems and also the elephants. It could be a good and quite safe way to have a good starting capital for our project and it would allow him also to have enough time to train me quietly about gems, Burmese and life in the jungle as that knowledge would be very useful for the second part of his plan!

The second part of his plan was involving me to go to Vietnam, make some good connections at the mines and get some good star rubies at reasonable prices. With my knowledge about gem cutting I could know how to make the difference between good and bad gems. Then the idea would be to travel from Vietnam to Yunnan and meet there Mr. Lee, one of his old Chinese friends, from the time he was fighting as an insurgent along the border between China and Burma…

May be he is still alive he said. One of my first tasks, he added, would be to find out about that traveling to Yunnan. Indeed he had no news from his friend for several years, but he could write for me his address near Kunming. If I could go there and pay him a visit, I could convince him to join us for that business. He gave me an introduction letter for Mr. Lee and wrote his address in Chinese at the back of the letter. With that he said I should be able to find my way to Mr. Lee after my arrival in Kunming.

At the end of that visit in Mandalay he introduced me to a miner from Mogok who had knowledge of an interesting book being written about Mogok, the man had a flyer about that book: “Mogok, valley of rubies and sapphires” by Ted Themelis. I found that interesting as Ted Themelis was one of the people associated with the chapter about heat treatment in the book "Ruby and Sapphire" by Richard W. Hughes. According to the flyer Ted Themelis was based in Thailand. I took his email, thinking that definitively I had to get that book.

"The author in Kunming with some "funny" Chinese guys who had fun with snow balls. What was in my mind then? Chinaand myself in two words... But well despite everything I cannot say now that it was not cool. With the wind, the "City of Eternal Spring" was freezing cool! Note: Some will get with that photo that in Asia it is not easy for guys like the author to find pants with the right lenght for legs... LOL"
Photo: Unkown Kunming citizen, 2001

Chapter 5: Kunming: From naive dreams to cold realities:

Back in Chiang Mai, my first idea was to get a visa for China and travel to Yunnan to see if I could meet that mysterious Mr. Lee. May be we could become friends and work together? I had also an interest learning more about China: So far unlike Vietnam, Thailand and Burma, I had only travelled to China as a tour guide, never by myself. Searching for Mr. Lee could be a good occasion to have some personal experience outside the touristic tracks with China… I had an old interest for the Silk Roads, and for years I had the desire to travel one day from Yunnan to Tibet and then to Kashgar. That could be a great personal adventure to visit these remote places that few foreigners visited. I could give it a try as now I had some good reason to go to Yunnan.

On January 27th 2000 I took a flight from Chiang Mai to Kunming. But there things did not happened as expected. First arriving at the airport while waiting at the immigration I was stolen my wallet. Then the letter from U Phone Gyi turned to be a useless piece of paper. After two days showing around the name and the address I was given by U Phone Gyi, it was clear to me that I had no chance to find that man who was possibly dead for more than 10 years in that huge modern looking city with more than five million people.

Kunming at the end of January 2000 was not really what I could describe as a foreigner friendly city. I was wondering what to do? I could try to scout the way to the Burmese and/or the Vietnamese border, but I had also my old dream: Visiting Tibet and going to Kashgar. I was still a tour guide and with my tour operator I took tourists to visit Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Guilin, Gwangzhou, Hong Kong. Now I was for few frustrating days in Kunming and I was willing to do something different. I was lonely as never I had been as I could not find any friendly person in the city who could speak any of the languages I knew. I got the feeling that it would be nice if I could go to Lhassa and may be from there to Kashgar on the Silk Roads. Reading my old diaries and writing these lines, I'm amazed today about how I was able to get such funny ideas that were not making any sense at all. Anyway, the next day, I found myself traveling on bad roads in one of the worse public bus I ever took. After a night in a scary and really disgusting "shit hole" (Sorry about the vocabulary but honestly I feel that the words are still a little bit soft to describe that place that some of my friends reading these words might rightfully associate with one of the author favorite stories he usually keep for good diners...) I found myself the next morning stopped at a checkpoint. I had no idea about where I was or about what was the problem but I was not allowed to go further. After few hours wondering what was going on at the police checkpoint, the police put me on another bus going in the opposite direction. I had then to spend another night on the disgusting shithole I told you about. Back in Kunming after 3 days for nothing, I was tired, my body was broken after 3 days on bad roads and I had a definition for China in two words: "It Sucks!". Anyway, that was what to be expected when you go to such difficult country as China without even a minimum of planning, with nearly no cash and no good local contact. One of my padawan would call that traveling technique few years later the "Optimization of the luck factor". That day, i wrote in my diary a definition for myself in also two words: "Damn stupid!"

