On Vacation Again :)

So my gibbon adventure is over. :( Tomorrow I get to talk to a science class at skyler's school about the gibbon project and that will be fun, but I'm done working with those silly apes. I moved in with Skyler for his last few days. Volunteering was so fun and ended so quickly. I even got to go to a Muslim Wedding. This was a strange experience because I did not know the couple that was getting married. Most of us volunteers didn't. So basically we showed up and said a quick sawadtee ka to everyone and then we were led upstairs to eat a feast. We did not eat with anyone else from the wedding. Then we went outside to take a million pictures with the bride and groom and then said goodbye. I felt kind of like a prop, but the food was good. This was the groom's only wife but they are allowed to have four. So that was interesting.
Also a few days before I left another volunteer named Scott got lost in the forest. He was camping with a thai staff member, Yan, in the forest and they were drinking a lot. He wanted to go hunting for snakes because this is what they had done before. Yan said no because they had to get up early to track the gibbons and went to bed. Scott, being the smart drunk that he is decided to sneak away and go snake hunting by himself. He ended up slipping, falling down a hill and hitting his head. His flashlight broke, he didn't know where he was so he stumbled around all night. The next day he walked down the mountain dehydrated and hallucinating. They found in at about 5pm in bad shape. The next day he was fine and went back to work but he never heard the end of it. Poor idiot.
Skyler and I have been exploring Phuket this weekend. We went to see the big Buddha in south phuket. They just built it and it really is huge. There is a gong there that will make a very loud and crazy noise when you rub your hands over the center of it in a certain way. It all has to do with how moist your hands are and how fast you do it. Skyler and I were two of the few people that could do it. The locals were very impressed. They just didn't understand that there was a science to it. Instead they believe that it is a spiritual thing, so there was even a Thai mother telling her children to wai to Skyler after he did it. Wai is when you put your hands together in a prayer like position in front of your face and it is used to show respect. There was also a great view of Phuket Town and the bay. We could see other islands close by too. I wish I could show you but this computer will not allow me to upload photos.
Now I am looking forward to moving on. Skyler and I think that we are going to boat over to Railey which is on the other side of the Gulf of Phuket. There we can relax on the beach and go snorkling, kayaking and all kinds of fun adventurous stuff. We also will go to Krabi and try to find a temple we heard about that has over a thousand steps leading up to it,or something like that. We hope it will not be another temple surrounded by a market. Whatever we do I'm sure it will be fun.

Frankinlindsey

So, about a week ago Skyler was taking me to work early in the morning on his room mate's motor bike. The driving around here is pretty crazy. Not as bad as in Bangkok and Chang Mai but there still doesn't seem to be many rules followed. So, when we were half way there Skyler had to slam on the brakes. We think that he used the front break to much because all I remember is the squealing of the tires and seeing the front wheel turn and bam! Face on pavement! I jumped up grabbed my face and all I could see was blood dripping down and I could feel that one of my front teeth was chipped in half. I started yelling at Skyler (not that it was really his fault) out of shock and confusion. Skyler had scraped up his leg and elbow but other than that he was okay. He stayed very calm and after a minute to breath I calmed down as well. He grabbed the first thing he could find out of our backpack, which just happened to be my dirty underwear, yeah, and put it over my nose which was bleeding. He checked out my face and pushed on my nose to see if it was broken, and we could tell that is wasn't. The rest of it looked bad because your face can bleed a lot but it really only needed first aid treatment. The people that saw the accident were very nice and called the police and ambulance but honestly, we did not need one and did not need to pay for one. So, we jumped back on the bike and finished our journey to the Gibbon Project. Those sweet concerned Thais thought that we were crazy. When we got to the Project we informed the staff that I was not going to be able to work that day, as if they couldn't tell. We got out my first aid kit and Skyler cleaned up my face which was scraped and bruised but did not look as bad after all the blood was cleaned off. Then we got on the bike again and went back to Skyler's school and they took us, in the Principles van, to the hospital. There, I only had them fix my tooth, which means give me half a face tooth, and they did a very good job. I was only in the hospital for 1 hour and my pearly whites were just as they looked before. They were still a little loose but I felt much better. The hospital was the nicest hospital I have ever seen. There was live music in the waiting area and it was super clean. It really looked like a fancy hotel more than a hospital.
The whole ordeal was a bummer, especially because Jessika and TJ were visiting us and I missed out on hanging out with them as much as I could, but I was very lucky. I was not wearing a helmet because we only have one, and by law the driver has to wear it. It was a great day to be alive! It has been a week now and you can hardly even tell that it happened. All my scabs are already gone and I only have one tiny scar. We think that I fractured my nose a little but, I have not been in much pain at all and what do you do for a fractured nose anyway. If I went to a doctor for it they could only really give me pain killers. I told the Gibbon Project that I could go back to work the next day, and I really could have, but they made me rest for a day.
So, now I only have three more days of working with the gibbons. :( I have learned so much and next week I will be giving a talk to some environmental science students at Skyler's school. I'm going to try to go diving this weekend and for the few days that Sky is teaching and I have nothing to do I'm going to the beach. Ahhhh. I also want to volunteer at a homeless dog shelter that is down the street from where I will be staying for a day or two. Our days on Phuket are going fast and I'm going to miss it but I'm also excited to move on to the next chapter of our travels. Love you all.

