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My plan for coming to Thailand was simple: do my fieldwork and train for more triathlons. I figured with free time after the forest, endless good weather (meaning no Canadian snow), and hills as far as the eye could see, Khao Yai would be the best place for me to learn how to become a better athlete. There’s no place to swim here, but I could run and bike for hours on end. So when I arrived in January 2010, I put on my sneakers and I started to run. I’m not going to lie, running here sucks. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard. And after 1.5 years, it’s still not getting any easier. “Khao Yai” translates directly from Thai to English into “Big Mountain” and that’s exactly, quite literally, what this place is: a damn, big mountain. Even the “flat land” has hills; they just aren’t as steep as the “real hills”. :) But I made the commitment to myself to run, so I continue to put on my shoes and go. Not long after I started running was the Best Day Ever when I made my first Thai friend:...

Next week I’ll be heading to Bangkok to give a talk on my dissertation work at the International Symposium for Biodiversity and Ecology of Wildlife in Thailand at Chulalongkorn University. I’ll be in Bangkok for three days with the students and professors for the symposium, and then in the following days we will travel around the country to visit some field sites to see long-tailed macaques, stump-tailed macaques, pig-tailed macaques and gibbons. I’ve been in the house most of this month concentrating on compiling some data to present and putting the presentation together, so I’ve been working late into the night and sleeping in the mornings. My schedule is kinda wonky and I haven’t been spending much time with people around Khao Yai. For the past two nights, I actually had dreams that I was trying to talk to my friends around here, but other people kept interrupting me and causing distractions preventing me from communicating with my friends. This morning Jambee came over with a...

Look at that face, so precious. --- Comments are always welcome, please share your thoughts. *Note: Comments are moderated to avoid spam.

A year and a half ago, I posted a message about my adventures with heating up pork buns ( Why Did We Invent Cooking ?). That was back when sweet chili sauce was a necessity to fix all Jackie-made foodstuffs and when the answer to the question: What do you eat? Was: lots of cereal and fruit. In August 2010, I decided to go Primal (no pasta, no bread, no excess sugar, no cereal, no…rice? see Mark’s Daily Apple ). Not an easy task when you live in a country that appears to consider rice to be more important than water. “I am no longer eating rice,” I declared to my friends at the restaurant after the decision was made. They stared blankly at me then said: “but if you don’t eat rice, you can’t go to the bathroom.” Well that explains why so many people eat rice around here… I started frying up veggies and eggs at home and for eating in the forest, and continued going to the restaurant for my afternoon meal of Thai food (now minus the rice) with my friends. This lasted for about a ...

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After today’s events, no one can claim I have an irrational fear of toilet snakes!! Toilet Snake --- Comments are always welcome, please share your thoughts. *Note: Comments are moderated to avoid spam.

It's 4:15am. The sun will not rise for another hour to an hour and half. It's still pitch black outside and silent, even the cicadas are quiet. And at 4:00am, in the forest right next to my house, a gibbon began singing his morning male solo. Apparently he woke up early today and decided everyone else needed to know about it. I think I speak for everyone, including his partner, right now when I say: "You're great, but knock it off and GO BACK TO BED!" --- Comments are always welcome, please share your thoughts. *Note: Comments are moderated to avoid spam.

My time living year round in Khao Yai is coming to an end and I can't imagine what my life will be like living somewhere else. Everyday now I get emotional and nostalgic about my time here, wondering how I can ever go back to living outside of the jungle. Who will watch the sunrise every morning? Who will listen to the gibbons alarm call in the distance and wonder what they saw? Who will appreciate the newborn monkey babies? Who will photograph the centipedes, and the spiders, and the squirrels in the forest? Who will videotape the water monitors and the porcupines and the deer living under my house? What will I look at when I glance up from my desk out the window and see buildings instead of trees? It's sad. But I'm trying not to be miserable about it. Change happens. New people will come. Things move forward. I'll come back in a new role. That's the way of the world. I got to do something that few others will ever get to do. I got to see things and experi...

