Back to Bangkok, but more importantly: elephants!!!

Well, it has been a rainy, awful, unproductive week. Unproductive because of the rain. However, there were a few highlights. One being dinner last night. I went out to "Moo Kata" with Jackie (grad student who did her dissertation research here two years ago and is here for a visit) her assistant Josh, Jambee (the neighbor of the old house) her daughter, and Bon (woman who works at the park convenience store). This is a kind of buffet that is adapted from Korean Barbecue. There is a bowl of hot coals and a little metal device sits on top. A picture is the best way to describe it.

So you cook like leafy greens and glass noodles in the broth on the perimeter and grill meat and seafood on top. You use different sauces to spice it up before you eat it. It is a really fun way to go out with friends. Its nice because it takes a while and you sort of just eat and cook slowly as you go. Afterward we went to Swensen's for ice cream. It was my first time going here, and apparently it is an American company but I have never heard of it.

I woke up this morning, and it wasn't raining, which was a good sign, but the sky looked awful. We had been stuck in the past two days due to nonstop rain, so we went out anyway. We had just hung the loudseaker when it started raining, so we gave up and packed it in. It rained on and off in the early morning. The rangers said the forecast wouldn't improve for a few more days, so we made a last minute decision to come to Bangkok this weekend rather than next to renew my visa. We decided to take the southern exit of the park to get to Bangkok this time to try it out. It takes longer to get to the southern entrance. When we got there, we parked and waited for a vehicle to exit the park and hitchhiked a ride to a nearby city to catch the bus. This was my first hitchhiking experience. I am really amazed at Thai people's helpfulness and generosity. Whether it be to give strangers a ride or to insist on carrying something for someone, they always want to help (sometimes to the point of being annoying). We took a minibus from Nakon Nayok to Bangkok, which was just over an hour-long trip, better than the three hour ride from Pak Chong, but all in all, with driving to the entrance and hitchhiking it really wasn't a much faster experience. It was about half the price though. People here tend to suggest minibuses as a better option, and they are usually more expensive, but I actually find them a more uncomfortable experience than regular buses. The capacity is 16 people and let me tell you, usually all 16 seats are full. There is no storage space for bags, so you sit there like a sardine with your bag on your lap. It is unpleasant. We finally made it to our hotel in Bangkok around 4:00 and were absolutely starving. We ate a late lunch or early dinner at the Tesco Lotus cafeteria and will probably go to the night market for a snack later on.

The best part of the day though, was seeing three elephants in broad daylight on our way out of the park! There were two females and a baby. It was pretty awesome and I got some great photos because the lighting was much better than last time. They weren;t in much of a hurry so we had plenty of time to take photos, and I went a little overboard.

 And proof I was actually with them and didn't just find these photos on the internet or something. Don't mind the crazy, wind-blown, open window hair.

boring weekend

Sunset over the reservoir Saturday night.

Well, luckily I finished the previous post about the playback early Friday night because at 9pm the electricity went out. I was confused because it wasn't even raining yet, but it must have been windy or stormy elsewhere in the park. Today we saw the damage along the road, lots of fallen branches and trees had been swept to the side of the road. So, since we were blessed to go a whole two weeks without a power outage, mother nature decided to be a real bitch and give us the worst one yet this time. Since there was nothing to do Friday night in the dark, I went to bed early and woke up at 7:30 Saturday morning for an early run before it got too hot. Yeah, that didn't happen. I realized once I was up that the electricity had not been restored in the night, and you know what that means, no water either. So, no showers, which definitely meant no running, since even the shortest slowest of runs here make me sweat buckets. I wasn't tired though so I didn't go back to bed, and instead spent the morning reading. We had planned to go to the store that afternoon, but as we had no idea when we would have a functioning refrigerator, we didn't think it wise to go buy a bunch of perishable food. So I sat and read, and read a different book, then switched back to the first. And so the day went. It was incredibly boring, and unfortunately also hot. I also for some reason had a swarm of fruit flies following me all day so I spent most of the day inside rather than on the porch because the swarm wasn't quite as big inside. Maybe I smelled like fruit?

My journal entry from Saturday reads a little something like this:
13.5 hours and counting, its a record!
Almost 16 hours. Ugh. Bored.
Now its almost 3, hot as hell, and going on 18 hours without power.
These fruit flies won't leave me alone! I want to kill them all!
I AM IN A TERRIBLE MOOD
The power better come back soon or I might starve.
19 hours.
20 hours: I'm going to fall over and die of boredom.
20:15 hours it came back on...but for how long...?