I had only one idea after that complete waste of time: Returning to Chiang Mai and Thailand… The story is much longer and is quite out of subject regarding that blog. But some may find it tasty... So to make it short, the next day I found myself blocked in Kunming for few more days due to heavy snow falls. The people at Thai Airways told me that the plane could not come due to the bad weather. We had to wait for the weather to get better. I was freezing as I had no winter clothes. Furthermore I had not enough money to pay one more night in my hotel. I was hungry and nobody was looking to show any concern about me. After few depressing hours seated on a chair inside the warm office of Thai Airways and wondering what could be my next move, the staff asked me quite roughly to leave as they were closing the office. I was then alone in the snow feeling that I could die in the street and nobody would care about it. Some guys had fun throwing snow balls at me. Thanks to them my pullover became really wet. I asked them to take a photo of us... I was feeling very very cold, depressed, lonely and angry about how stupid I had been to have put myself in such situation. The day was going seriously down, I had just $10 in my pocket and I had to survive for possibly 3 or 4 days here may be more. I had to find a solution as the cheapest hotel in the area was much over my budget... I had then the bright idea to enter one of the best-looking hotels in town: The King World located just near the Thai Airways office. The Force was with me, as I met at the reception an Italian I saw briefly before at Thai Airways. Like me he was supposed to fly to Chiang Mai and was then also stuck here. After few minutes and few drinks, I told him my story and he offered to share his room at the King World with me. Of course I accepted. Suddenly I was feeling again that I was really a lucky bastard! But I had also the certitude that I had seriously to wake up and to be more serious, if I wanted to be one-day successful in my life. No more "Mai Pen Rai" type expeditions: If it is Ok to make mistakes, it is not ok to repeat them. I had been lucky, I had survived... I had now to learn from that failure.

"The author With Jerome Garcia (alias "Grand Jesus") and Julie Capitrel in Bagan, Burma"
Photo: Ludwig Aymard, July 2000

Chapter 6: Books, letters, hope and shadows...

Back in Chiang Mai, I decided not to give up on my projects. I continued visiting gem merchants and jewelers in the area, and went also to send an email to Ted Themelis in order to see if I could buy his book and may be (let's be bold...) meet him in Bangkok.

I was surprised to get very rapidly an answer and on February 21st 2000, I spent half my day discussing with him in his apartment in Bangkok about my experience with U Phone Gyi near Mogok... First he was feeling that probably I never went there, but then as I was able to provide him many details about the village I visited, I was able to convince him. We had then a great discussion. The book about Mogok was not yet finished. He was still working on it. I bought his other book about the "Heat treatment of ruby and sapphire"... I had no money in my wallet to pay it but he let me go with it. It was greeat from him to trust me. Few weeks later he was surprised to receive by the regular mail, a letter from me containing a $100 bank note carefully placed in a sheet of carbon paper...

We remained in contact and in July 2000, on my way again to Burma with three friends (Jerome Garcia alias "Grand Jesus, Julie Capitrel and Ludwig Aymard), I passed to see him before to return to my "other world" as I was then calling Burma. He asked me to help him with something in relation with his coming book about Mogok: I had to hand carry for him two letters to people in Burma and return with some photos to illustrate the book. Of course I was happy to help and I went to Burma with my friends and the two letters. I had no idea yet that these two letters would completely change my plans and probably save my project!

As soon as we arrived in Yangon we took the train to Mandalay. My friends wanted to experience real Burma, I gave them a 30 hours long experience about Burmese railways. It was tough as we sat on hard wood in the ordinary class. In Mandalay we settled in my usual guest house and we went of course to meet U Phone Gyi. I was quite excited to introduce that character to "Grand Jesus", one of my old LARP friends. We found him not really at his best: Shadows, in his eyes, he had. I told him briefly about the Yunnan fiasco and that in my opinion the whole project would probably not be as easy as he was thinking. He was obviously not in one of his best days. He was much more skinny than before. Obviously the dark side was eating him slowly. He was hearing my words more than listening to me. He was not living anymore with his Kachin wife and his daughter, and the elephant project was obviously not anymore a project. Shadows... We talked nevertheless about Mogok. He told me that he was planning to spend some time in the south of Mogok in an area controlled by the South Shan state Army, another insurgent group he had, it seems, some good connections with. He added that one of his good old friends was one of the local leaders of the SSA. A mysterious man U Phone Gyi was... He told me that within few days he was planning to visit that friend and he would ask him if we could spend winter there. From there he said, we could go to Mogok through the jungle (as we did before) and he could teach me all the things I was needing to know about star rubies. I had a bad feeling about all that: May be I was then becoming wiser? I was not thinking so as in the past my feelings had been usually as useful as my thinkings... But that day since the beginning of that meeting I had the feeling that something was wrong, and later my friend "Grand Jesus", told me that he was also sharing that feeling.

Was he going too often and too deep at night near the Irrawaddy in that "Heart of Darkness" of his? I was wondering... Unlike with our previous encounters, this time there was not much of that cheerful complicity I was used to. We were distant... He was here but somewhere I had the feeling that the U Phone Gyi I knew was far away. We left each other too rapidly that day as I was not alone but traveling with three of my friends. I was hoping that I would meet him again few weeks later as I was expecting to return to Mandalay. Hopefully we would have then more time to speak a little further about some projects in relation with gems. I was hoping that we could have again some great time as before when he was far away from his shadows...

I was wrong.

"The author (center) with U Kyaw Thaung (left) and gem merchant and spinel lover Hemi Englisher (right) in Yangon"
Photo: Ko Htun Htun, probably around February 2001

Chapter 7: An opportunity called "U Kyaw Thaung".

After Mandalay we continued our visit of Burma spending some great days in Bagan. Finally we reached Yangon. It was the monsoon and it was raining night and day. Everything was wet. Our money was going seriously down. We had to stay in a cheap hotel near Sule Pagoda were we had to defend our room against moisture during the day and at night against the rats that were ruling the corridors, the kitchen and the bathroom. I was happy to leave the hotel in order to go to deliver the letters Ted Themelis gave me.