Met an entomologist today on my run; he’s been here for about a week, seen me running around the park everyday, and was wondering who I am and if I live here. (It’s unusual to see the same foreigner for more than a day around here, particularly one that doesn’t look lost or have a Thai guide with them.) We chatted for a bit. I told him I’m a gibbon researcher, I study hand manipulation skills and I have been living in the park for the past year and a half. He told me about his interests in bugs and birds, his desire to be able to do research here at Khao Yai, and that he had been here once before and wishes he could come more often because it’s so beautiful. He asked a few questions about gibbons and plants. Then said he wouldn’t keep me longer and let me get back to my run. But just before we parted ways he said with a smile, “All the good anthropologists are women, aren’t they?” I smiled, “Oh I don’t know, my professor is a male.” He replied, “Yeah, but all the good anthropology...

They do this: HUDDLE UP!  Gerdie with 3 of her offspring (the smallest infant is inside all the others). --- Comments are always welcome, please share your thoughts. *Note: Comments are moderated to avoid spam.

Are you looking at me?  Great Hornbill

Sitting at my desk today writing and reading when suddenly, with no rain or warning, a powerful crack of thunder boomed, jolting my seat, shaking the floorboards and windows, and making my heart beat a little bit faster and harder than it did before. Birds squawked and flew out of the forest over the house. Selena, the Sambar deer who lives under my house, started to trot across the yard heading for shelter. And as I looked up in the shock of it all at the forest canopy outside my window, I saw an adult male macaque jump up from his seat in a tree and hurriedly climb up the trunk to a higher branch. He ran out onto the branch, bounced up and down; grabbed the branch with both hands and shook vigorously; rattling and shaking the tree as he looked up and the thunder resonated throughout the sky. The thunder rumbled on for a few more seconds while the monkey shook his branch, until he sat down on the spot with the returning silence. It was actually a pretty cool moment…. Makes you...

Peaceful day just lounging around grooming. Enjoy!

Glenda had her baby sometime during the night or early morning before we contacted the troop around 7:00am. Take a look!

Learning Thai is not as simple as taking the English word, translating it into Thai, and putting the sentence back together. Oftentimes a sentence in Thai is actually the backwards version of the English sentence, and several words like pronouns, conjunctions and functional grammar words (is, be, are, etc.) are not used when speaking Thai. Sometimes I’ve noticed when I am speaking in Thai quickly incorrect words that sound similar to the correct English word somehow work their way into my Thai sentences, which really makes no sense at all. And many times, in casual conversations, I’ll be searching my brain for the Thai equivalent of a slang English word that just doesn’t exist. But learning another language is all good fun. And I have come to realize that, though when communicating with native English speakers I might appreciate the wit and timing of a well placed sarcastic remark or phrase; when speaking with Thai people, most of the time I am extremely appreciative that I can eve...

What is up with February?! Problems with work, problems with people, problems with monkeys, friends not talking, assistants not working, no internet access, monsoon rain in the middle of the dry season, no running, flat tires, rats are back!! ... Complete chaos everywhere.... I think it was about mid-week when the weekly mantra changed from "What do you want from me!!" to "Just don't give up..."

This morning I was standing in my living room wondering what to make for breakfast when this happened...

ha ha. This is why learning another language and living somewhere far away is fantastic: cause you get to see how people are people no matter where they live, no matter what their culture. Chaleam went on vacation for a long weekend to Pattaya with his family and some friends. Talking about the trip upon his return, I asked: "So was it fun? What did you do?" To which he replied: "It was alright, we ate a lot of seafood, we swam in the ocean a bit... we pretty much just people watched, then came home." Yup, I hear that.

Today is my friend Bahn’s birthday. She works at the restaurant on the campsite near my house with my other friend Boom. I visit them almost everyday. Bahn has two daughters in high school but, similar to Jambee, Bahn’s kids live in other towns while they go to school. Bahn’s husband lives and works in Bangkok, so it’s just her here. Bahn moved to Khao Yai two years ago because her older brother found work for her in the park. When I met her, a year ago now, she didn’t know most people around Khao Yai and people didn’t know her when I spoke of her with others. “Oh, that’s the girl with the big face, right?” is how they would reference her. Four days every month, Bahn has vacation days and on those days she travels around to visit with her family. When Bahn first arrived at Khao Yai she lived with her brother’s family on the other side of the park, but it was too crowded with 6 people jammed into a one-room townhouse. All the houses in the park for the staff who live and work here are...