So, that was dramatic. Oops. I lucked out though because the power did stay on when it finally came back at 5:15 and I was able to get a short run in and make a hot dinner of rice and corn. I went to bed early because I had a video chat date with Jane in the morning.

Sunday I got up at 6am and video chatted with Jane, which was great. I got to hear all about her awesome Euro-trip and about her first week living in East Lansing, where she starts med school Monday! I laid in bed for a while after that, not quite tired enough to fall back asleep but not motivated enough to get up and run yet. I finally got myself out the door for a nice 3 mile run at about 8:45. When I got back I showered and had some breakfast and then Julie and I left for Pak Chong at around 10:30. It was a lovely (but hot) day again today. Unfortunately the days when its sunny and nice out here are the hottest ones, so I actually prefer rainy days to nice ones. I also think I have solved the mystery of why one arm is tanner than the other: its the arm that hangs out of the car window when we drive to Pak Chong, which is an hour long drive and it always seems to be sunny when we go. Its ridiculous and I need to figure out how to even that out. Anyway, since we went earlyish to town we didn't go to the market since it doesn't open until 3, so we just got everything we needed at Tesco. The big tragedy of the day was that Tesco had ZERO banana muffins today, which are like my staple snack. I normally eat at least two a day. I was super bummed. I bought extra cereal instead, which is a pricey substitute. I also bought half a roasted chicken with sticky rice which I ate half of when I got home and saved the other half. It was delicious. We stopped for mangoes on the way home which was a little tricky because most of the stands had green, unripe ones unfortunately, we eventually found a stand selling very ripe ones, so I hope they don't go bad to quickly. Anyway, that was the boring and hot weekend but tomorrow we will try another playback experiment so hopefully that is successful.

Oh, and happy Father's Day to the best dad in the world!! :)

playback!

Well today we finally got to do a playback! Hooray! Julie said it was the first playback experiment done on these gibbons in 25 years! Apparently, the third time really is a charm. We tried the playback with W Tuesday, and lost the gibbons after a very long inter-group meeting (W pretty much has an inter-group meeting every day, apparently they like telling their neighbors to get off their lawn). Wednesday it rained so that doesn't count as an attempt. Thursday they spent the whole day all the way on the opposite side of their territory from where we set the loudspeaker for the playback. Today, was just right, finally.

A little side note about the playback experiment:
I don't think I've explained it before. This experiment is the reason for all the rope setting. So, we have set ropes between territories so we can hoist up a loud speaker very high for the playbacks. The higher the better so that it can be heard from very far. So, since we did W today I will explain using them. We set up a loudspeaker in the S territory which borders W. It cannot be in the overlap of the territories or else W could go all the way to the speaker when they hear it, which would be bad because they need to be tricked into thinking this is a real situation, not a weird human machine making noise. We orient the speaker toward the W territory, and when W is close enough to hear (about 200 or less meters) we can start the playback. This is why it is so hard, because the gibbon territories can be like 400x500meters, so its hard to ensure they are in the right place at the right time. We want to see how gibbons react when their neighbors sing a predator song (stimuli recorded from a previous encounter with the fake leopard model). So we will do three tests per group, the predator song, a regular duet, and a control (probably a bird song) and see how the gibbon's reaction differs. So we play S's predator song to W and see what W does, and if W responds with their own song, we record that. If W displays behavior like rushing toward the song, scanning the ground, increased vigilance or cautious behavior like carrying the baby more or even just increased grooming or decreased distance between group members (grooming is a way for primates to de-stress), this may indicate that they understand the meaning of the neighboring group's predator song. That is the important part, because Julie is studying communication between gibbons in the broader context of understanding the evolution of communication and eventually language in the primate lineage. So, voila! Hopefully that makes enough sense.

