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Tannith writes...

...about her experience while volunteering in the Thailand program.

Diary Entries:

· Arriving at the Volunteer Wildlife Centre
· First Day at the Wildlife Volunteer Centre - bears and noctural animals
· Mamma Mia Cucina Italiana
· Second Day at the Wildlife Volunteer Centre - bears and nocturnal animals
· Third day - Primates 1 team
· 4th Day - Primates 1 team
· 5th Day - Primates 2 team
· 6th Day - Primates 2 Team
· Baan SomBoon Hotel
· Hua Hin
· 7th Day - Deputy to 4 Teams
· 8th Day Primates 2
· 9th Day Other Cages & Primates 1 Team
· 10th Day Primates 1
· 11th Day Songkhran! Thai New Year! Primates 2 and Other Cages
· 12th Day Primates 1 & 2
· 13th Day Primates 1 & 2
· 14th Day Primates 1 & 2 again, & Cha-Am Night-Market
· 15th Day Bears, Other Cages, Nocturnal Diets
· 17th Day Primates 2
· 18th Day Primates 1 & House Duty with training
· 19th Day - Day Off
· 20th Day - Primates 2, Enrichments and swimming at the river
· 21st Day - Primates 2, Otter Pool & Hua Hin
· 22nd Day - Primates 2, Other Cages and off to the Petchvarin Resort
· 23rd Day - Day off at Petchvarin Resort
· 24th Day - Primates 1
· 25th Day - Primates 2 & Other Cages
· Day 26 - Primates 1
· Day 27 - Primates 1 & Hua Hin
· Day 28 - Primates 1
· An Impromptu Goodbye
· Bangkok
· Singapore to Perth & Tips for Traveling Asia

Arriving at the Volunteer Wildlife Centre (1st April 2008)

Up and out to get a fruit shake and check emails for the last time before catching a taxi to Sai Tai Mai (southern bus terminal) to catch the bus to Cha-am. I stowed my rucksack in the hold and then went to the 7/11 to pick up snacks and shampoo thinking I had 25 minutes till the bus left at 11am. When I got back to Bay 1, there was no bus. Immediate panic ensued. I had not checked my ticket which said to be at the bay by 10.50am. It was 10.51am. Fortunately a head count had revealed a passenger deficit and it had stopped around the corner, so with more than a little relief I ran to catch it!

Bus took about 2 hours and when I got off at Cha-am I called the centre to request a pick-up. I was standing in the hot sunshine for some time, and a nice Thai gentlemen came to talk to me. His English wasn't great, but we got along in pidgeon English and hand gestures. He insisted I move into the shade to save frying alive, and even bought me a Pepsi, bless him.

The taxi to the centre took about half an hour. We pulled up beside a large lake and a fenced off forest and I was greeted by a number of dogs, and Emma, one of the volunteer coordinators. I immediately asked whether they'd been expecting me yesterday only to discover they weren't really expecting me for another 5 days. Never mind, I was shown to Room 5 which I share with Lieke, another new girl from the Netherlands, and set about settling in. It is nice to know I can unpack properly, knowing I have a static home for a month!

The second volunteer coordinator took me, Elise and Neil around the centre on an induction. Normally there are around 20 volunteers, but as many people want to volunteer before the wet season starts, the centre will have around 35 volunteers at the moment. The accomodation is pretty basic. The beds are ancient and sag in the middle, the mosquito nets are old and tatty (good thing I brought my own). The electricity is sometimes out for a few hours a day, and the rooms have ancient spiders webs and dust floating on the breeze from our rumbling old fan. The WC is a european style but is self-flush (with a bucket) and the wet room shower is cold water only. For me, I am well used to these kind of conditions, though they fall somewhere short of even the worst hostels I have stayed in, but still I don't find it too bad.

The centre has about 270 animals, 200 of which are primates (190 are gibbons and macques (long-tail, stump-tail and pigmy-tail) split 50/50), 10 are Loris and Dusty Langurs. They have 20 bears, some Black Asiatic, some Malayan Sun Bears. They have a lolloping tiger with spinal damage, who walks like Charley from 'This is Charley' on YouTube (check it out, it's funny and sweet), and also pole leopards, a nocturnal wildcat cross with a Bengal (looks like a kitten with tiger stripes). They have wild pigs, mouse deer, a horse, chickens, about 10 dogs, 6 puppies and two kittens. They have civits (nocturnal), bearcats (real name forgotten), otters, iguanas and a crocodile. They have kites, eagles, a cockatoo and two Great Hornbills (one lame that hops around the centre freely, and another in an aviary). They also have 5 elephants which are part of a seperate Elephant Refuge volunteer programme.

The centre was founded relatively 7 years ago by a gentlemen called Edwin, who I also met today. The centre buys food for the animals with volunteer money, about $100/day, so the money I assumed was for my bed and board is actually for their bed and board! They couldn't exist without us. They have a hospital where they treat the animals, and also domestic animals from the local area. They have a quarantine area, but this is mostly filled with animals that have no place else to go. The centre is waiting for funding to build a new bear enclosure, a new tiger enclosure since they turn so many away, and is currently in the process of building a new gibbon and macques enclosure. They are also fencing off more of the forest to create an educational nature trail, to contain more animals to release back into the wild by keeping them in an area closer to their natural habitat, and also seeding to help reforestataion. Despite the enormous trade in animals and poaching, deforestation and loss of natural habitat is still the number one cause for the decline of animals. 75% of Thailand's forest has been cut down since 1945. The Thai people are actually quite well-informed and want to save their environment, but in other countries there is no understanding. It has been illegal to own wild animals in Thailand for 20 years now but still it goes on as there is little enforcement so poaching accounts for the new biggest destroyer of wildlife.