The first letter delivery turned to be just a formality: I met the lady at the Bogyoke market and the whole story took less than two minutes. The second one turned to be a very different story: I went to visit a man named U Kyaw Thaung. He was a gemstone merchant from Mogok specialized in crystals specimens and spinels. He was living now very far from the beautiful Schwedagon pagoda. He welcomed me in his house, took the letter from Ted with a great smile and invited me to take some tea while he was asking his nephew to get the photos Ted was asking to publish in his book. As we sat in his living room he said something I will remember forever:

"Let's talk about gems!"

We talked about a lot... After about one hour he came to me with the following proposal: He wanted his nephew to study gemology in English, he would have like him to go to study at GIA in Bangkok so his nephew could become friends with some foreigners, but for Burmese people it was difficult to get a passport and travel abroad. So speaking to me his idea was that he could help me to come to study gemology in Burma with his nephew. I could study gemology each morning with his nephew, spend some time after that at the gem market, then may be learn how to cut star rubies and sapphires and in exchange I could teach him how to better use his new computer. He added that one of his good friends, U Aung Ko had a gemological school near Sule Pagoda called the G.G.A. (Gem Genuine Association). The school was very small but U Aung Ko had a great personal gem collection, one of the best collections of Burmese gems in the country. So studying there I will see a lot of interesting stones... U Kyaw Thaung said that the "Associate Gemologist" diploma at the GGA would take me about 4 months to complete. He asked me to give him a phone call few days later to confirm if I was interested, on his side he will see how things could be possible with the school and the Burmese authorities as for a foreigner staying several months in Burma was not very easy. I said that if that could be possible then I would very seriously think about it but I knew already that I would not miss that opportunity.

I had a very good feeling with the U Kyaw Thaung. He was honest looking, and very friendly. A little bit like with U Phone Gyi at the beginning. There were no shadows in his eyes that instead were sparkling with intelligence. He was looking very motivated by that idea and I had the feeling that he would really do the necessary to find a way for me to be able to come and study in Yangon.

On the way back to Sule pagoda, despite the rain and the depressing moisture, I was feeling incredibly lucky, happy and full of energy. My good star was obviously back! If things were turning fine, to have carried that simple letter to U Kyaw Thaung could become a life changing event, particularly after the Kunming experience that had suddenly become a forgotten story. The idea to come to spend four or may be five months living in Yangon during the next winter was a pure delight as I was truly in love with that country and its gem people. Furthermore , staying in Yangon I would probably be able to visit Mandalay sometimes and meet U Phone Gyi again. Obviously it will be a great opportunity to learn more about Burma, its gems and its gem people. I was feeling back on tracks: New tracks. Good tracks!

Back in Bangkok, I told Ted Themelis about U Kyaw Thaung proposal. He confirmed to me that U Kyaw Thaung was a very nice guy, and that I was very lucky to have been given such an opportunity as, to his knowledge, no foreigner had ever studied gemology in Burma since the colonial times... He added that it would be a wonderful opportunity for me to study there as countries like Burma and Sri Lanka can be seen as gemological "holy lands" with a deep and ancient gem mining and trading culture. Obviously I had nothing to loose as after these five months if I had the feeling that the gem trade was not for me I could return to my life as a tour guide, but in his opinion studying at the source in Burma was a great way to start a career in relation with gems. Music to my ears...

Few days later I phoned to U Kyaw Thaung. He told me that he had arranged the things and that I could definitively come to Yangon as soon as I was ready. I decided nevertheless to return in France to work for FRAM during the high touristic season from August to October as expected by my company. I would be able to save some money to finance my studies and get ready while U Kyaw Thaung would have the time to arrange everything. Then I could return in Yangon to study during winter 2000-2001.

We were both very excited.

"The author using his GIA Dark field loupe in order to select from U Kyaw Thaung stock some rubies and sapphires from Mogok with interesting natural inclusions for his collection"
Photo: Dorothee Perrot, Dec. 2003

When I asked if I had to bring anything for my studies, he told me that I had indeed to get few tools as gemological tools and books were difficult to get in Burma. He advised me to get to buy the "Photoatlas of Inclusions" by John Koivula and Dr. Gubelin, a book he heard a lot of good things about and also to get the same type of loupe as the one he got recently from one of his best customers: Bill Larson, a famous American gem merchant. That special loupe placed over a torchlight was called a "dark field loupe". That pocket microscope made by GIA was a wonderful instrument to check rubies and sapphires in the field. Using it a knowledgeable gemologist would be able to identify most synthetics and treated stones... That was a very convincing argument for a guy who so far had bought only synthetic stones...

He told me that I could get both of them at GIA Thailand.

The next day I gave my first visit at GIA Thailand. I bought on the spot the "Photoatlas of Inclusions" and a GIA "Dark field loupe"... The book was the most expensive I ever bought and the GIA made loupe was not cheap either. But eleven years later I still use the same dark field loupe each time I go to the field, and the Photoatlas is still one of my favorite book. I've no problem to say that the "Photoatlas of Inclusions" and the dark field loupe were truly with "Ruby and Sapphire" the best investments I ever made.

Back in Europe I continued for few months working as a tour guide and saving as much as I could in order to finance a possible change of career. To be honest I was already saving money for about five years in order to preprare my future and now I had the feeling that I had enough money to invest in studies for a couple of years.

In November 2000 I returned to Thailand. I met briefly Ted Themelis who gave me some new mission to carry on while studying in Burma and I took my flight to the other world...

Some of my friends or members of my family were of course a little bit worried to learn that I was planning to study in a country ruled by a military dictatorship with a really bad reputation. On my side, I was happy as few times before and full of hope in my future.