The Gibbon Project

So I have been working at the gibbon project for a while now and I have learned a lot. Not just about the gibbons, but about how the government works, and how animals in Thailand are treated in general.

So, the Gibbon Project. Gibbons are an endangered species in Thailand. There are some in the wild in other areas of the country, but they disappeared completely from Phuket island in the early 1980s. Back then it was legal to keep wild animals as pets in Thailand. In 1994 there was a law passed that made it illegal to own all wild animals, except for elephants. So many residents now had illegal pets and didn't know what to do with them. So the Royal Division of Forestry created the gibbon project as a place for these gibbons to go. This story is what is given on our information boards on the education center.
Since I have been working here I have learned that Thais are wonderful people but are very proud of their country and the fact that this is an organization is run by them and not foreigners. Which they should be, but their story is not really true. There was a man from America that studied primates and came to Thailand to start the gibbon rehabilitation project to try and save an endangered species and reintroduce these animals into their natural habitat. If you ask the Thai staff what happened to him you will get different answers like, heart attack, or an accident out in the forest. If you do the research though, you will find that he was shot and that a week after he was shot, his wife died in a car accident. I in no way think that any of the people that I have been working with would have had anything to do with this, but someone didn't like the fact that an American was running the program (theory) so they got rid of him and now it is run by the Thais.

Regardless, the project and the people that are running it now have a good thing going. Even though it is illegal to own gibbons we know of many all over Phuket that are kept as pets. Locals will walk around the beaches with a baby gibbon and have tourists pay to have their pictures talked with them. Others are kept in bars and forced to smoke cigarettes and drink beer because it is fun for the tourists. Many of these gibbons are injected with drugs to keep them awake because they naturally fall asleep at about 4pm, and that would be no fun for the tourists. Others are just kept as pets because they are cute and people like them. The problem is that when they reach a certain age they can get aggressive, no matter how domesticated they are. So people just kill them or shave down their canine teeth and keep them in small cages. So why don't we just notify the police and have them taken away? What usually happens is that they just don't care, or they will find these people and ask them how much they are willing to pay them to keep their gibbon. Basically saying if you pay me off I will keep my mouth closed. That is how the police work around here. Even though there is a law, they know that the gibbons bring in money and that will help the economy/government. Some kind souls that understand and our just tourists or residents will sometimes buy the gibbon for a large amount of money just to bring it to our project. The only problem with that is, the seller now knows that he can make money off of selling gibbons and will just go get another one. How does one get a baby gibbon you might ask.

Sorry I get quite passionate about all this so this may be a long blog.

In order to get a baby gibbon, which is all people want, poachers will go camp out in the forest over night. Every morning they do their territorial calls so that is how they are found. If the poachers find a family with a gibbon they have to shoot the sisters, brothers and the father first because they are all protective of each other. Then the mother will climb as far as she can up in a tree to try to protect her baby which is always wrapped around her belly. The poachers then shoot the mother and she will fall to the ground from a great height. 1 times out of three the baby does not survive the fall, so the poachers will have to try again. So for every gibbon you see on the streets of Thailand there are on average 15 dead ones in the forest. That is why gibbons are endangered.

So when we get gibbons at our project we first put them into quarantine. There we do blood tests. They can have hep A, B, or AIDS or herpes. They can have anything we have. Once they are found to be clean we send them to the rehabilitation center. There we have to teach them how to be gibbons. They have been living with humans most of their lives so they do not know how to relate to other gibbons or survival techniques. We have to teach them how to drink water in the wild and how to swing instead of walk. The forest floor is very dangerous for them so they must learn to stay in the tree canopy. We then try to pair them with mates. This is hard because they are like humans and are very picky. When they choose a mate it is for life and the way they chose is through singing. So we have to try and figure out who is singing together and then move them close. We then try to put them in the same cage and teach them how to share their food. Once they are okay with each other have a baby, we wait until the baby is a certain age and then move them to a cage further away from the rehab site. After a period of time we then move them to a cage that is way up in the canopy for a while. After that we release them into the park which is a non-hunting area. We still feed them for a year after that, giving them less and less as the year goes on. In 16 years they have released 5 families and there are currently 3 with one family getting close. It takes about 10 years on average to release a family and there is only one ranger in the forest that comes once a week, so there are still poachers to worry about.