So, the day didn't start out so lucky. Julie and I both slept through our alarms. At 5:30, we were supposed to leave at 5:45, I jumped up out of bed. I ran to the bathroom and peed and then I realized wait, Julie's light is off, shes not up either? Well at least it took the pressure off me. I knocked several times until she woke up and we both rushed to get ready. So we left late. When we got to where our rope was hung, Julie and Yun (our ranger assistant who lays in a hammock all day until we tell him to press play) hoisted the speaker into the tree and I set off to find W because we heard a male singing in that general direction. I found the singer, and as I had suspected based on the location of the sound, it was an inter-group meeting (IGM) between NOS and W. Wotan and the male of NOS chased each other a little. At one point, while the secondary NOS male had Wotan distracted, the primary NOS male approached Sari (W female) and William had to chase him off. William as I've mentioned before is the son of Wotan, but not of Sari, so he has no reason to disperse, and is in all practical purposes a secondary male. However, before William chased him away, while he was approaching, the NOS male was kind enough to drop a huge load of watery shit right above me. I jumped out of the way just in time and only my bag and the microphone got splattered. Usually when the gibbons go to the bathroom they start to pee, then poop afterward (solidly). So you have a nice warning, you see the stream of pee, which you can usually dodge and if not its not that gross, and then you have a nice warning and have already moved before the poo bomb drops. In the case of diarrhea, apparently this system breaks down and you barely know whats coming until its splattered all over the ground, especially on a day after it has rained and the splatters hitting the leaves on the way down just sound like rain drops. Anyway, sorry for the gross detail, but almost being shit on was a pretty big part of my morning.

When the IGM was finally over the gibbons were in a great place for the playback, so we walkie-talkied Yun and told him to press play. Well, he was taking a bathroom break, great. So we missed our first chance. About 10 or so minutes later the gibbons had moved really close to the river, and therefore really close to the speaker which was just on the other side. So we decided, now or never. We started the playback. As soon as the song could be heard the gibbons looked straight in that direction and Wotan immediately took off toward the sound. Sari (and William) hung around for a minute but followed shortly after. I was following Sari and doing scans on her while Julie followed Wotan. We are just taking data on the mating pair, but William displayed basically the same behaviors throughout the playback as Wotan did, besides his initial reluctance to rush toward the speaker. Conveniently, they spent most of the two hour scan in the trees right at the edge of the river, allowing Julie and I to stand on the bridge to watch them. They were really high in the trees though, so looking up at the bright sky for that long was a struggle. Every 5 minutes for two hours we collected data on their position (sit, lay, hang, move in or between trees), their behavior (scanning, moving, resting, grooming, etc.) their height in the tree, the distance between the male and female, their gazes (looking at speaker, ground, sky etc), whether the baby was on or off mom, and we recorded every move on our GPS. It was intense, but successful! They spent a lot of time scanning, looking at the ground, toward the speaker, trying to find the S gibbons in the canopy to the left of the speaker. They also groomed, but still scanned while doing so. They didn't respond with their own disturbed song, but in fact the N group nearby did, which was cool! So after the two hour scan was over, we triumphantly headed back home, and it was only 10:30. A successful day in the field and done before 11am!

Yesterday, although a complete bust for the playback, was also a cool day. I saw a bunch of different wildlife! We saw a huge water monitor lizard out of the water, unfortunately it ran so fast I didn't get a picture. They look really goofy when they run though. We saw a bunch of macaques. We were completely surrounded at one point, and momentarily lost the gibbons because of their racket. Macaques are cool though because they actually hang out on the ground some of the time, and they live in much bigger groups, so there is usually more social stuff going on (which is what I'm more interested in than vocalizations). So I got to see a lot of play fighting and chasing. We also came across a teeny green pit viper. Julie stood next to it for about 10 minutes and didn't notice it. It wasn't until she started walking away and I was following her that I saw it moving away quietly. It froze once it knew we had noticed it, which allowed us ample picture taking opportunities. The pit vipers really aren't aggressive at all, they mostly just want to blend in and not be noticed. It was very pretty, it almost had a light blue sheen on its sides, different from the last one I saw. To top it off, at night a porcupine was hanging out in front of the porch, and I finally had the opportunity to get a photo!

Pig tailed macaque-found while trying to locate gibbons. Darn.

 The pond on W is starting to fill up after Wednesday's rain. Rainy season!

It used to be just mud.

 Cool fungus!

 Tiny pit viper. Less than an inch in diameter.

 Macaques are always moving, so it is hard to get non-blurry pictures.

 Malayan porcupine!

