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.

Home Sweet Home #2

 The kitchen with a real kitchen sink! We keep saying how much better it is doing dishes in a sink than squatting in the shower!

 Dining room/ Shane's surfboard workshop. Much time is spent here polishing, waxing and otherwise caring for Surf Betty.

 Living room area.

 Our view! A beautiful mountain with a beautiful temple. We can hear monks chanting from the shower in the mornings and evenings.

 Bedroom

Our bathroom... nothing special but we thought we'd include a picture since this is a much more typically Thai bathroom. Notice that there is no shower curtain or anything, the shower is just in part of the washroom. This means that the floor is often wet, but does make it easy to clean!

Am Canadian, Will Roadtrip

When confronted with the question of how to move ourselves all the way from Nonthaburi to Phuket (900 kms), we provided the obvious Canadian answer "we'll drive there". We then proceeded to rent a truck (this one), pack up our stuff, and hit the road.


It was a beautiful drive. Shane was armed with the steering wheel and the task of not hitting other vehicles (more challenging in Thailand than in Canada) and I was armed with two maps, some Google map directions I wrote in a notebook, and the knowledge that as long as we went south and a bit west (and didn't cross the border into Burma) we would probably make it. We left at 5am (to miss Bangkok traffic) and around 12 hours later arrived safely in Phuket. On the way we saw incredible scenery, beautiful tropical trees and pre-historic looking mountains that wouldn't have been out of place with a Pterodactyl or two circling the tops.

 A "bus" filled with people. You can't really see in this picture just how many there are but they are really crammed in there like sardines! Glad we didn't have to travel this way.

 My job as navigator for the day.

 Beautiful mountains along the way!

 Beautiful jungles as you get further south!

It was a really great way to see some more of the country, even in a brief kind of way. It is always interesting to watch the changing landscape as you drive long distances. Luckily Thailand isn't very big compared to Canada, so it took only one day to drive across, rather than our road trip to BC in September that took 5 days! Now we are in the process of settling in to our new apartment in Phuket town, on the island of Phuket. We will post pictures as soon as we get things unpacked and cleaned up!