Wildlife Friends of Thailand

So, it's been a while readers and I apologise for my lack of updates.  It's tough trying to find an internet cafe in the middle of a forest.  But, find one I did and not only does it actually have flat screen monitors, but it also has bright pink leather reclining chairs to sit on whilst you sit and type.  Must speak to Peter when I get back about introducing a similar theme at Appleby...

Anyway, life at the "centre" is pretty wild, with some of the most amazing wildlife (most of which seems to be attracted to my bedroom).  On my first day I opened my bathroom door to be faced by a large rat, which peered imperiously at me from the ceiling before legging it before the scream escaped my lips.

The next day, I timidly opened my bathroom door to be greeted by an enormous gecko (who actually seems to reside in my bathroom and whom I have named Bill).  Bill is extremely pretty, is a blue-grey colour with vivid orange spots.  As there is no way that Lucy will believe that I live with a Gecko, I have taken several photos of William so that I can show you all once I've purchased a card reader so that I can download my photos.

Day 3, I returned to my room after feeding the gibbons and macaques (don't like them very much and they certainly do not like me...) to find 4 Thai blokes gathered around my bedroom door.  At last I thought - a queue...!  However, this was not to be as once I approached my door I spotted the back-end of a worringly large rat snake which had decided to make a bid for my bed and had got himself stuck under the door.  Couldn't get in or out, so one of the "lads" had to climb in through my bedroom window and catch the blighter before he did any more damage - to himself and my heart....

Day 4 - no more surprises, but by this point I was seriously expecting to find the baby elephant (Sam-sung) cuddled up next to me.  Honestly, never a dull moment.

Asside from the David Attenborough moments, my life is a series of feeding, cleaning, scrubbing food bowls, filling watering cans and sweeping rotting food.  Mostly around the monkey cages, which in itself is a bit of a challenge because the majority of the monkeys have invented a new game called "scare the bejesus out of the new girl"...  they fling themselves at the cage/water bowl/food bowl at regular intervals and then try to grab your hat/hair/clothes/skin/broom at even more regular intervals.  Honestly, anybody would think that I wasn't actually delivering their food.  Stoopid monkeys...

The centre also has two otters (love them), a couple of civets (google it...), some leopard cats (gorgeous), Mieow the tiger (who can move quick well thank you and whose head I have scratched - totally against the rules, but hey....).  Several elephants live here, lots of pigs, porcupines, iguanas, love-birds, loris (like bush-babies, but cuter), a crocodile named Dundee (what can I say?) and some langours (which are like lemurs with the most amazing eyes - look like they've spent hours in make-up)..

The other volunteers are really great.  People from all over, we have people from Holland, New Zealand, Aus, UK, France, Poland, Spain and the US here at the moment.  Makes for a real melting pot!

Am enjoying my time, but will have had enough of the 6am wake-ups, the extremely hard mattress and the constantly grubby feet/hands/legs/clothes.  I mean, where exactly is my butler when I need him..

So, love to you all and I'll hopefully get on-line again soon with another exciting episode of "pigs in space"... oh no, that was the muppets wasn't it... duh.

Laters skaters..

xxx