Woke up late this morning, but still had to take time to photograph this pretty sunrise outside my window!

jungle funk

So, apparently people are actually reading this. At least several people in the past few days have said, oh I'm enjoying your blog and all the pictures etc. So that's always nice to hear. I'm trying to make sure I get at least a few pictures in every post, so its not so boring, which is why I haven't been doing as many posts lately. Basically, I've shown you about a hundred gibbon pictures, and to be honest seeing new things worth sharing is becoming less and less common. So, you could say we're falling into a routine, and I think its only worth it to share the really interesting things from here on out. That being said, today is an unfortunate day off because it was pouring rain all morning. So I'm bored, and have a couple of random things I'd like to ramble about for a few minutes if that is alright with you.

Number one, I keep thinking about, but forgetting to explain the meaning behind this blog's URL: jungle funk. This term was first introduced to me by my professor Chris Schmitt at the La Suerte field school in Costa Rica. He used it to describe the lovely aroma that all of your clothing (and probably you yourself) will acquire after a few weeks in the field. At La Suerte, we came to understand the meaning of this term very quickly. When after two days I decided "oh its time to wash some of my clothes!" I was clearly an amateur. As it turns out, when you have to wash your clothes by hand, wring all the water you possibly can out of them, and then hang them to dry in an environment whose humidity is pretty much maxed out, your clothes aren't going to dry. So after waiting 3-4 days for my clothes to finally dry, I realized they smelled worse than they had before I'd washed them. Hello jungle funk! In my mere four weeks in Costa Rica, jungle funk came to encompass everything that was gross and uncomfortable that we were experiencing due to the nastiness of our climate; stinky clothes, a mysterious rash covering 1/3 of my body, "swamp ass" (visible-through-your-pants butt sweat), mud and mosquitoes everywhere, a damp pillow from my sweat. So I figured ok, this is what its like doing field work in tropical places. So I showed up in Thailand VERY prepared. I came with all sorts of waterproof stuff, thin clothes that would dry fast, fungal creams, anti-itch steroid creams, powder and vaseline to prevent chafing, etc. Well, to be honest I've barely used this stuff here. Khao Yai is a very cushy field site I have to say. So, when the PI of the project arrived and was surprised at my adaptability and  patience at our slightly inconvenient living situation, what he didn't know was that as long as I have dry, clean smelling clothes and no rashes to speak of, I am content.

The aforementioned "swamp ass" of La Suerte

However, in the face off between Khao Yai and La Suerte there are a few preferable aspects to the latter. One: our cook Rosie, the food may have seemed a little heavy on the carb side, and perhaps a little weird sometimes, but at least someone else was making it for you, and it was generally good. Two: dogs, dogs make EVERYTHING better. Three: capuchins, gibbons are great, but I think I'm still slightly more in love with the adorable capuchins of La Suerte. Advantages of Khao Yai include a washing machine, less humidity, mosquitoes that are under control (though leeches are a different story), and it gets cool enough at night to not sweat through my sheets. So, lesson learned: every field site, every forest, is different but I am still thinking coming over prepared was a better call than coming under prepared.

Okay, so now that you know why I named my blog "jungle funk" and how its actually a pretty inappropriate  description of anything here other than my dirty running clothes, here are some other random thoughts I have forgotten to share. There is a tree in the forest that smells like marshmallows! What a great creation by mother nature. Julie and I don't actually know what kind of tree or plant it is, or what it looks like, but every once in a while you are walking along and bam, you look around expecting to be near a bakery or something based on the super sweet smell permeating the air. Marshmallow is a good description of the smell, but also for some reason angel food cake pops into my brain as well when I smell it. This of course makes me think of grandma Ginny and her delicious angel food cake. I am looking forward to many baked goods a la Nancy and Ginny upon my return...

Also, in the forest I have been seeing increasingly impressive looking spiders. It makes me nervous that I am eventually going to walk straight into a web and get a huge spider stuck on my face. I've had a few close encounters. The other day I walked face first straight into a web, fortunately I don't think it was occupied. The web sure was sticky. It was all over my hair and face and took a few minutes to pick off, and even longer to get the creepy feeling of imaginary spiders crawling all over my body to disappear. YUCK.

huge spider, body over an inch long

The other day I saw another awesome scorpion in the road. Dead this time unfortunately, but I did get a picture! You can't really see how green they are from these pictures. Maybe because it was dead and its color had faded, or its just the lighting of the picture. But if you google "Khao Yai scorpion" you'll see some cool pictures!

