Exotic creatures

Emails exchanged between Mel and Dirk Jan in June 2007

Mel
We got a lovely hut in the middle of the jungle for just 150 bahts per night. The huts are only 3 months old and we are the only customers. I did not need to bring the blanket because they gave me and lyds a towel and blanket each. Everytime we order some food in the cafe, the guy there phones one of the family members, who goes to the market to buy it and then comes to the cafe, and cooks it. There are a couple of tropical pools around our housey(our hut is almost standing in them) with huge purple flowers growing in them. Lydia can swim in them. The creatures living in them can't be too harmful because the Thai family who own the huts swim there. I am glad we have a net over our bed. A huge insect flew into our hut last night and buzzed around the net. I was glad lydia was asleep. It would have caused a screaming fit and every time she screams dramatically the Thai family come running to find out what is trying to kill her. She screams for just about everything. Dogs, ants, flies etc etc.

Mel
I think every creature in the jungle is chasing after us. There cant be this many attacking everybody. Last night, one of those disgusting leeches got on Lydia. at least she had a good reason to scream this time. It was so disgusting. It was between her toes so I could not get it off, with a cigarette. I knocked it off with the belt part of my money belt. It slithered accross the floor until it came to a gap between the floor boards. I poured water on it to make sure it went down the hole. Then I poured toilet cleaner around the hole, to make sure it did not come back in. Ugh! And during the night, something was shuffling around inside the wall of our bathroom. I banged on the wall to try to make it go away. It didn't, but it was gone in the morning. Thank feck, for that. I hope it is not going to come back, every night. I was well tempted last night to get a bus out of here, today. I left a couple of bags of peanuts, on the balcony. They were so well sealed that it takes a sissors to open them. An army of ants came onto the balcony, attacked the bags of peanuts and even managed to get inside them. Yuck! What next?! I hope this is all the surprises over with and we are now used to life in the jungle. I am so glad those critters will be under lock and key when we visit the zoo on my birthday.

Dirk Jan
Yes, I have your birthday off. To the zoo, we go, so you two finally get to see some exotic animals, but from a safe distance :)

Dirk Jan
Eeeew!!! Those ants were silly, by the way. What ant eats peanuts, huh? How's the climate there, politics-wise? Do you notice anything? There were some bombings in the south of Thailand, fanatical Muslim separatists are having some sort of campaign there.And I just read that the Thai government has basically confiscated all the money that the former president (the one who was kicked out in that peaceful revolution about a year ago) had gathered through corruption. And there was a demonstration of monks in Bangkok, who demanded that Buddhism should become Thailand's state religion. At least with those, one is certain that violence is not on the cards.

Mel
Who do those monks think they are. Can't there be more than one state religion. I did not see the monk demonstration but we have been out of Bangkok for a few weeks now.

Dirk Jan
I suppose those monks can ask until they're blue in the face. Government says no. End of story :p

Mel
Is it going to be a secular state now?

Dirk Jan
Buddhism is already by far the most widespread religion. But like any religion, they can't stand others having thoughts of their own about it, it seems.

Mel
We were at a cafe last night. It was a bit rustic made from bamboo and wood on stilts. The cafe lady was burning something under the cafe, that made lots of smoke to keep the mosquitos away. I think it also keeps all customers excetpt us away. And the mosquitos still bit us, even with the smoke and the strong DEET stuff I bought because the other stuff we had was so useless here. Bats flew in and out of the cafe all evening and Lydia thought that meant it is halloween in Thailand. A snake came out of the toilet just as we were going in. Only about two feet long, but i am wary of all snakes. Outside our hut there were lots of fire l flies last night which fascinated Lydia, so we sat on the balcony and watched them. It rained all night again, but during the day the weather is still ok. Rain, but not all the time.

Mel
Oh, it is only 1.30PM here. Looks like I might not catch you, today. We sure must have been up early. We just don't ever know what time it is while we are at the place we are staying. The light in our bathroom was broken yesterday and I am glad the cafe guy could fix it. Otherwise, I would not have seen the large spider in there, last night. Well, by Thai standards it is small. It was as big as the giant spiders that invaded our house in Germany last Summer during the heatwave. I sprayed it with my bug spray, which it ignored. Then I tried to wash it down the drain with the shower, which it resisted successfully. I eventually slouched it down the drain, with an entire bucket of water and poured toilet cleaner in after it, to discourage it from climbing back in. Luckily Lydia was asleep. It would have been distracting trying to deal with that spider, if she was there screaming. That spider was another one of those things that tempted me to get the bus out of here, first thing in the morning. But I did not whimp out. I hope I don't regret that in the next week. Yesterday, I was about to pick up my bag and it started wriggling. There was a lizard in it. OHHHHH!

