One orangutan, two orangutan, three orangutan four...

So far this vacation has been incredibly memorable! Our first stop after arriving in Sumatra was the jungle town of Bukit Lawang, home to the Gunung Leuser National Park. We signed up for a two day, one night trek in the jungle. The other trekkers were sporting some pretty flashy backpacks and trekking gear while Shane and I hiked the jungle in crocs (on me) and chucks (on Shane) but we made do.

Gunung Leuser National park was home to an orangutan rehabilitation centre, and is now home to wild and semi-wild orangutans. A semi-wild orangutan is one who was originally in captivity but was rehabilitated at the center and now lives in the jungle. At this point they are no longer taking rescued orangutans as the park has a healthy and stable population. The park is also home to other monkeys and even some Sumatran tigers (although it is VERY rare to spot one of these).

Our guide was a charismatic fellow named Thomas who has been leading treks into the jungle for over 20 years! He was really knowledgeable about the jungle and a great guide. We were impressed with his commitment to keeping the orangutans and the forest healthy as he asserted that even our fruit rinds had to be packed out with us so that the orangutans don't get used to following around tourists for food!

This is a Thomas Leaf Monkey. They have hilarious hair.

 After a long day of trekking we got to our campsite which was near this beautiful waterfall. What a great way to wash off the grime from a day of walking in the jungle! After a delicious camp supper of various Indonesian dishes our guide told us some interesting stories about the differences between Western and Indonesian cultures.

During our trek we saw a total of 11 orangutans, including a bit of a close encounter with one named Jackie. She was one of the orangutans who was released into the wild by the rehabilitation centre so she isn't shy of humans. Jackie is a clever girl and has figured out that she should go for people's backpacks in the hope that there will be food inside. If that fails, she grabs a hold of a tourist... luring the guides into bribing her with food to make her go away. Although our guides do not normally feed the orangutans, this was a special case as they were holding us hostage! Shane noted that the orangutan's grip is surprisingly strong...

We also saw several other kinds of monkeys in the park, as well as birds and some beautiful plants. Thomas showed us all kinds of plants and trees that are used for food, medicine or other things in the jungle. We even got to taste the bark of the quinine tree (not advised, it is VERY BITTER) which helps to keep away malaria.

It was definitely an experience that neither of us will forget, it isn't every day you get to see an extremely rare ape in the wild!

The Epic Chicken

First of all, while you are reading this post you must imagine the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you can't imagine it click the link... It is better if you play it at high volume, or imagine it at high volume at least.


He was resplendent. From his dazzling peaked comb to his fearsome talons. His feathers; a beautiful mosaic of reds, greens and blacks, shimmered like precious gems in the morning sunlight. He swaggered about the yard on his long, strong legs, puffing out his muscular chest as though he knew how remarkable he was. Onlookers gathered as time went on, pulling over their motorbikes to look at the chicken. Nobody had ever seen a chicken quite this epic.

In Thailand, there are often chickens running around everywhere. We live in the city mind you, not in a rural area. It isn't rare to see a couple of chickens scratching in the dirt in front of a restaurant or near a shady bush.

Chickens in Thailand would ruin Canadian chickens in any contest. Canadian chickens are soft, with their large breasts and short legs, they have neither the strength, speed, nor stamina of a Thai chicken. Shane and I call them chocobos after the Final Fantasy creatures.

The chicken described above was one Shane saw on the way home from work one day. People were actually pulling over to get a look at this chicken because he was just so handsome. Speaking of handsome, you may be thinking "Wow, look at that chicken picture, it is amazing! It is the best thing anyone has ever drawn!" Yes, that is because we bought a drawing tablet for the computer! No more will the male stick figures in our blog have no hair... with my drawing tablet I can give them hair and even maybe ears! They will still be stick figures though...

This Post May Be Offensive for Some Viewers (Cat lovers, I mean you)

In other news, we have this cat around our neighbourhood lately. Maybe it is in heat? Maybe it is just annoying, but it "meows" ALL NIGHT LONG.

Sitting watching a movie "meow!"
Get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, "mrrrraaawwww"
Trying to fall asleep "REOW!"
This is what I imagine the noisy cat looks like:

The green lines are stink lines. It is probably missing some fur and part of an ear. Sometimes the noisy cat will fight with another noisy cat. This creates even more noise.

