Gibbon MANIA!

I’ve been in Khao Yai now for about a week and I've gone in to see the gibbon on four half days. So let’s recap: First day back: Jackie is taking Norberto (the new guy) into the forest to find gibbons – it’s her first day back, will she find them? Will she get lost? Does she still know what she’s doing? BOOYA! Jackie finds group N within 10 minutes. YA THAT’s RIGHT. Then over comes Chu from group A for an encounter... but where is everyone else? We better go find them – what’s that you say, TWO GROUPS on day one?! In yo’ face! Once the encounter was over and group A started heading down a valley, I decided I was not up for following them into the valley, so I suggested we go find groups B and C. Up the main trail we head to the crest of the main hill in our field site, after a brief pause for reflection and some discussion about where we are in the forest to help Norberto orient himself, we head down another major trail to find the other gibbons – not 1 minute of walking down the trail when we hear this “GgggRRRRRROAR!” Stop immediately! “What was that?” I look out into the forest. “IT’S A BEAR” and I start running. Ya, right in front of us, about 3m just off the trail was a very large (like Canadian size) Asian Black Bear staring right at us. It sounded like he started walking towards us, but to be honest I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. Then we decided to head off in a different direction, and at this time I was pretty much ready to go home for the day. But on our way out, KABAM! Jackie found group T also. So to recap, day one: 3 gibbon groups, 1 bear. (Incidentally, I will just add at this point my prof went in to see group R and didn’t find anyone all day, too bad) Day two: Jackie takes Norberto in again to see more gibbons. We walk into the forest, 4 minutes in and Jackie finds GROUP R! This is how good I am people, this is how good I am :) We spent the morning with them and it was a lot of fun. Day three and four in the forest were also filled with gibbon sightings, group S, group A again, group B, group D and group M. In the days ahead I will go and see group M again, group C, group W and group H. Then I will have seen everyone on this short trip except for group E. If there is time I will go see group E, but only if there is time. I’ve also seen a couple of other cool creatures on this trip: yesterday a wild boar ran away from us in the forest. There was a scorpion (see picture) walking around our house a few nights ago after a heavy day of rain. And two nights ago a giant porcupine walked out from under our house while Jess and I were sitting on the porch talking – the pictures of him didn’t turn out because the flash was no good and it was night time. We have a few monkeys patrolling our house looking for food. One keeps climbing up and sitting on the roof. I have pictures of it, but on the other camera so I can’t post them now. The house is... interesting... better than Panama and some other places I have stayed in Thailand, but not as good as my favourite place to stay outside of Khao Yai. (see picture of my room). I am taking the next few days off from going into the forest, I think, because I am out of bug spray. And on Monday I have a meeting with the park chief. Only a little over one more week left. Time flies when you’re on gibbon time!