Dirk Jan
Pity you didn't discover the lizard earlier: you could have set it on the spider :D

Mel
There are lychee trees everywhere.The lychees do not look like the ones in the supermarkets in Germany.They are orange coloured, with long green hairs on them. They look like ones you could get in an expensive shop in Germany, to give somebody as a present or have as expensive Christmas food. In germany, 6 of them would probably cost 10 euros. Here you can get a whole kilo for 20 Bahts. I hope the whole thai community does not turn on me because of what happened in that shop this morning. But I doubt they will. I had the same thing, with a taxi driver on Koh Samui who tried to turn the guesthouse people against me, when I arrived there. I think becasue of this, we were charged more for our hut there than we should have been. But, the guesthouse people seemed to let it go quickly, when they saw that I was just an ordinary harassed mother and did not try to charge me extra for anything else.I had forgotten about what travelling here without a child is like. This charging certain people extra can sure put one off buying things.

Dirk Jan
Yeah, it's annoying. Can't see what that shop person is thinking though. If she didn't try to squeeze a couple of cents out of you unfairly, she would have had you as a customer for the remainder of the time that you are there. Shooting themselves in the foot, they are.

Mel
I think we will be here in the rain forest for another couple of weeks. Our money is lasting. I want to be back in Bangkok if we have to change money because it would be difficult to change it here. If the money holds out, we will be back in Bangkok on the Saturday before we fly. I want to visit the prisoner on the last week. Hopefully, they will let us in to see him. I suppose that being let in to see the prisoner is always going to be a matter of luck/the whims of the guards. Now, we are off to the restaurant beside the pool where the monkeys swim, for more Sunday special food. Lydia is having a great time with the cafes and the street vendor food, making it impossible to have a daily set amount of money to spend. But never the less, we don't spend so much and it is her holiday.

Dirk Jan
I bet the price of one happy meal here would keep her in 'street food' for weeks there.

Mel
There are now 2 more foreigners staying at the huts. They asked if there are any mosquitos. Hehe!

Dirk Jan
Mosquitos? Nah. They're eaten by the 5 inch spiders. Who are eaten by the 10-inch lizards. Who are kept in check by the leeches, etc, etc.

Mel
Yeah, there is no way I could stay here, without it.If i did not spray us from head to foot every night, we would wake up with mosquito bites all over us.

Dirk Jan
As well as doggist, I am also mosquitist, so yeah, keep 'em sprayed, the bastids :D

Mel
Last night a swarm of flying insects got into our bathroom. This morning they were all dead on the floor. When we got to the cafe, the whole cafe floor was covered in the same creatures. They were either dead, or dying, and the cafe guy was sweeping them out. Then several armies of big ants and a little birdy came along to eat them.

Mel
Today, there is a 4 inch creature in our bathroom, which looks like a bundle of sticks. I only knew it is a creature because what would a bundle of sticks be doing in our bathroom. We were not visited by too many night time creatures, last night, because it did not rain yesterday or last night. They mostly come in when it rains. The guy who works at the huts is gone to Phuket. He did not say when he will be back. He has been gone all day. I hope his TV will be OK, because me and Lydia came here to use the internet. We did not want to wait any longer for him to come back.

Dirk Jan
So the old riddle 'what's brown and sticky' now has two answers: a stick or a 4-inch creature :D

Mel
Hopefully, tomorrow I will have no creatures to tell you about. There can't be any more surprises, can there? There was a fire around 100M from our hut, yesterday. I don't know if it was a controlled fire or not, but it was out when we got back from the internet place. It did not improve the vie, from our balcony.The foreign guys left this morning, and a monk appeared. The cafe guy went out on his motorbike and brought back a monk. The monk has been watching TV since he arrived. So much for the rumour that they are unworldly.

Dirk Jan
Maybe he's scouting out the real world for his fellow monks. 'It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it'.