I guess I should stop rambling now. I've filled up almost my whole morning with Skyping and writing this, so I would say I have killed time successfully. I got to four-way Skype tri-internationally with Alaina, Katie (USA) and Elsie (South Korea) early this morning, and then with Nathan a little bit later. Lucky me! I suppose I'll make lunch soon and then spend the afternoon entering some data and reading on the porch. Until next time something interesting happens...

monogamy? HA!

Well, for a long time people (even scientists!) looked at pair bonded birds and gibbons and thought "oh how sweet, they're monogamous! If these creatures can do it, surely humans can too!" Well, the more you know. As it turns out, when scientists dug a little deeper, watched a little closer, they realized "Wow! These animals aren't quite so lovingly devoted to their mates as we would like to think." It isn't the fairy tale, and there are evolutionary reasons WHY. Monogamous social systems evolved in most cases because there were pathetically helpless infants who needed care from not one, but two, parents (although its hard to say if that's the case with gibbons because the males don't really do much, besides play with the infants, but that's a different debate). However, there is a difference between a social system and a mating system. As it turns out, lots of socially monogamous species also participate in extra-pair copulations; this is known as a mixed reproductive strategy. Its like insurance. If you happen to be mated with a male who isn't of the highest genetic quality, but is still maybe a good partner or father, you might benefit by mating with a better, neighboring male but staying with your current mate. As for males, they aren't constrained by gestation, lactation and infant carrying, so technically they could go out and mate all they want with whoever they want (which many male primates do), but in doing so they risk leaving their own mate unattended to possibly do the same. So, its a tricky business, and thus extra-pair copulations are rare, but they do happen.

I just so happened to be lucky enough to witness one today. YEAH! It was in fact the first copulation I have witnessed here, and it just happened to be an adulterous one. What a lucky day! (Though I can't say the same for Chinda and Chu...) So, here's how it happened. Julie and I had just stumbled across A, hooray! because we wanted to do the python with them. I briefly saw Chu (A male) but then he disappeared. Then we saw more white individuals and were like crap is this the C group? But no, because we did see Chu, who is black and all of C is white, so we knew A had to be there too. It turned out to be an intergroup encounter at the border of C and A. We hadn't been with them a minute before we saw Chao (C male) and Andromeda (A female) mating. WOAH! Chinda (C female) and Chu (A male) were nowhere in sight, but the C juvenile was hanging around. Chao and Andromeda proceeded to copulate 4 times (bummer I didn't get my camera out in time!) before finally moving apart. Chu showed up again not long after and we followed him and Andromeda for the rest of the day.

Shortly after reuniting Andromeda attempted to initiate a duet, but just ended up doing three lonely great calls while Chu seemed to give her the silent treatment. (I do not presume to know what the gibbons are thinking, this is simply my anthropomorphic interpretation of what was going on, don't take it too seriously). So, a little bit later Chu and Andromeda started a duet, together this time, but as soon as Andromeda gave her first great call: silence. Zip, zilch, nada. More silent treatment from Chu. Let me tell you, a great call without a male reply is like peanut butter without jelly, it just isn't right. About ten minutes later they tried again. This time, they got past the first great call at least, but even then, no male replies for the first two great calls, then the next three were a VERY half hearted reply, and finally he gave a reply to the next two, and on the last, nothing, again. Well, this just seemed too coincidental. Males LOVE to sing, and they never miss that many replies in one duet. It seemed like Chu was holding a bit of a grudge. After a while he got over it though and they spent most of the late morning happily grooming each other. This is really boring for us as it is just: "Ok your turn," groom for 5 minutes, "My turn," groom for 5 minutes, "your turn," etc. So, we sat bored while they groomed and ate some fruit and acted really boring. They were too high in the trees to do the python. When they finally did move they went back to where the C group was and we can't do the python when there are two group present, because then we would record two groups singing at once. It was interesting to see how they behaved at this meeting though. Andromeda was suddenly shy and kept her distance while Chu made sure to stay between Andromeda and the C group at all times.

When we got back I told the project PI about it and he said something along the lines of "Oh Andromeda, she mates with everyone!" Apparently she is not only the oldest gibbon in the study site but also the most notoriously promiscuous. She was in fact one of the first examples published of extra-pair copulations in gibbons. Way back in 1992 (See http://anthro.siu.edu/reichard/reichard_ethology_95.pdf). Shes still whoring it up over 20 years later, even though her last surviving offspring was born like 15 years ago and she certainly won't be making any new baby gibbons by mating with her neighbors (shes that old).