"The author on his way to study gemology at the G.G.A. in Yangon, Burma."
Photo: Ko Htun Htun, 2000

Chapter 8: Studying in "The Other World"

Arriving in Yangon beginning November 2000, I was welcome by U Kyaw Thaung and his family. U Kyaw Thaung Nephew: Ko Htun Htun and I went right away to register at the GGA.

The GGA School was located near Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. It was a small school with two classrooms: Our class with Htun Htun and I were in a small room with Daw Than Myint as teacher. The second class was composed of about 15 young Burmese students. It was very simply furnished and very lively. The focus of the school was to teach to students how to identify gems in Burmese market. Few instruments were available: I remember that we had a demonstration about how to use a refractometer, but then as the school had not enough liquid we never used again that instrument. I was quite frustrated at the beginning but our teacher was repeating us with wisdom that in market conditions, the best instrument we should rely on was ourselves. It was meaning that we should come to the market with as much knowledge as possible, and then we had to learn how to observe the gems in order to put that knowledge into practice. Getting knowledge was fine but getting knowledge and a lot of practice was much better. To emphasis on that every Friday the school was organizing a gemological competition: The only instruments available for the challenge were a 10x loupe, a dichroscope, a polariscope and a glass of water. It was team type competition and we had 10 to 15 stones to identify. It was very fun and helped to motivate the students to learn. Nevertheless the results were quite predictable as the team that had the chance to have Htun Htun as a member was nearly sure to win.

The fact was that Htun Htun as many young Mogok people started learning about gems as he was five years old. He was then going with his grandmother to “Kanase” at the gem mines: There he spent hours searching for nice little gems in the left over or the tailings. In 2000 he was now 25 years old. That was meaning that he had already 20 years of experience with gems meaning that he knew already all the stones by instinct and experience. I was 31 years old and if I knew most of the course by heart my whole experience was more or less limited to the fact that I had been cheated twice... Practicing the gem market game conditions besides Htun Htun was sometimes very frustrating as even if I knew all the theory, if we had let’s say four red stones in front of us: a ruby, a spinel, a garnet and a zircon, then in less than the time necessary to spell their name he was able to identify each gem correctly without instrument just looking at the gem and playing with it and the light in his fingers. For me despite my theory knowledge, they were just four red stones that were looking pretty similar.

"How can you know that this is a spinel?" I would then ask commonly.

"I don't know, Vince. It's just obvious to me". He would typically answer.

Well, that was not really what I was willing to hear. Studying with Htun Htun was a permanent challenge and I do remember of some occasions where I was feeling hopeless. But it was great as Htun Htun was all the time very kind and helpful with me. Practicing each day, I slowly understood how to study the gems and use my knowledge. Working hard each day, never missing an opportunity to see more gems, to meet gem people and learn more, I improved rapidly. After two months of daily practice I was also making a lot of progress and I was not anymore one of the weakest on the Friday challenges.

"The Schwedagon pagoda in central Yangon, few minutes before sunrise."
Photo: Vincent Pardieu, 2003

In Yangon I was living like a chicken: Waking up with the sun and going to sleep when night was falling. The point was that most of the time in the area I was staying, there was no electricity in the evening and at night. My days were starting early around 6am, sometimes earlier when the nearby temple was using its loudspeakers. I was then usually going to Schwedagon Pagoda as the atmosphere there was beautiful in the morning. The place had something truly magic and still now when I visit Yangon I enjoy visiting Schewedagon for the sun rise. I had also my habits at a small restaurant near the huge gold covered pagoda. There they were serving a delicious Mohinga. A typical Burmese fish soup with rice noodles.

I was then usually walking to U Kyaw Thaung place in order to meet Ko Htun Htun, take a second breakfast and get ready to go to the GGA. Usually we were going there using the local bus. It was nice and many Burmese were surprised to see that tall foreigner dressed as a Burmese and going like them studying. The school was usually finishing around lunch time. Usually with Htun Htun we were taking a lunch near the Bogyoke market and from there I was often going to visit its gem market and numerous gem shops. I had soon the habit to seat in front of U Kyaw Wanna FGA Lab. There I was playing chess, looking and learning about gems and crystals. Then I was returning to U Kyaw Thaung place to learn how to cut star rubies and sapphire with U Myint Lwin the cutter of U Kyaw Thaung. I have to admit that I was not very good at that. In fact I preferred to teach him about how to use his computer, speak with him or study stones from his stock. Then after an early diner with all U Kyaw Thaung, I was returning home to study and then sleep as soon as night was falling as I could not read anymore. Life was very simple and my days were quietly busy.

After few weeks, when things were well settled down, I took the night bus to Mandalay in order try to meet U Phone Gyi to tell him about my life in Yangon studying gems. It may sound weird to people reading these lines in 2012, but in 2000 in Burma mobile phones, emails were not very common and U Phone Hyi was not the type of man to have a telephone.

When I arrived at his small wooden house I found it closed and for two days I was not able to get any news from him. I was thinking that I was probably in Mandalay at the wrong time and possibly he went for business to Mogok or the Chinese border. While visiting the jade market on my second day in Mandalay, I met one of our common friends. Asking about U Phone Gyi I learned that my old friend died few weeks ago in a local hospital. Asking what happened to our friend, I was told that he died from AIDS but here that was not something to say in Burma those days: Obviously nevertheless U Phone Gyi was going too much to the Irrawaddy and the shadows finally took him...

