and then a million stalks came

OK so I haven't updated this for a while but as one part of my adventure closes tomorrow I will be preparing for the next part and felt the need to summarise. My lack of updates is due to two things. The first is the fact that, as much as I love it, daily work here is repetitive and constantly repeating myself here would be boring. The second is that around two months ago the centre was inundated with many many new arrivals which has kept us all very busy. It all started with 8 arrivals from a government rescue centre requiring us to update many of the enclosures. Since then many babies have arrived and been born including two new baby langurs, one 18 months, one 4 months, four loris, four baby civets (three born at the centre and rejected by their mother) four kittens, two baby macaques, six piglets, a baby flying squirrel, a baby gibbon and a baby serrow (goat/antelope thing). Some of these have needed round the clock care, which put half the centre on baby duty and turned us all a little sleep deprived/retarded.

Pip and Bin my original baby langurs

upside down baby Coco

 Its been great to see the centre grow and many of the new arrivals thrive in their new environment as some where captured and sold as pets. But as is always the way some came in a bad way and didn't make it. Ive had to say goodbye to few others as well and as heartbreaking as it is I think it says a lot for the centre that I still view it as a positive place to be.

Mi Chok hoping for some more corn to appear

Tei da seeing what Im up to

kitten wants camera!

New baby langur Jaja aka lady Jaja

Lucy the vet nurse feeding Sasha and Luke

Bruno, legs of an antelope, face of a goat, ears of a donkey

Piglets!

Ive enjoyed the work here immensely and have made great friends with ever fluctuating volunteers. I will miss the noises of the gibbons and geckos, not so much Ollie the screaming otter, and being surrounded by so much wildlife, except the ants, they all bite. It has become home for the last 6 months and will be strange to leave, however I have a new adventure to start in Vietnam and will get a new set of gibbons to care for. I'm looking forward learning all I can there and seeing the end result of primate rehabilitation, release. I'm also looking forward to a new variation of rice and vegetables.

Will keep you all updated on Nam and what jungle life is like there.    

One of the jobs I will not miss

spot the wild fishing cat

Alien landings and Orangutans

So I may have mentioned before that I have my own room this time round. For the most part this is a blessing, I get my own space, own bathroom-ish (its a toilet and shower in the corner of the room) and I can be anti-social when the mood strikes. All this is very useful when spending 6 months in the centre but every now and then I am suddenly reminded why having other people around is good.
My room is very far away from everyone elses so strange noises and crashes can sometimes freak me out. The strangest of these happened a couple of weeks ago. The dogs were barking into the darkness of the centre which was a little alarming to begin with but as I was walking away from them and towards my room I started to hear some eiree voices coming from that direction. I put this to the back of my mind as I got my book to read in the volunteer house. On the way out of my room the vioces got louder and I saw what looked like a string of fairy lights through the trees. But no one put up fairy lights, and they were a bit big, and they were moving! I freaked, ran to the house and got some other volunteers to look. Their minds immediatly turned to ufo's so we walked through the darkness following the line of lights until we came to the elephant padock where there are far fewer trees. When we could see them properly we managed to figure out that these were floating lanterns, that were somehow traveling in a neat line over the centre and forest and the voices were a broadcasted prayer from the temple. All very simple but somehow not when in the middle of nowhere in the dark, still very beautiful to watch and be part of.

My one year visa requires me to leave every 90 days, I think so they can keep tabs on me, but I used this oppurtunity to revisit Kuching in Borneo and see some orangs again. This was an amazing holiday. Me and fellow volunteer Kayleigh got the sleeper train down to Penang. A day after buying the tickets I opened the newspaper to discover that this train had come off the tracks. I tried to put this out of my mind as we climbed up onto our bunks, with seat belts. Its the first time I've slept with seatbelts. They didnt help much though and everytime the train started bouncing the headline popped back into my mind. The train thankfully stayed on the tracks and after 16 hours and many palm oil plantations we arrived.
We got a flight to Kuching and checked into what has to be the best hostel ever. Our room had a reading deck over the hallway. A ladder to climb up and a firemans poll to come back down. We spent two days relaxing in the hostel bar, shopping and eating. A trip to Semengoh nature reserve was the highlight though as we got to see 7 orangutans including Frankie the large alpha male. It was great to see them swinging through the trees again, or in the case of Frankie bending the trees, and a baby I saw clinging to its mother two years ago was happily playing and swinging around above us. It had to end at some point though and we flew back to Penang. One night is more than enough in Georgetown and we speedily checked out of the love lane inn and got the ferry to our very delayed train ride home. All in all it was a nice break but even after 6 days I missed the calls of the gibbons and was happy to return to them.  

Into the wild

Christmas was celebrted this year despite being in Thailand. I spent Christmas at the centre eating and drinking myself into a state of zombie. I shall be taking it easy for a while I think.

waterfall nap rock

My gift to myself was a two day trip into Keang Krachan, the national park nearby. I camped there and did a 16 km trek on the first day. We walked down to several spots along the waterfall past some huge old trees and great views. The waterfall was beautiful and I got to swim in the amazing clear water and have the best nap ever on a large rock (wouldn't have thought it could be so comftable)

leaping langur

One off the many pretty butterfies

The horrendous walk back to the campsite was worthwhile as I saw a wild great horbil and several families of langurs which was amazing. They throw themselves into nearby trees with what looks like no planning and let the trees break their fall. It was good to see them being free and wild and I loved it. The sunset and sunrise was impressive, had I had more energy I would have witnessed more of them. The second day was more relaxed with a picnic by the lake and stroll through a butterfly area. We also discovered wild leeches and what must be the most annoying sounding bug in universe, but all in all a great trip.


sunset

sunrise



Velocirickens and Chickaraptors

These are a rare throwback to the time of dinosaurs. The Velociraptors were rife in Thailand and in the name of survival grew smaller and disguised there scales with feathers so they could live amoung the chickens without being hunted down by people who feared dinosaurs.  