Dirk Jan
And, was it a controlled fire, or did you have to look or new housing?

Mel
I was telling the foreign guys about the creatures, in our hut.They said they are not worried about such creatures however big, because they have been to Australia. They became worried when they found a scorpion in their shower, this morning. The cafe guy had to be called to help. Then a half an hour later another scorpion appeared in their bathroom.
We had another big spider in our bathroom, last night. Yuck! Lydia was awake this time, and created a complete nuisance when I was trying to get it out. Eventually, I aimed my bug spray can right beside it and sprayed. I succeeded in killing it this time. The woman in the shop where I buy the bug spray was amused that I was buying the 4th can of bug spray, since we arrived here. Call me a whimp.....

Dirk Jan
Heheh, if it works, it's worth it! Re: Cafe guy - service sounds excellent :)

Mel
There is an insect here that sounds like construction work. The noise it makes is incredible. I actually thought it was somebody drilling and building a road, when we first got here. A Thai guy caught one last night, to show Lydia. It is not bigger than a bee but the noise....... Lydia left her shoes out in the rain, yesterday, and I found a leech on them. At least it did not get to attach itself to her. The 13 year old girl picks all the critters up in her hands, and chucks them out of the cafe. Lydia is amazed that she is not scared of them. Everybody seems to be fascinated, with Lydias hair. I have not had to brush it myself for 2 days. Somebody else seems to do it, several times per day. Lydia says she prefers, when somebody else besides me does it. That makes 2 of us.

Mel
I notice that a girl who was working at the cafe had to leave the room where the TV is, because the monk wanted to sit in there. I think religions are a way to legitimise woman hating amongst other undesirable stuff in society. Why are people so easily influenced? Why don't they see things like this as sexist.

Mel
We are a bit early here today. It is only 1PM. There is no clock, at the place we are staying, so I dont know if you are at your computer yet? I have just been stung by some type of insect. Lydia was making her usual fuss about a dog comming. I was distracte, and stepped on the insect. I really wish Lydia would shut up. She just has to scream for everything. I think there is some type of celebration on today to do with the king. Everybody is wearing yellow t-shirts and looking even more layed back than usual. Yellow is the kings colour. I don't know why purple isn't, like it is in Europe.

Dirk Jan
Well, you better agree with the kings colour being yellow, because in Thailand, what the king says, goes. Hope that insect sting isn't too bad :(

Mel
I wonder if they like all their kings as much as this one. The guy who works at the huts where we are staying seems to have disappeared, after we payed him for the first week. He said, he is coming backyesterday at 6PM, but still has not appeared. There was a 13 year old girl there who stayed all night. Lydia had a great time with her. She even wanted Lydia to sleep with her. I said no, because I don't know what is up with the guy who works in the huts. I hope he has not robbed the family who own the huts. They are nice and decent people. It would be awful, if he did that. The insect ouchy did not last long.

It started raining here yesterday afternoon, and did not stop all evening and all night. It is warm and sunny and humid again today. Looks like it won't rain until tonight. We went again to the place where the monkeys swim. They showed up this time. There is a lovely restaurant beside it. I think, that would be a good place for us to eat Sunday food. Expensive by Thai standards, but costs around half or less than take away food costs in Germany. And the food looks great. And we might see the monkeys again. We can sit in the part of the restaurant overlooking the pool, where the monkeys come to swim. Thankfully none have visited our hut yet. There are bungalows for rent beside the restaurant where the monkey pool is. They went into some peoples bungalows and made a right mess. And they take anything that looks exciting enough. I am quite glad that I have seen none near were we stay because I leave a lot of our stuff on the balcony.

Dirk Jan
Many people wouldn't know any other king: he's the longest ruling monarch in the world I think. Over 60 years or something. So they don't have much comparing material.

Yeah, leaving Lyds to sleep somewhere out of your direct environment seems like a really bad idea, if you ask me.

Mel
Although, that girl would be much better at dealing with the jungle crawlies, than I am. She just picks them up in her hands and throws them out, when Lydia is scared of them.

Dirk Jan
BRRRR!!!

Dirk Jan
Good news: your tickets to Iran arrived in the mail today :-)


(photo from: http://andrew-katlijn.blogspot.com/2008/06/mammatjes-part-iii-herr-flick.html

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