That was a shock, as I was never thinking that he could be sick with AIDS. It was also the first time that one of my close friends died from AIDS. But somewhere it was so obvious: His shadows, his desire to live every instant, the fact that he was afraid of nothing. Suddenly with that new perspective, I understood many things about my old friend and mentor.

The shadows took him.

On my way back to Yangon during the 20 hours long travel by local bus, I had the time to think about him, his life, the time we spent together, our projects and my future: Life is short. On that planet we have only a limited amount of time to do what we like, we should not waste any of it doing what we don't except for some very good reason. I was already 31 years old, I was still healthy, but my feeling was that I had nevertheless no more time to loose. I really had to work very hard now if I wanted to be successful in 10 years as a gemologist!

I had definitively also to be careful about the dark side of the Force. I had to stay away from the shadows of Bangkok or of the Irrawaddy.

"The author working on his notes outside U Kyaw Thaung house in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma)"
Photo: Not really sure, 2001

Back in Yangon, I dedicated myself more than ever to my studies. I was convinced that it was time to work hard and dig my hole. I had just no choice, as if I wanted to get the respect from the local Burmese dealers I was meeting everyday at the gem market, I could not mistake for long a ruby for a spinel.

Living among U Kyaw Thaung family, I realized the chance I had as truly I could not be in a better place than among a gem family to learn about gems and the gem trade. With U Kyaw Thaung, I had a natural new mentor. Thanks to him and his friendship, I was immersed in a wonderful gem culture. For four months, I was not only able to study gems, but I could also meet many Burmese and foreign gem merchants coming to buy gemstones in his house. It was fascinating for me to meet in Burma, in the office of one of their suppliers people like Bill Larson, Hemi Englisher or Andrew Mc Grath. I learned a lot from them comparing the way they were negotiating with U Kyaw Thaung and looking at gems. We often some great discussions and thus I was able to widen my interests and understanding for other gems than just rubies and sapphires. Soon I got a fascination for crystal specimens, for inclusions in gemstones and for spinels... I started to collect small crystal specimens and checking with my darkfield loupe thousands and thousands of small stones from U Kyaw Thaung stock, in order to identify their inclusions using the “Photoatlas of Inclusions” I had invested in, I started soon a collection of rubies and sapphires selected carefully for the quality of their inclusions.

Finally as Yangon was an important gem trading center, I was also able to witness some very interesting events:

First, again with U Kyaw Thaung support, I was able also to attend to the Emporium: The official sales organized by MGE (Myanmar gem Enterprises) of the stones like Jade, rubies, sapphires mined from the government run mines. Besides to auction sales of the government gems, many private Burmese traders were also selling interesting gems. Searching around I found an interesting but unusual star ruby that I bought thinking that possibly I could make a profit selling it later in Paris.

I had the chance to live a small gem rush as in December 2000 we heard in Yangon that several thousands of miners from Mogok and Mong Hsu were moving to a swampy area called Namya, located between Myitkyna and the famous Hpakant Jadeite mines. At that time gem mining areas where out of reach from foreigners, and thus I could not visit Namya. But looking at gems in the market in Yangon and speaking with traders returning from the new areas, I could rapidly learn that the main products were rubies that could be as good as the best Mogok stones. Unlike what is found in Mogok or Mong Hsu the deposit was completely of the alluvial type and thus many other gems were associated with rubies including a very special one that soon became one of my favorites: Namya hot pink spinels. Candy to my eyes...

These were four incredible months.

In March 2001, I finally completed my studies and graduated from the GGA... I returned then from Burma to Thailand with more than just a diploma in my hands and few gems in my pockets: I had now deeply convinced to have found my way and I definitively wanted to go further into gemology.

"Left to right: The author's main instructor at GIA Thailand Mon Mon, Christopher Keenan then Director of GIA Thailand, Thu Vannaxay and the author"
Photo: Not really sure, Dec. 2001

Chapter 9: Paris, the GIA Thailand and first experiences about gemology in the field.

I returned to France for few months with some stones I bought during my studies in Burma. My idea was to see if the idea to start a business as a gem merchant between Burma and France was making any sense. I had one parcel of 30 small and nice star rubies and sapphires all carefully selectedthat I got from U Kyaw Thaung and also I had the five carats star ruby I found at the Emporium.

In Paris I was joined by one of my old friends from university: Pierre Emmanuel Barba. We were thinking that maybe we could that a gem trading company together: The idea was that I would focus on purchasing in Burma while he would focus on sales in France. The adventure did not started very well as with our first shipment between Thailand and France we got an issue with the French customs. Then we spent two days together visiting gem merchants in Paris and then around Bordeaux. The best we could say was that the test was not really convincing. I remember a particular reaction from a jeweler looking at our star sapphires:

"Vous savez, le cabochon c'est pas folichon!" (the French speaking readers will appreciate...).

The only gem merchant in place Vendome who received us to see our star ruby got suddenly afraid when he learned that the stone had not being properly imported in France and nearly expulsed us from his office. Rapidly we found out that we had still a lot of things to learn particularly about the trading aspects: How to import the stones? How to get paid?

In fact we found out that things were just incredibly more difficult than what we expected. I also found out that it was better not to tell too much about my studies in Burma as such an unusual background was seen as very suspicious more than anything else. In fact soon I found that the best was not to speak at all about it as my Burmese diploma had absolutely no recognition in France. To be able to present myself as a gemologist and to be able to make Parisian type gem traders feel more comfortable with me the best would be to get a gemological diploma with more international recognition that my obscure Burmese one...