It is a sad story, but we are making progress. It is all funded through donations and volunteers like me. The government gives no help and even makes it harder for them. They will not allow them to open bank accounts in other countries to receive donations. People can still donate online but there are so many fees that the bank takes out that if you donate 1500 baht the gibbon project gets about 500 baht.

The realities are a little hard to deal with but I love working around these apes. They are so much like us in so many ways. They all have personalities and they can sense your mood. I'm so attached to them already. Even if I'm cleaning ape poo it is one of the best experiences that I have had. So, if you know anyone who is going to Thailand tell them not to get their pictures taken with gibbons, or monkeys, or lizards or any wild animal. It supports a bad business. They can also report it when they see it, and who knows, maybe someone will do something about it.

The mad train dash, then Gibbons

So leaving Bangkok was pretty crazy. We spent the day at Koh San (sp?) road at the market and then went to this huge temple where the largest statue of the reclining Buddha is. It was pretty enormous. Our train was leaving at 7:30 so we thought we would give ourselves 1 1/2 hours to get back to the hotel to get our bags and then to the train. Woops! Five o clock traffic does not only exist in the US and Bangkok is huge. We took a tuk tuk half the way home, then the sky train and then had to walk. Skyler left a shopping bag at a 7-11 where we stopped to get a quick food fix. So here we are with our huge backpacks on, running through the city. Jessika and TJ were awesome and ran with us the entire way. TJ may be the reason we got our bag back. Then we had to jump on the sky train to catch the subway that took us to the train. We got on the train with minutes to spare. Lesson learned, but when it was all over, looking back on what we must have looked like running with our packs on, it was sooooo hilarious! The train ride was the best one yet. They had a bar with Christmas lights, playing britney spears and boy band music (music wasn't so great). We slept all night then caught a bus to Phuket in the morning.

So now I am at the Gibbon Project. The place I'm staying isn't the nicest and isn't close to anything but the people are very friendly. I have a great roommate from whales who is here for the same amount of time that I am. I got a tour and there are over 40 Gibbons that we care for, and I'm supposed to memorize all of their names. Yeah right! I haven't even gotten the peoples names yet. They are like little people with their own personalities. Some just want you to pet them, some want to bite you, and some just moon you or try to scare you because they think it is funny. Most of them have very sad stories and some are still in pretty bad shape. There are a few families that have been successfully released though and I got to go observe one of those families today. I love watching them. They are like little hairy acrobats. They are soooo loud too. Every morning they hoot yell and they all have their own "song". No sleeping in here on days off. I start at 6:30 or 7:00 almost every morning and get off between 2:30 and 4:30 depending what part of the project I'm working on. It is a really great organization and I feel good about what I'm doing. Skyler is also very excited about teaching. He is staying in an apartment with another teacher about his age and they get along great. He teaches 4 classes a day, 5 days a week. It is not easy for us to see each other with no transportation but he came to hang out last night and was invited to go spend the night out in the forest with us before my stay is over. So it is turning out to be a great experience.

Back in Bangkok

Hello Bangkok, again. This Bangkok experience has been much better. We are staying in a nicer and cheaper place. Jessika and TJ are here which is wonderful! It has been so great catching up with Jess and the two boys bonded quickly by having a night out away from the girlfriends. Skyler is having his teeth worked on because it is sooooo cheap here and we are about to go get our train tickets down to Phuket. Jessika and TJ won't be able to travel with us :( because they have to wait for a friend but they will be in our area so we will see them again. Until next time, love you all.

Disney Land

So today Skyler and I decided to go check out some temples around Chang Mai. They are everywhere. We rented a motor bike and drove to the international buddhism center. It was not what we expected at all. As soon as we arrived we were met by yet another market with people trying to sell you things. Even the monks were trying to sell you things. It was so crowded and people were running around ringing all of the bells. Then we went into and area where you can get blessed by a monk. We sat down with a group of other tourists and while the monk was chanting I look over and the girl next to me is carrying a playboy bunny bag, to get blessed my a buddhist monk. After that we left. It was very beautiful and there was a great view of Chang Mai but we felt like the monks and the religion were just on display for money. It seems that way for a lot of things here. The people are so dependent on tourism for survival. In Chaing Mai the average person will work 12 hour days, 7 days a week with a few weeks off a year and they get paid 200 baht a day (7$). Most of them are working for tourists. A lot of mixed feelings going on. Despite all of that, most people are very friendly and the city is fun. The way they do some things here seems to make more sense then the way we do them. Tomorrow we are leaving for Bangkok again. We are going to meet up with Jessika, yey! and then we will head down to Phuket. I'm excited to move on to something new.

sawatdee ka!