And if you believe that you'll believe anything. These are apparently normal Thai chickens that happen to look and walk (sorry no video) like dinosaurs. They have freakishly long legs and necks and have kept me very entertained since their arival at the centre two weeks ago. Little things...

Tis the season

This is also the season of celebrations in Thailand. The last full moon was Loi Kratong, a Thai festival that takes place at the end of the Thai lunar year. We made Kratongs out of sections of banana trees and decorated them with flowers, leaves, incense and a candle. We then lit them at night and floated them into the lake. Its beautiful and supposed to send away all the sins of the previous year and welcome the new one in. I love this festival and enjoyed watching all the decorated lights go off into the lake (don't worry, non of the gibbons on the islands got hold of them). Today is also the kings 83rd birthday and we will be celebrating in the village by lighting a candle for him. We are ment to wear pink to respect the king and blue to respect the queen. I like the lack of western colour sexism.

Animal news includes the fact that I have finally been allowed to work on Primates 1 and spend some time with my gibbons. I've loved every minute of it but my appreciation of the macaques and bears is still growing all the time. My faviorite part of the day is enrichments when you get to use your creativity to make something to entertain the animals you are working with. I've had some success with new ideas and get to watch the animals try to figure out what you've given them and what they are supposed to do with it.

Enriching Ollie the otter is fun and also the only time in the day when he is quiet.

Three gibbons from one of the islands, mum, dad and baby got moved up to the release site last month. They will be given a soft release back into the wild and a new couple has moved to the island from the centre. This was great to see and will be great for the gibbon family.

A less enjoyable thing to watch yesterday was June, the oldest elephant at the centre. She is 70 has lost her last set of teeth and came into the centre 5 months ago incredably thin and covered in sores. She has put on a lot of weight since being at the centre but doesnt have much strength in her legs. Yesterday for the 5th time she collapsed and had to be lifted by a crane. These collapses are becoming furthur apart and the ordeal of lifting her is becoming easier and quicker everytime, so she is improving in some ways. She gets a lot of special care and is doing much better today.

I am still working on getting some pictures on the blog. Hopfully in the next couple of weeks. Will update again soon.

Losing track of time

Its been a while since my last update. Time seems to have dissappeared, slipping away into the trees while im working. Its been an eventfull couple of weeks. A few animals have escaped, most have been returned safely and without too much drama. I have got to work on a few other jobs but not yet my favorite which involves the gibbons. (I'm being kept off this job for the time being on purpose but Im not sure of the reason, shockingly im taking this well) I have got to work with the macaques though, they are very intelligent and have amazing personalities, all very different. They can however be quite trying when your feeling tired as escape or entertainment is at the forfront of there minds when you are cleaning their enclosures. You have to keep an eye on them or locks, keys, glasses, watches and occasionally some hair can be taken from you without much warning. Its a bugger getting them back too (especially the hair). Despite recently feeling ill and run down (charming stomach bug I picked up somewhere) I have yet to lose any of the above or let any of them out by accident. Go me.

Pocky one of the macaques Ive got to work with.

The last few weeks havnt been all about the animals either. There was the very boring short stint in bed with my bacteria and a few nights out and much socialising. After being very well behaved and not drinking too much I decided it was time to have a day away. Stayed in a hotel, went out for some drinks (managed to fall down the stairs before the alcohol, bruises are fading now), went to a lady boy show (when in Thailand) and hired a bright pink hello kitty tandum bike. They are look more fun than they are. I tried to mask my poor efforts of steering by singing Queen's bycicle song. After 20 minutes I was out of breath and energy and we returned the bike 40 minutes early. But Im sure we looked cool.

I also attempted to bring bonfire night to Thailnd by watching V for Vendetta and organising a BBQ for 30 people. It happened despite my doughts and everyone seemed to have fun. After the meat was cooked and eaten and the stress was gone I felt too tired to do much and made a mental note not to try an plan something like this again. Someone else can have the stress next time.

Aside from these sporadic bursts of fun most of my socialising recently has been with two young dusky langurs who still need looking after in the night. Every fourth night I become mum and get to hang out with the gourgous duo. They may not stay up late or be much for conversation but I look forward to these nights and happy that I am trusted with them.

Apologies for the lack of photos in the last two posts my camera isnt playing witht the computers at the moment. When I can upload again I shall update these bare and boring looking posts.

Bears

I have been working a lot with the bears this week (they are trying to keep me off primates as I'll want to stick to them once I start). I am starting to enjoy working with the bears more than I used to. Getting over the initail fear and the fact that they are quite slow has helped. There are 26 bears at the centre including one that was rescued this week. Asiatic black bears and Malayan sun bears (much smaller but longer claws). I got to give them a great enrichment, we drilled holes into logs and filled them with mashed banana and seeds. Its was great to see them spend ages tring to get into the logs. Its very hard to come up with enrichments that keep them busy for long periods of time so when we do its a wonderful feeling. They all have large enclosures to roam around in though so they are not usually bored.