Learning about gems in a place like Burma was a wonderful experience. But it was obviously not enough. Back in Bangkok I returned to meet Ted Themelis. I told him about my Parisian adventure and he advised me to study in Thailand at the GIA in order to get a diploma with a much better recognition. In his opinion I could also benefit a lot of these 6 months studies in Thailand to learn more about treatments and synthetics as that was not something that was covered by my studies in Burma. Studying at GIA in Thailand I would have the opportunity to visit regularly the week end gem market in Chanthaburi, the border gem trading centers like Mae Sot and Mae Sai. Furthermore Bangkok itself was a major gem and jewelry trading center with hundreds of gem trading companies located around Mahesak and Surasak areas between Sathorn, Silom and Surawong roads. Finally studying in Bangkok I could attend to the Bangkok Gem Show organized twice a year in February and September by the TGJTA (Thai Gem and Jewelry Traders Association), a great professional show attended not only be local traders but also by merchants from all over the world.

After that deceiving experience trying to sell these Burmese gems in France, I had to take a serious decision: I could continue that project in relation with gems or I could forget about it and continue working as a tour guide. After few more tours with FRAM in Italy and Portugal, I decided that it was better to fail trying to follow my dreams than to have regrets one day not to have at least seriously try. Ted arguments about studying at GIA in Bangkok were very convincing. I sold then most of the things I had in France: My car, most of my books and even one of my hunting bows. Then I took then again a plane ticket to Bangkok to study at GIA Thailand.

Except for short visits, since then I never returned in France.

Arriving in Bangkok I started my studies with great enthusiasm. Studying at GIA was great as the classes were modern, I felt particularly in love with the great microscope we had, that were so much better compared to the old one we had to share at the GGA. The approach and the focus of the studies were very different from what I had at the GGA and thus I was enjoying the class a lot. I was also spending a lot of time after my classes with Ted Themelis. He was my new mentor and I was following his advices as so far they had turned to be great. About twice a month, when I was not too busy with my homework, I was traveling to Chanthaburi, Kanchanaburi, Mae Sai or Mae Sot in order to get some additional experience from the local gem markets. Each time I went alone as my classmates preferred to spend their time partying in Bangkok, going to the beach or were working for their families... Most of them were the sons or daughters of members of the gem trade. I was not. Unlike in Burma, I had nevertheless already some gemological knowledge and I could have fun right away competing with my strongest classmates and particularly Kobi Sevdermish from Israel and Robert Rossberger from Germany. It was very fun. Another big difference between the GGA and my class at GIA Thailand was that at the GGA I was the only non Burmese. At GIA Thailand I do remember that the very first impression I had of my class was: What is that zoo?

My classmates were from Germany, Israel, Lebanon, Italy, Texas, Singapore, Burma, Brunei, Vietnam, India and Thailand. None of us except a young Thai couple and the Vietnamese lady, who had also a French passport, were from the same country. It was just great at the class was at the image of the international gem trade in Bangkok. The focus of most of my classmates was about doing the necessary to get their diploma and enjoying their time in Bangkok and Thailand with their classmates.

On my side, things were very different as I had to find a job rapidly after the end of my studies in order to be able to survive. I spent a lot of time after my class with Ted Themelis, visiting him often. Away from Yangon and U Kyaw Thaung, Ted became my new mentor. We became good friends and he gave me numerous good advices. About a month after the beginning of my studies, in July 2001 he proposed me to join an expedition to Burma he was planning in the next few days: Mogok was still out of reach but the Burmese authorities were now allowing foreigners to travel to the Hpakant Jade mines. On the way we would be also allowed to visit the new Namya ruby and spinel mining area. To reduce the costs of the expedition and help him to collect data, he offered me to join. The opportunity was too great for me to start to worry about the money or my study schedule. Immediately I said YES! As my results at GIA were very good, I was able to negotiate within few days with Christopher Keenan, then Director of GIA Thailand, the possibility to miss the class for one week. Thanks to Chris understanding, I was soon on my way back to the “Other world”.

"The author assisting Ted Themelis to collect data visiting sapphire miners north of Mogok on the way to Barnardmyo"
Photo: Hemi Englisher, Dec. 2001

That expedition was like a journey to heaven for me. Besides Ted Themelis, Hemi Englisher, a very experience gem merchant I met Hemi while studying in Burma, was part of the expedition. He was very interested in Namya hot pink spinels. To go to the Jade mines we had to travelled to Myitkyna, the capital of the Kachin State. To save money I decided to travel by train from Yangon to Mandalay and then Myitkyna. After a two days long epic journey, I arrived just on time to sleep few hours before out early departure from Myitkyna.

We left early in the morning with a joint escort from the Burmese military and the KIA (Kachin Independance Army) one of the former insurgent group that had then a cease fire agreement with the Burmese military regime. We travelled west for half a day to reach Namya. It was quite something for me as the place was the first gem mining area I really visited. In July 2001, about six months after the beginning of the rush, we were the very first foreigners to ever visit the area. To reach the mining area at Seboh we had to travel for several hours through a swampy jungle to reach the mining area. Ted and Hemi were riding an elephant while on my side as I was short in cash I decided to walk like the soldiers traveling with us. Despite the difficulties we reached the mines: I was in heaven!

After Namya we continued on an epic journey to Hpakant and the jade mines on a very dusty dirt road. The track was scary but after four hours as our bodies was asking for mercy we reached Hpakant. As assistant for Ted and Hemi, in the following days I did my very best to help collecting GPS data, photos, videos and samples. We visited different type of mines, from open pit to underground operations. It was impressive and truly a wonderful experience.