We also saw a barking deer (and scared it into barking and fleeing), and a cool lizard who blended in wonderfully with the leaf litter. We also saw an awesome spider with an X marked right in the middle of her web like "Insects land here!" So, it was a great day!

 Andromeda

 little froggy from the other day

 "bugs land here!"

 the lovely creator of the web

trouble in paradise? 

 do you see the lizard?

there he is!

 huge caterpillar

grooming solves any problem!

creative energy

So, I find myself feeling a little bit wound up lately. I've been having trouble sleeping because my mind is full of thoughts and images that just want to explode out of me. I think I have a lot of creative energy built up inside me with no way to release it. Every day I get so see such beautiful things: dazzling lightning storms, fluttering butterflies, sunrises and sunsets, the way the sun peeks through the trees early in the morning so just little shafts of light are visible, deer that walk right up to me on the porch and say hello, gibbons that glide effortlessly through the canopy, moss covered rocks, trees with huge buttresses. All these things and more are giving me a jittery hand that wants a brush and a canvas. Since I don't really have any other creative talents, besides painting, I'm sort of at a loss. I can't write poetry. I'm not great at drawing, and find it a little boring so I always rush. I'm so desperate that I bought the back-to-school pack of Oreos at the store just because they came with free colored pencils! So, I'm stumped. I suppose taking and sharing photos will help though, so that is what I'll do.

 Early morning on NOS territory

NOS main male relaxing

 translucent mushrooms

 rainy season is slowly making its mark

 me and HUGE tree

butterfly wing

Those pretty photos are from Monday and Tuesday in the field. Monday we followed the NOS group, which is a huge group: black female+white infant, white main male, 2 black secondary males, 2 white juveniles. So that was interesting. We went to Pak Chong in the afternoon for groceries and to buy our new rope setting device. We thought we were getting a bow and arrows, but no. Julie's bird watching guide friend has a friend, whose uncle makes these weapons for shooting fish. They are basically like a sling shot and a cross bow mixed together and shaped like a rifle. Its interesting. We were skeptical at first, but after seeing it in action we decided it was perfect. There are little metal spears (we had the pointed ends cut off so they wouldn't get embedded in the tree if we missed, and so we wouldn't accidentally kill anything). The spear is locked into place at the end of the "gun" shaft, and then you pull the sling shot part around and hook it onto the little spear. The spear is tied to a bunch of fishing line which is wound around a little piece of PVC at the end of the tip of the "gun." When you pull the trigger, the spear is released with the fishing line attached, so you can pull in the fish you've gotten. So, we spent Tuesday morning setting ropes with this new device. Instead of impaling fish, we aimed for branches and slung the fishing line over them which we then replaced with rope. The only tricky thing is when the spear gets stuck in branches. We broke the line a few times yanking on it, and lost a few spears this way. Overall though, this thing works really well, and is pretty awesome. Julie has been pondering what kind of reaction she is going to get at customs when she returns to France with a knife, a machete, a (broken) crossbow, and now this thing, in her luggage. The other event of the day was that one lucky leech got to absolutely feast on my back today while we set the ropes in the first tree. I was adjusting my shirt and felt him and heard him fall off. He was VERY fat. It wasn't until we got back 3 hours later though that I realized the damage. I was still bleeding after my shower and my sports bra and shirt were nicely bloodied. 

 weaponry (AKA new device for setting ropes)

 Julie: weapons expert

post leech attack carnage

still bleeding 3.5 hours after he fell off

Well, that's about it for now. Hopefully I can sleep tonight. No coffee today, and only 6 hours of sleep last night should make that possible. Who knows though, my mind is always racing at night.

