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.