Later in September 2001, as Mogok was also open to foreigners, Ted and Hemi proposed me again to join them for another Burmese adventure. Ted wanted to collect more data for the second volume of his book about Mogok. Again as my results at GIA Thailand were very fine, Christopher Keenan allowed me to miss some class for nearly 10 more days to allow me to join that gemological expedition.

After few days in Yangon and Mandalay to prepare the expedition I could finally visit the wonderful "Ruby Land" I was hoping to visit with U Phone Gyi: The very place I was dreaming to visit since the days I read the novel by Joseph Kessel "La Vallee des Rubis". After traveling one day from Mandalay we spent three full days visiting mines from dusk to down with the help of a man that was to become a great friend: Dr. Saw Naung U. Days were long, as we wanted to visit as many mining site as possible, we never stopped for lunches. There was just so much to do before to leave. The days were long and tough but again: I was in heaven!

Thanks to these two expeditions working as assistant for Ted and Hemi, I learned a lot. Not only about Mogok and Burmese gems, but also about gemological expeditions and how to collect data in the field. That knowledge was to become very important few years later when I started my own expeditions to gem mining areas.

In December 2001, 10 years ago, after six great months studying gemology at GIA Thailand, I finally got my G.G.

That was the start of a new adventure as I had then to search for a job.

"The author with behind him Mogok and its valley from the view point on the way to Momeik. That was the achievement of an old dream and a good project. Three months after that photo, he got his G.G. diploma from GIA Thailand and was ready for a new adventure: Getting a job!"
Photo: Angelo Themelis, Sept. 2001

See you in few days for the Chapter 10: Getting a first job and 10 years working as a gemologist. (Scheduled to be released on Jan 23rd 2011)

All the best and best wished to all of you for 2012!

18O/16O and V/Cr ratios in gem tsavorites
from the Neoproterozoic Mozambique metamorphic belt:
a clue towards their origins?

Authors: Gaston Giuliani, Anthony E. Fallick, Julien Feneyrol,
Daniel Ohnenstetter, Vincent Pardieu and Mark Saul.

Click on the photo to get the article

Abstract: The combination of oxygen isotope composition with V–Cr–Mn trace element concentrations of V-bearing garnets (tsavorites) originating from the main deposits of the Neoproterozoic Mozambique Metamorphic Belt is reported for the first time. The database enables the identification of the geological and geographical sources of the main productive areas from northern and southern Tanzania, Kenya, and Madagascar. Three consistent sets of δ18O values between 9.5‰ and 11.0‰, 11.6‰ and 14.5‰, and 15.5‰ and 21.1‰ have been recognized for primary deposits hosted in graphitic gneisses related to the Neoproterozic metasedimentary series. The δ18O value of tsavorite is a good tracer of the environment of its formation; the δ18O of the fluid in equilibrium with tsavorite was buffered by the host rock during metamorphism and fluid-rock interaction. This study is a first step in characterizing the geochemistry of gem tsavorite from most of the deposits and occurrences worldwide.

Keywords: Mozambique Metamorphic Belt . Tsavorite . Oxygen isotopes . V/Cr ratio . Mn . Geographic and geologic origins

Figure 1: Tsavorite or Mint Garnet? That large crystal of green grossular garnet was part of an interesting pocket found at the end of November 2010 near the Bloc D in Merelani (Tanzania). Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok

Read the rest of the article at the following link

14th ICA (International Colored stone Association) Congress, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (April 30th - May 04th 2011):

Few days ago the author put for the first time in his life his feet in South America as he attended the 14th ICA congress. In the following blog once is not the rule, it will not be about the author and some friends going on an expedition in an exotic gem mining location around the world. To the inverse, it is about a congress where the author was asked to give a presentation. As in Panyu (China) in 2009, Dubai (United Arab Emirates) in 2007 and Bangkok (Thailand) in 2005, the ICA congress taking place once every two years are not really something that could be qualified as "field gemology" but it was nevertheless about traveling, meeting gem people and learning from new experiences and encounters.

The congress was cozy and comfortable; it was taking place in Copacabana beach. This time the congress was dedicated to "Ethical Mining and Fair Trade, certification challenges from mines to market" and on the following photos you will not see the author dressed like an Afghan or like a guy ready to go to the African bush...

GIA FE22 (GIA Laboratory Bangkok Field Expedition 22): Jan. 24, 2011 -Jan. 28, 2011:

Each last Wednesday of the month, the GIA Laboratory Bangkok and the GIA Thailand School join their forces to organize events called the "GIA Gemstone Gatherings" at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (previously known as Pan Pacific hotel) on Rama IV road in Bangkok. On November 24th, 2010, Flavie Isatelle, a young French geologist/gemologist who travelled for one year around the world visiting gem mines was given the opportunity to give a public presentation about Emeralds from Colombia as during summer 2010 she spent nearly a month in Colombia living for several weeks in an emerald mine in Muzo in order to study its geology. Thanks to the interest generated worldwide by that presentation, she was contacted by Gemfields, an important company mining emeralds in the Kafubu deposit in Zambia (one of the world’s largest emerald deposit) and was invited to give again her presentation in Zambia. That was a great opportunity for her to visit that mining operation one of the world largest colored stone mines. Remembering the help that the author provided her in her numerous expeditions in Asia, Africa and South America, she was nice to ask the me if I was interested to travel with her in Zambia... There are some proposals that are very difficult to refuse.

