All manner of wildlife

The wildlife really is amazing here…

There is nothing in the world like getting used to different kinds of creepy crawlies that you’ve never seen before. I had my 6 weeks of initiation on the beach, and one of the most entertaining introductions was to the small lizards that come out at night and populate the ceilings around the lights. Jinjok they are called, and they really are cute critters, just don’t put one on me (although that’s supposed to be a sign of good luck, one of them falling on you).

Sitting down for an evening with a boring book, there is nothing more entertaining than watching these little salamanders sweep around the ceiling, rushing off to grab a bug or just hanging immobile off the ceiling. There is a hierarchy among these animals, and it behooves the younger generation to give place of respect to the elders. Many times have I watched an invasion on the private patch of an older member by an unwary teen. First there is the warning hiss and clucking. The small tail slaps impatiently on the ceiling, while the body slowly pulls itself together for a dash across to the intruder. Suddenly there is a flurry of movement, and two or three lizards are racing around the ceiling in pursuit of each other, fending off invaders, or attacking the previous owner for superiority and housing rights.

Small things amaze small minds.

Then there are the fiercer cousins of these small, harmless animals, the Tookae, so named and distinguished by their call; ‘too kae’ ‘too kae’, or in northern Thailand, ‘tok toe’ tok toe’. These animals are really ugly, and you really don’t want them in the house because they shit everywhere and you can’t sleep because of the noise they make. I have met some people who will absolutely freeze and faint away when they catch even a glimpse of these things, and they are a favourite animal with which to scare the kids.

“The Tookae is going to get you if you go in there. The Tookae will bite you if you don’t go to bed now.”

But these animals really are the least of your worries. There are cockroaches the size of mice, and I really, no, I mean REALLY! Hate the buggers. But it seems that Thailand is the ideal place for them, and even if an atomic bomb were to wipe out all other forms of life on earth, it would be these miserable bugs that would survive.

The house at the Coop

Scorpions, red and shiny black…

Then there are the scorpions, the nice little red ones, and the pretty, shiny black ones. The first defence against these things is to take all shoes inside for the evening. When you’re moving any mouldy or musty thing outdoors, use a pole first to move it. When nothing slithers or skitters out, it’s probably 40 percent safe to move it by hand.

Only once have I had a real scare with a scorpion, and it was the big, black, shiny variety, – although I do remember going to some open zoo not too far from Bangkok to film a TV program, and there was a glass case with a big plaque in front of it. The inside of the case was still home to several dozen scorpions, but the plaque told the story about a woman who had sat in the glass box for several days with the scorpions (without being stung) to set some sort of record; I prefer to set a longevity record instead. But back to the story. I was sitting with a coworker one Sunday, quietly having a drink on my porch, when my friend shuffled his foot around.

What’s wrong?

Oh, just something tickling my foot.

A few seconds later he shuffled his feet again.

Still bothering you?

Yeah.

I decide to take a peak under the table.

Holy Shit! Don’t move! You do not want to move.

Too late, he jumps up at the sound of my voice and jumps a foot away. I think it was the speed of his action that saved him. I saw the tail whip lashing down, but it slammed into solid cement. With the target out of bounds, the scorpion slithered off the porch and disappeared below, never to be seen again.

And SNAKES!!! beautiful and poisonous….

Then there are the snakes. There are some really beautiful snakes in Thailand. Pretty colours and pretty deadly, and I hate snakes, just about as much as I hate cockroaches. There are the nice green ones, which are harmless, then there are the equally nice almost fluorescent green ones but with a brown tail, the deadly ones. There is a village somewhere in the northeast of the country (I visited once to make another tv program), and the livelihood of this village centers around catching deadly snakes, including cobras, and putting on shows for visitors: the stage is like a boxing ring, with one ‘charmer’ and a few snakes slithering around. The object of the activity is pretty similar to Russian Roulette – not to get killed. The charmer will tease the snakes, try to put his hand on their heads and pet them as though they are nice little doggies, and then one by one catch them and put them back in their cages or bags. You can imagine how happy you would be at the prospect of having to spend hours on end in a fertilizer bag…

So there are the pythons and constrictors, the more or less benign varieties unless you are a cat or dog or something smaller; a variety of other vipers and snakes that can kill you in a matter of minutes; and then there are the real killers like the ones in the snake village. There is nothing more horrifying than hearing a thump of a Sunday afternoon on the front porch and a few seconds later seeing a two meter long solid black and shiny king cobra come slithering past the door where seconds before I had been quietly sitting reading a book and enjoying a cigarette. As I watched it slither by I was calculating its reach and my alley of escape. The baseball bat was within reach, but I daren’t reach for it for fear of drawing attention to myself. See, the bat might come in handy after all.

I prefer normal food for dinner, thank you:)

Cobra for dinner and drinks

I guess the cobra just wasn’t interested in me, or it was still too stunned from the drop it must have taken from the roof (which set off an entire series of questions in my mind as to where the darn thing had come from, and if it had been on the roof, might it also have been able to get into my bedroom? – remind me to tell you about the snake under the toilet seat in my house one day.) What ever the case, the cobra merrily made its way across the patio and into the shrubs just a stone’s throw away.

I got my own back a few days later. Somebody, somewhere, had managed to capture a cobra, and it was to be that night’s main dish. That called for a celebration, and of course the prerequisite alcoholic refreshments. The alcohol was needed just to steel my nerves before having a taste of cobra meat. It’s kind of like chicken, except a little bit hotter when it goes down. Then came the cup of cobra blood with copious amounts of rice whiskey, that didn’t go down too badly either, but it was a bit hot. I drew the line at the next item on the menu though, field rats.