All Creatures Great and Small

Critters.  I have never outgrown the childhood urge to observe a busy line of ants or a nest-building bird for a glimpse into their worlds.  Many critters in our part of Thailand bear a striking resemblance to the local Michigan fauna, while others are literally a world apart.  Some are pleasant, some not so much.

Bob Barker (and Drew Carey) would be distressed to find the lack of spaying and neutering that goes on in this country.  Wild dogs populate every street and lot, and many of them have obviously given birth recently.  Thankfully, the dogs are quite docile, and seem to coexist with humans without much problem.  But they often appear dirty or underfed.  Many are strikingly similar in appearance - they are a skinnier version of my sister's dog, Maisie; a medium-sized dog with short hair and pointed ears.  All related, no doubt.

Closer to home, I saw a dark shape on the bedroom floor early one morning.  I thought it must be a big bug of some kind.  I had flashbacks to the time I worked as a bookkeeper at the now defunct Boston Sea Party restaurant in Madison Heights.  I would go in on Sunday mornings when the place was closed, and when I turned on the lights, great scurrying ensued, the skitter of cockroaches everywhere.  Unless, of course, they were crunching underfoot.  Good times.  Anyway, this experience taught me that turning on the light might send the critter scurrying.  So I left the light off, went and got a plastic bowl, and slowly crept up on the intruder.  I was able to trap it under the bowl, then turned on the light to see what I'd caught.  It was a huge cockroach!  I was happy to have it trapped, but the floors in our condo are planks of wood with grooves of tar(?) in-between, so I worried that the thing could escape through a groove.  I managed to slide a piece of shirt cardboard underneath, then stacked a big bottle of lotion on top - who knew how strong that menace might be??

Tim was on the phone with his family during this whole escapade, and when I showed it to him, he first thought it was just a cicada.  But when he kindly took the creature out of the condo for me, he realized it was indeed a cockroach.  Adios, Cucaracha!

The little cat that hangs around the pool seems to be a bit less timid now.  Make that a lot less timid.  I think the thing would happily hop up on my lap if I let it - which I won't.  Sorry, cat people.

It looks like the White-vented Myna's that have been so busy in that poolside tree must have hatched some of their eggs.  The remnants of a couple of eggs were lying under the tree the other day.  Amazingly similar to a robin's egg.

Yesterday I went down to talk to the condo manager.  No one was there; well, no one except this beauty.  It was bigger than my hand!  I have never seen a bug of this magnitude outside of the zoo.  Really a magnificent specimen, and big enough to ride a child's scooter, or so it would appear!

The tide continues to go waaaay out every day.  I suppose after the rainy season it won't go out so far?  We noticed when we were out last weekend that the water level goes way down at our end of Pattaya, and at the north end of Beach Road; but when you get to the south end, the water still comes right up to the beach.  We saw a boat beached at the north end, out of service until the tide came back in.  (Don't worry, I'm going to tie this all in to the critter theme.)  More and more locals are appearing when the tide goes out, looking for crustaceans in the now-exposed rocks.  It must be fruitful work if more people are coming.  Hard to see from up above what they are actually finding.

Saved the best critters for last.  My Thai class finishes at 3 p.m.  That barely gives Mick time to drop me at home before heading out to pick Tim up from work, if Tim leaves at a reasonable hour. Sometimes he has a small window of time to travel home before tying in to teleconferences with North America or other locations.  Otherwise, he may be stuck at the office until 8 or 9 at night.  Last Wednesday he was at the other plant and wanted to try to get back before his evening meetings.  So we went straight from school to pick him up.  It is nearly an hour drive, but the scenery is always interesting.

Once Tim was in the car we were on our way back to Pattaya.  Tim was in a meeting by phone the entire ride, so I had to keep quiet.  But I could not contain my excitement when we saw an elephant walking along the road.  And not just one elephant, but four elephants.  I shouted, "Chang!" (Thai word for elephant).  Oops.  Tim says occasionally that he's seen an elephant on his way to work, and I am quite envious.  But this was the first time he'd seen four.  Seeing elephants is considered "chock dii," or good luck.  We had big chock dii that day.

sorry for the blur - shot from a moving car

Here is one more shot from the road - two water buffalo crammed into the back of a small pickup truck, while the driver does what he does best - passing on the right:

our car receives a fresh blessing of flowers every week

In other news...

I enjoyed the FIFA Women's World Cup Finals.  It was on television here starting at 6 a.m. Monday morning, so I just caught the second half.  It was a bit frustrating to watch, as they rarely showed the score or the time or any information of any kind, and the color commentary was in Thai.  I'm afraid my Thai classes didn't help me much there.  Here are the color commentators we were "fortunate" to have:

Can't you just sense the excitement??