Sorry it took me so long to write. Everything has been happening so fast! The flight wasn't so bad. Sky and I met a travel buddy named Josh that had the same flights as us so we had a buddy. The biday was the most interesting part of the Japan airport and the Taiwan airport smelled like an old bowling alley. We landed in Bangkok at 2:30 am and jumped into a taxi. The first thing we noticed was that it was decked out with speakers, two cd players and all kinds of lights. The driver was driving like a mad man playing american rap music. It made me think of Brian. :) He totally ripped us off but I guess it has to happen to every traveler in order to learn. We got dropped off in an area called Siam Square at about 5:00am. It was dark and smelled sooooo rank! There was trash everywhere and rats and we thought maybe the driver had just dropped us off in some random place. We found a place to stay though that was clean and not too far out of our budget. We then walked around Bangkok for a while when it got light outside. It is a crazy city. It smells like sewer everywhere and the drivers are crazy. There aren't that many cross walks so you just have to go for it. The pollution is pretty bad too. We were not that thrilled. You couldn't really tell you were in Thailand sometimes with McDonalds and starbucks and 7/11 and Pizza Hut all around. We decided we needed to get out! So we went to the train station and got a train to Chang Mai. When we were at the station there were tourist helpers around and they took us up to an office so that we could book a room in Chang Mai. We ended up signing up for a three day trek and two nights stay in a hotel for a pretty good price. At first I was uncomfortable about the whole thing, thinking that we got sucked into a tourist trap but it ended up being amazing! The train ride was 12 hours and it is very interesting trying to balance over a hole in the floor on a moving bus when you need to pee, but our seats were nice and the scenery was great. The best part was when I first got on and the door shut on me and I couldn't figure out that all you needed to do was push a button to open it. It was a short moment of panic. :) We got to chang mai and got hounded by touts trying to give us a ride when we already had one arranged. At one point I had 5 of them surrounding me talking in Thai, trying to read the sticker that I was given to wear. But, we made it just fine and the hotel was really nice. We went to the night market and it was huge and busy and everything is sooo cheap. We also met a group of people, one from New Zealand, one from France and the other was a local Thai. They helped show us around town.

The Trek
We were in a group with 7 other people, a couple from England, a couple from California and three people from Korea. We first went Elephant riding which I personally did not like. I didn't like the way the elephants were being treated, there was no education given on them, not even an introduction, and you had to buy bananas to feed them every 15 minutes. They were taught to beg for food as you ride them. Really lame! I hope I get a better elephant experience in India. The trek was very pretty and we got to swim in waterfalls and everyone in our group was great. Our guide was better than I could have ever imagined. The first night we stayed with a Koren hill tribe. They are people that live in the mountains around Chang Mai that came from Burma. They speak a different language and live a very simple life. It felt very strange being there. At first I felt very uncomfortable because I thought we might be exploiting these people. But, it ended up being a wonderful experience. These treks bring them money for a school that they are have just built. They kids all came out to the camp fire and sang for us and then we sang for them and they showed us their way of life. They even sent up something that is kind of like a mini hot air balloon that said Happy New Year on it. The next day we hiked to another waterfall and ate lunch at another village. We then stayed at a camp by a river and had our own little new years, drinking rice wine(locally made) and eating sticky rice made in bamboo by the fire. It was very wonderful. Then today we hiked out and rafted down a river on rafts made out of just bamboo and rope. It was a little bit of a balancing act. The best part of it all is that Skyler and I are going to go back to the village after we volunteer in Phuket and stay with them for a week or two. Skyler is going to teach english at their school and I am going to help and then...... I don't know hang out with the ladies and do what they do. I'm so excited! It is going to be a crazy experience. They are going to let us stay there for free and feed us.

They people here are great when they are not trying to rip you off. There are dogs everywhere on the streets just hanging out or sleeping on the sidewalks. Chang Mai is a really fun town and doesn't smell so bad. Over all, I'm having a blast. But for now, Sky and I are meeting our new trekking buddies for dinner, so until next time, I love you all and Happy New Year!