the century egg

Well, today was a day off so that Julie could write her proposal and so that we could meet the PI of the project. We were supposed to have lunch. Well, he came in, soaking wet from the field since he just HAD to see the gibbons first thing, at 1:30 pm and Julie was starving waiting on him. I was okay because I'd had a late breakfast. He walked around in his soggy field clothes in absolute shock and disbelief at the conditions we were living in. Julie and I just kept giving one another glances and little smiles because really, to us its not a big deal. Except maybe the no kitchen thing, and even that isn't really a problem now that we've adapted. Yeah, we have cold showers because the rangers are too lazy to fix the heater, yeah we do dishes in the bathroom sink, yeah I have a curtain for a wall, and yeah, we have no kitchen. Really though its not a big deal and (at this point) Julie and I figure its easier just to get along with what we have than to make a big fuss.  To me, from what I've heard of at other fields sites, this is cushy, easy living. I mean, we have a washing machine with a centrifuge thing that gets our clothes almost dry for Pete's sake! Dr. Gibbon (I'll call him since I don't really want to mention his name while complaining about him...) had an absolute conniption. He took photos of my room, while my stinky running clothes from this morning hung up for everyone to see/smell, to show our Thai collaborator. He whined and said this was absolutely unacceptable before FINALLY pealing off his wet clothes and taking a shower. Then, he and Julie went to talk to the park chief about this. Julie shouted at me as she went out the door after him, "EAT EAT EAT!" as it was already two and apparently we were NOT going to be going to get lunch together. Poor Julie, I knew how hungry she was and at this point it was already 2:30. What is silly and annoying to me about all of this, is that Julie sent countless emails to Dr. Gibbon about this situation; how the research house was emptied and she was told we could no longer use it, how we were thrown into makeshift arrangements at the search and rescue center. He didn't seem so bothered by this until he arrived, quite unprepared despite Julie's warnings "you will have nowhere to sleep!"

Anyway, now I'm just mad because what came out of the meeting with the park chief is that a wall will be built, yay! No, not yay, because in fact two walls will be built. One to separate what is currently my area from the rescue center patient area (which rarely sees patients), which just fine. The other will cut my current living space in half so the Dr. Gibbon can sleep on the other side. GREAT. My stuff is jumbled around all over anyway, I'm living out of my suitcase. The only place for me to hang my clothes line is on that side of the "room". I am currently USING a lot of that space for my own stuff. So, with the creation of this new wall, I'll be living in 10x10 feet of space that is going to be stuffy as all get out. I actually LIKE my current curtain situation because it lets in so much breeze. So, I'm a little peeved. Dr. Gibbon is only going to be here for a month, does he really have to cut my room in half with a new WALL for his month-long stay?

End rant.

The only other thing that happened today was that I tasted my century egg. Google it please. Anyway, its a nasty preserved egg, and in Thailand they paint them pink. Julie made me get one at the market last week just to try.

Look at that pink egg looking all innocent like Easter.

Noooooope.

MAYBE if you like hard boiled eggs this is for you, but if you're a person disgusted by the smell of those, then century eggs are VERY far outside of your comfort zone. So, I decided that I didn't want to eat it cold. I think normally they are eaten in like soups or salads, but I didn't feel like ruining other good food for this. So, I just heated it up in some boiling water and pealed the shell off.

 beautiful...

 oh no, oh no.

 not excited.

Well, once you peal off the shell, you realize that this thing stinks, not any stronger than a boiled egg, but its maybe more of a chemically smell. So like rotten egg smell plus toxic chemicals. Which isn't surprising considering how they're preserved: "in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls for several weeks to several months." Also, according to Wikipedia this chemical smell is probably an ammonia and sulfur odor. Then you cut it open and see the nasty yolk which has sort of a creamy, frosting-like consistency.

Then, if you're me, you take the teensiest sliver of a bite possible and decide, well that was not for me! It leaves a chemical taste in your mouth too. So, the end. Probably won't be doing that again. Luckily if a Thai person ever tries to force me to eat this again I can say "oh I've already tried it and I don't like them that much". But don't be too turned off by my disgust. I honestly think if I liked hard boiled eggs I wouldn't have been so grossed out. The egg white has a jello-like texture, which isn't bad. The gooey yolk is weird though. I also shouldn't write it off so quickly, perhaps if prepared in a way that suits my taste I would like it a bit better.

So, tomorrow Julie will attempt to finish the proposal, I will check over it for her (since its in English and she's French). Hopefully, we will go to Pak Chong in the afternoon to get food and the bow we're going to use to set ropes with.

To finish, some pictures of butterflies! According to Julie, we will start to see more and more butterflies as time goes on. This is great because I was a bit disappointed when I first arrived to only see a few teeny brown ones. I thought, this is a tropical rainforest, there has to be more butterflies than this!

 boring and brown...

until they fly! pretty blue!