Thanks to Flavie, I was also invited by Gemfields and at the end of Januray 2011 I was on my way to Zambia. We arrived in Zambia on January 24th for a three days long visit at the Kagem mine. For once I was not to be the expedition leader: Flavie was the boss and I became for few days her assistant and personal photographer. This blog and the following photos will then simply reflect that fact. Of course as official photographer of the expedition I took many photos where Flavie was not part of the landscape, but we have decided to keep these photos for the future publications. Soon you will be able to read our first report in "Gem News International" of the next issue of "Gems and Gemology" and later (probably around August 2011) you will find a more extensive and illustrated report on the following websites: www.gems-geology.com, www.fieldgemology.org, www.giathai.net and www.gia.edu.websites.

(Geologist Robert Gessner explaining to Flavie Isatelle the mining at the Kagem Gemfields main emerald mining pit.)
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2010)

We were welcomed at the Kagem / Gemfields mine by geologist Robert Gessner. Robert took us around for the following days from the main mining pit to the fascinating underground mining operation he is managing and also to the washing plant and the sorting house, where we could see some interesting emerald samples and meet with several local gemologists. The visit was very interesting particularly as it is very rare to encounter such high level of organization in the colored gemstone mining operation.

(Underground at the Kagem Gemfields mine in Zambia geologist Robert Gessner explains to Flavie Isatelle the local geological setting. Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2010)

Visiting the mine with Robert Gessner was a real pleasure as Robert, besides being a very knowledgeable geologist (and a great tour guide), is also sharing with us a passion for gemology (Robert is currently studying gemology at GIA using the GIA distance education program) and photography as you can discover on "RoGe ImaGes" .

(Robert Gessner explaining to Flavie Isatelle how the emeralds are getting manually sorted at the Kagem Gemfields emerald mine in Zambia. As most emeralds are still attached to some matrix, manual and visual sorting was prefered to techniques using gravity or optics.
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2010)

Most of the young gemologist/geologists interested in gemstones who regularly contact the author for advice using the Internet might found Robert background interesting: After studying geology in South Africa, he graduated in 2004. Robert started then working as geologist at the Tanzanite One mine in Merelani, Tanzania. There he got some serious experience about the specificities of underground gem mining. In Jan 2009 he moved to emerald mining in Zambia to work on a very interesting and challenging project: Pioneering underground mining at the Kagem Gemfields emerald mine, a mine which is traditionally and historically an opencast mine. The main difficulty for most young geologist/gemologist is to find a first job as most companies prefer to hire people with experience... So my advice is the following: Be smart and work hard to get the right skills/profile. Then do your best to get the right first job, the one that will enable you to get the experience you need in order to be lucky later receiving a proposal to become what you have all your life dreamed to become.

Hard work is much more efficient if you work smartly.

(Finally one photo without Flavie and Robert... Zambian gemologist Jackson Mtonga working as superintendant at the Kagem Gemfields sorting house is presenting one of the emeralds from the company master set. Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2010)

The visit at the Kagem Gemfields mine was very interesting as there are very few colored gemstone mining operations where gems are mined in such a way using modern geological and mining techniques. It was a great opportunity for me to visit that mine and meet there many interesting characters: Geologists, gemologists, miners, security officers and managers.

All the best,

This post is not about one of the author expeditions or about an article he collaborated with, but it is about one friend who was a constant source of inspiration for the author for many years. He was an inspiration before we actually met and he is still today as he is one of my most regular travel buddies: From 2005 to last month we visited Madagascar, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam ... That post is about my friend and mentor Richard W. Hughes.

Today I received the following press release (follow that link) from Sino Ressources Mining Corporation Ltd (Sino RMC) a mining company with a very interesting approach of gem mining. Richard W. Hughes has become CEO of the Sapphminco Division, and Senior Vice President of SinoRMC. Last Saturday he left Bangkok to Hong Kong where he will be based. This is sad news but also and good news.

Sad news as it will now be less easy for the author to meet Richard and benefit from his knowledge and experience about ruby and sapphires.

Good news as Richard will work on a very interesting project: Few months ago we visited together that mining operation on the Mekhong River banks near the city of Houay Xai in Laos. I visited already Houay Xai three times before that visit. Nevertheless that visit was a great surprise and one of the most interesting visit I had. The reason is simple: They were obviously trying to do there what I'm believing could be a great chance (and also a great challenge) for the gem industry:

I mean "conservation gem mining".

For several months visiting East Africa during summer 2009, the author visited several areas dedicated to conservation where gems were also produced. After spending 3 days under arrest in the Niassa National Reserve, trying to visit a ruby deposit in Mozambique, the author started to think seriously about concepts like "conservation gem mining" or "conservation gems". Nevertheless I was not thinking that just few months after I would visit a mining operation trying already to work for several years on such a project.

That was very motivating particularly as the author was working on his www.conservationgemology.org project.

Nevertheless Simon, the CEO of SinoRMC asked me to stay quiet for a while, as he was not yet feeling ready to communicate about what they were doing. They had first to be able to present some results, not only a nice project. No problem: For the GIA Laboratory Bangkok, the important thing is to be able to collect reference samples for our research projects on origin determination of gemstones. I can stay quiet for months or years if necessary.

But recently Sino Resources Mining Corporation has put a website online, hired Richard and sent that press release: It will be very interesting to follow what will happen between Laos, Australia and Hong Kong... So it is now time for this blog to go online and reveal a glimpse of what is going on near the great Mekhong River.