We have tried speaking sweetly to the noisy cat, "here lovely kitty, go somewhere else you pretty cat"
and yelling at the noisy cat, "UGH! Go AWAY you stupid cat!". Nothing works. Instead we end up with conversations that go like this:
Hannah: "What do you want for MEOW"
Shane: "What do I want for what?"
Hannah: "for dinner! ugh, stupid cat."

Unfortunately he has chosen a rather obvious bit of cover...

We have many little house geckos, or "jing jok" living in our new apartment. They are shy little critters, coming out when the lights are off and then scurrying to safety as soon as we come in the room. Occasionally you see a tail or a brief flash of movement while one runs into a good hiding spot.

Except for one. We have one gecko who is either old and confused, or else really overestimates his hiding ability. Sometimes he will hide like this:

 ... that is, just sprawled out on the floor, frozen. They can kind of change colour, so maybe he thinks we can't see him? Other times he will choose something to hide behind, but usually it ends up like this:

... with his tail sticking out one side and his nose out the other. Once we even found him on the counter, licking a cutting board like this:

... he was licking up the juice from a pear we had cut there earlier. It is a little known fact that geckos love pear juice. Also, they have cute pink tongues.

Where will he be next? At the foot of the bed? In front of the TV? Under the laundry rack? We never know, but we are always amused by the gecko who isn't very good at hiding.

Pug on a Motorbike

A regular occurrence here in Thailand, for your viewing pleasure here is a pug on a motorbike. We have seen much bigger dogs sitting in this same fashion, but not managed to snap a photo. Not much to say about this one, except enjoy!

Soi Dog Love

Soi dogs are street dogs here in Thailand. The smaller streets that branch of the bigger roads are called "sois" hence the name given to the dogs.

Although Thailand is full of dogs, they don't usually look like the kind of dogs you want to pet. Coming from a dog-filled home and being a dog-lover, I have been really feeling the lack of dog-love in my life. I found out about a great organization called the Soi Dog Foundation here in Phuket, and I have been volunteering with them on one of my days off each week; walking, scratching bellies and just spending time with the dogs. Here are some photos of the little critters, so that you guys can share this warm fuzzy feeling!

PS Like most charitable organizations, the Soi Dog Foundation is in need of donations. If you have been looking for a charity that needs your help, consider donating to these sweet dogs.

We Love Trunks

 As part of our trip to Chiang Mai, we decided to check out the Elephant Nature Park. This is a sanctuary for domesticated elephants who have been rescued from their previous lives as beggars on the street, as illegal loggers, or working in unsafe trekking camps. Many of the elephants are scarred (mentally and physically) from their previous lives, and some of them have broken legs, or even broken backs, that make it difficult for them to walk (and heartbreaking to watch). Over our day at the centre we got to feed the elephants, bathe them, and just generally hang around watching them and seeing what happy elephants do on their days off.A wonderful trip and an amazing experience!

 

Cold Snap Hits Thailand

Yes, for all our Canadian friends this must seem like a real oxymoron... but it is true! There is currently a big weather system in the South of Thailand (causing the worst rains in memory apparently) that is hitting our region with some unprecedented cold temperatures. At this time of the year we should be into the hot season, and the temperature should be around 40C fairly often... instead it has been hovering right around 20C!

In their kind Buddhist way, the Thais have sought to alleviate the suffering of some of those less fortunate around us... namely the soi dogs. Somebody (or possibly a group of somebodies) has been putting shirts on the soi dogs.

This little fellow is just one example of the several dogs that we have recently seen sporting shirts... We are pretty sure that it is due to the recent "cold" temperatures. We like his rugby style with the striped shirt and mohawk, so he has now become "Rugby Dog".

Doreamon Day

The bowl-plate (with the fork and spoon in it) is perfect for Som Tam (Thai Papaya Salad), while the plate with Doreamon shrugging is perfect for dipping sauces. You can put your ketchup in one of his hands and it doesn't touch all of your food, ingenious!

I bet everyone is super jealous...  : )

Just saw these pictures in my photo file and remembered that we forgot to post after getting our 7-11 reward! We mentioned in our Doreamon post that we were collecting stickers as part of a program run by 7-11 here, this is the fabulous reward we have earned! We have also redeemed some stickers for a set of cups and a juice pitcher, but there is some kind of back order situation so we are still waiting on those to come in. These are definitely things we will have to bring home from Thailand... I don't know how we got by without our Doreamon flatware set.

