Another thousand words or so....

Let's look at some Rayong wildlife!



This little gecko is in my bathroom. He's on the other side of the window screen, but I've seen a few actually in my room too. I don't mind the geckos so much since they tend to stay up on the walls and not on the floor where I could step on them. Also, they eat bugs, and I hate bugs. Geckos = good.








I was just walking down the street to go to work and I heard some roosters... and sure enough there they were wandering around in someone's yard. I was a little excited because 'gai' (chicken) is one of the few words I know. =) I've seen at least one hen, and a few baby chicks too.




The cows were a total surprise... they were just walking down the street between the gas station and my apartment. I don't understand why they're so scrawny though. Rayong is extremely green & lush and there appears to be grass everywhere. I thought maybe it's not enough of the right kind of grass or something. I don't know enough about cows to say. Or maybe it's too hot for them to want to eat much. No idea.

This is the apartment dog, he's a pet and well cared for, but there are soi dogs *everywhere*.

It's really disturbing actually - they just run wild everywhere. In Chiang Mai the dogs pretty much left me alone, but here I've been barked at a bit and if I happen to be eating something, I have an immediate audience. It makes me really nervous. None of the soi dogs are in particularly good shape (and none are fixed!), but some have serious skin conditions or scrapes and scratches. I saw one dog missing half of one of his front legs & paw, and the other day I saw a dog get run over by a van, I had to look away, the poor thing was howling and all the other dogs were barking. Horrible.

Another stray dog - this one was at the beach, there were several. One dog came up and actually nipped at my leg while I was buying food. He didn't actually bite, and fortunately I was wearing pants so I didn't even get his saliva on me... but still a bit disturbing. I'm not sure what the protocol for dogs is, do you yell at them - or does that just make them mad? So far I've been ignoring them / walking away, and hoping for the best.

Finally... the little calico at my apartment complex. She came right up to me and wanted some lovin', but wouldn't stand still for the camera. Who does she remind you of?

Of course she's about 400lbs lighter than Sally... but she has the same coloring.

Oh, and I'll leave you with my moment of brilliance for the day. I kept noticing magazines with pictures of Bettas on the cover. I couldn't figure it out until finally I realized the other name for a Betta is Siamese Fighting Fish, and Siam = Thailand. Suddenly it all started clicking - Siamese cats, Siamese twins... all of it. That's Thailand! =) Not stupid... just a bit slow. ;)