Wine and Wild Animals Weekend

Well, it was definitely a different sort of holiday from the island retreats we have been on recently! This weekend we headed northeast to the National Park, Khao Yai. We started off the weekend by waking up at "sparrow's fart" (a term introduced to us by our friends) and taking the first bus up to Pak Chong where we rented motorbikes. Then the fun could begin! We biked up into the mountains and immediately noticed the cooler temperatures and the clean jungle air, as well as the monkeys hanging out on the road! For our Friday in the park we rented tents, blankets and a "mattress" from the park office. Unfortunately the "mattress" was just a THIN woven straw mat, more useful for laying out on the grass for a picnic than cushioning your rest!

Once we had our tents set up we enjoyed some lunch, and got to see what Thai people do in a national park. Unlike National parks at home, where you would get fined for so much as THINKING about feeding the animals or dropping garbage, the national parks here are a little more relaxed. This picture is of some Thai people taking pictures of a deer, they then proceded to bring it all kinds of treats, including ice cream and bananas.

These kids thought that they wanted to feed the deer, but then they got scared.

We had a great day, hiking around following traces of elephants (elephant poop). In the evening we went out on a night safari. This seemed like something that we should do as tourists in Thailand, but we weren't expecting much. We boarded the noisy old truck and headed off with a Thai man holding a spotlight as our guide. Although we didn't expect to see many animals, we saw a ton! We saw: 3 kinds of deer (including a tiny baby barking deer, about the size of a cat! so cute) 2 civets, 3 porcupines, a wild dog called a Dhole and for the finale... 8 wild elephants at a salt lick! It was so amazing to see elephants in the wild, especially since there were quite a few resorts on the way up which has some pretty sad looking elephants that they were using for tourism... sad elephants are a really hard thing to see. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

That night was a bit rough, since it was a long weekend the place was packed and there were people talking ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up groggily in the morning and headed out on a long jungle hike. We were hoping to see some gibbons (another kind of monkey) but unfortunately they seemed to be hiding. No matter where we walked we always heard them 1 km or so behind us! However, we did have a great hike and saw some more signs of the elephants, although no luck seeing an actual elephant.

This second photo is from the observation tower at the end of our walk!

That night we headed out to a hotel, needing a little more comfort. After a much needed night's sleep we went for a tour around Thai wine country. We had no idea that this place even existed! We went to two different wineries, one of which had some really good wine! Hannah even took a turn driving the motorbike. We bought a bottle and then had to head back to check out and get back to reality... a great weekend overall!

It was one of those, "yup, I'm in Thailand" days...

I was sitting in the office, getting ready for KG this morning when one of the staff members came in with a puppy. Apparently it is one of the litter across the street who was nearly hit by a car. She was worried about it so decided to bring it over to the office where she plonked it on my lap saying she was off to get it something to eat.

Only in Thailand does someone put a stray puppy on your lap at work. Here is a picture of me at my desk with said puppy! Cutest inconvenience ever...

Parade of Soi Dogs

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! Live, coming to you straight from Thailand... the parade of soi dogs!

In case you aren't up on your backpacker slang, a soi dog is a street dog here in Thailand. The small streets branching off of larger main roads here are called sois, hence where the soi dogs got their name. These animals can be found sleeping on the freeway, cuddled up under a table in the school courtyard, hanging out behind restaurants and practically anywhere there are people (and therefore food). Some are friendly, some are not but overall they are a great source of amusement for us here in Thailand. We have nicknamed many of the soi dogs that we see regularly, and here they are for your viewing pleasure.

 This is Goiter Dog, so named because he has an unfortunate tumor on his right hind foot. In this picture it looks a bit like an oversized toe.

This is one of the many dogs that we call "Ugly Dog". We distinguish them by their colour and how much hair they have left... so for instance if we were to talk about this dog we might call her "ugly black dog with a little bit of hair on her back".

 One of the dogs in the monks' posse. We don't see this guy too often but took his picture because he looked healthy.

 Fat Dawg. This dog lives near a bunch of restaurants and is clearly the recipient of ALL the scraps...

 Sad Dog. This dog has droopy eyes, giving him a sad appearance.

Sleepy Dog. We ALWAYS see this dog lying down or sleeping, except on very rare occasions.

Puppies at the elementary school! This litter has been running around for the last couple of weeks. I am told that their mother is very fierce but the kids seem quite taken with them and bring them their lunch scraps daily.

 Soi dogs in a rare moment of play... They often choose their moment during the national anthem in the morning.

 Swim Dog. One of the healthier dogs at school, she is named swim dog because we always see her wet, after she has been swimming.

Tongue Dog. We think maybe this little fellow had a stroke, or the dog equivalent... One side of his face looks a little droopy and he can't put his tongue in all the way. He is one of our favourites!

Sneak Dog. This dog got her name because she is always sneaking into the area where the elementary school kids have lunch, trying to clean up scraps of food dropped by careless kindergarteners.

We really miss pet dogs back home, but at least all of these characters are good for a laugh!!!

A Cat-Like Robot from the Future

For those of you who are huge manga fans, I may not have to explain myself. If that is the case please stop reading now as this post will serve no purpose but to bore you...

For the rest of us, who believe that the purpose of a blog is to inform as well as entertain, this post will be about the cultural phenomenon of Doraemon.

Doraemon is a cat-like robot from the future, sent back by Nobita's (the show's main human character) great-great grandson. It is a cartoon that has been running since 1969 and remains hugely popular today. Probably 90% of the boxer shorts that my Kindergarten kids wear under their uniforms feature Doraemon, and he is also frequently seen on adults. Doraemon can be found everywhere, on any kind of merchandise... We have seen Doraemon themed cars and motorcycles. There is also a popular program at 7-11 here where you earn Doraemon stickers for your purchases which can be later put towards Doraemon merchandise (we are going for the flatware set). Kids go crazy if you print off a Doraemon colouring sheet for them... Doraemon has a pouch which, much like Mary Poppins' bag, contains any tool that is needed in any situation.

Also important to note. Doraemon had his ears chewed off by a mouse and subsequently developed a phobia of the entire species. Mice please take care not to alarm our blue cat-like friend. 

Other than these facts, we know very little about the mysterious Doraemon as it has never been translated into English. For more information, wikipedia is worth a look... as is Youtube. Even though you can't understand what they're saying, it is still pretty hilarious.

The pig goes oot oot

One of Hannah's pet interests is finding out what noises animals make in other countries. You should try it some time, the results will often surprise you. This fact was brought to the fore the other day in Kindergarten when teaching the kids the classic song "Old MacDonald". Although the kids cannot understand the words (and so far can only sing the Ee I Ee I Oh part) they CAN make some excellent animal noises and thus it was discovered that in Thailand:
The dog says "hung hung"
The duck says "gawp gawp"
The pig says "oot oot"
Chickens say "kataw kataw"

I am hopefully going to figure out some more sweet animal noises this week. Need to get some sort of animal flashcards going on. Then I can teach the kids the English names and myself the Thai sounds!

Also notable... in Thailand trains say "choo cha choo cha POOT POOT" rather than "chugga chugga choo choo" We make a train to go from one station to another in our colour groups so I get to hear this fairly often!

This week is "Sport Day" (an inaccurate name as it lasts all week) on the Matayom (highschool) side of the school. As with any celebration or festival in Thailand this:
1. is a giant production
2. includes some form of pyrotechnics
3. exhibits some lack of organization
In Canada, when you go to see fireworks they are generally lit far from where the crowd is standing. There is some kind of organization to prevent you from getting your face blown off. Usually in Canada, fireworks involve some kind of aerial display of sparks. Fireworks are also regulated. In Thailand none of these things are likely to be the case. They often light fireworks right next to you (in fact we hear that there are some celebrations where they actually shoot Roman Candles at people). The fireworks do not always include any aerial display, and seem to be more like bombs...
Today for sports day they seemed to be filling coconut shells with what we assume was dynamite. These explosions were terrifying (sending kindergarten children diving to the floor and screaming even though they
were across the road in another building) and sent shrapnel raining from the sky onto the students below.
Another highlight of sport day opening ceremonies -the flaming baton twirlers. Unfortunately these poor kids had apparently missed a couple of practices, and weren't quite up to the challenge of keeping a flaming baton away from their bodies... ouch. 
All-in-all, a magnificent opening ceremony for Sport Day.

*No children were actually harmed in the making of this blog post*

Also, a note to our faithful readers. Just to keep you informed, we have now broken our record for most family members on a motorbike. The previous record was four, we have smashed it by seeing a family of six all crowded on one bike. Another family of four was also seen with the addition of a chicken, hardly record breaking but hilarious nonetheless...