Originally Edwin came to Thailand from Holland to set up a texile business 20 years ago. It all changed in 1998 when someone gave him a monkey, and he decided to set up a small centre, expecting that it would have about 30 animals. But as time went on, it got out of hand, and now Edwin's centre has been open 6 years. However, it is in fact the second one, as the first one was taken from him when people saw it could make money. There are 8 wildlife rescue centres in Thailand, and all were illegal since it is technically illegal to rescue animals, but since the government has no where to put the animals themselves they tolerate the centres. This becomes difficult when Edwin and other activists get involved in places where their noses aren't wanted. For instance, in Bangkok there is a park known as Safari World which was training gibbons to Thai Box for tourist shows. They campaigned the government to allow them to see the condition of the animals and found they were not being treated properly. The shows were stopped and the some of the gibbons saved, but of those gibbons many were smuggled away to other countries (Cambodia, China, Vietnam) where the shows continue, and 28 died waiting to be rescued. Additionally, it drew attention to Edwin and his allies who started to recieve death threats. Edwin has been arrested and charged on more than one occasion, he is the 'most wanted animal activist' in Thailand. He was bailed out by the minister of forestry who believes he is being targeted by a certain 'animal entertainment' businessman. When another minister was installed and started making arrests of people in the business, all the zoo owners got together and campaigned to the government to have him removed. Because of their political contacts, they succeeded, just proving how influential they are.

However, now Edwin's centre is safe since he has signed a legally binding contract with the Abbot at the temple who owns the land, so he cannot be ousted for any reason, though people have tried. The temple owns the land, but have no control. All Edwin must do is pay the rent, and must be able to prove that anything done with the land is to aid either nature, animals or conservation. He owns the lease for 50 years, which is the longest legal time he could sign the contract for.

We are lucky to see Edwin here as he is currently away a lot in Laos. On the border between Laos and Vietnam near the central highlands is an area of several million acres that will be flooded in the next 4 months as part of a dam project. Edwin was asked to help relocate animals, but was initially told he could only take the 20 most endangered types, which he refused to do for ethical reasons. When the media got hold of it, the Powers That Be changed their mind and told them to take what they could. They estimate they can save about 4000 animals but up to a million will be lost, and those that are saved will only be the more obvious ones they can see to catch.

Many animals at the centre were originally domestic pets but were abandoned or left at temples when they were no longer wanted. The monks did their best but don't always know how to take care of the animals properly; this is the problem at the tiger sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, North-east Thailand. The monks do their best but it isn't enough, and the tigers would have been tortured initially to get them to become docile, even if this was not inflicted by the monks themselves. Additionally the monks have differing views on how to successfully take care of the animals, even though they mean well, simply because their culture gives them a different outlook.

Another common problem with animals that arrive is obesity, if they had poor diet and little exercise from too small enclosures. Some are slightly mad from being kept in cramped, dark conditions. Some have behavioural problems; pulling out their fur, attacking other animals and so kept in solitary confinement. Some have aversions to women, some to men, so we will have to learn which cages to avoid. One gibbon leapt towards me when I ventured too close to the cage, but then equally Simon was almost grabbed by another gibbon further along the cages.

The gibbons and the bears are one of the commonest trafficked animals. Both are commonly bought as pets, but bears are used in black bear bile farming, where a steel tube is insterted into their gall bladder and the bile harvested for the CMT (Chinese Medical Trade). Additionally bears are considered a delicacy in some places, and a whole bear will fetch $10,000 at a restaurant. A gram of black bear bile will fetch the same price as a gram of heroine. Gibbons are captured for tourism. For every baby gibbon caught, on average 8 gibbons will have to die. For every 600 gibbons removed from Borneo, 2000 gibbons will die. The gibbon mother will be shot from the tree, and her whole faily too, if they try to protect the baby. The baby may die in the fall, or later from shock, in which case another whole family will die to replace that one. The worst thing a tourist can do in Asia is to buy a wild animal to release it from its circumstance, it only perpetuates the problem so the trader goes out to kill another family.

The commonest animal trade route is from Malaysia and Thailand through Burma and into China. Traveling by boat from Thailand to Burma, no one checks the hundreds of boats that travel this way, even through customs at the docks.

Another sad trade is that in elephants. There are two types of elephants, wild ones and domestic ones. Domestic elephants are removed from their mothers after 2 years (they should be with them for 4 years) and subjected to a week's constant torture; poking, cutting, sleep deprivation. When finally the elephant's spirit has been broken and they will do anything to stop the torture, then they will be retrained for tourism. This is the lives of the elephants that you see all over Asia, posing for photos, offering rides, doing elephant treks. I am so glad I didn't do an elephant trek in Cambodia as I didn't feel it was the right place. I want to know if there are any ethical places that do eco-elephant trekking, but knowing now how much Cambodia has a hand in animal trafficking, I'm glad I didn't give money to perpetuate that tourist activity.

We watched a couple of videos in the evening (there are 2 main companies in the world making animal documentaries - the BBC and the National History New Zealand Company NHNZ), Linley's Lifeline from Animal Planet and a second programme called Dateline and talked to Edwin a bit about his work before turning in around 11pm after dinner.

First Day at the Wildlife Volunteer Centre - bears and noctural animals (2nd April 2008)

5.45am start for 6.30am start on the day's first jobs. This is my new schedule! I woke to the sound of monkey calls in the darkness. I didn't sleep brilliantly, I kept thinking the fan was my phone alarm vibrating, and I had weird dreams about cats!

The first job was preparing food for 14 of the so called 'Animal Planet' bears. First we chopped up jackfruit, papaya, pineapple, watermelon and then distributed these with bananas, cucumbers, corn and potatoes into bowls according to each particular bear. We then wheeled the fruit down to the enclosure where Bouncer and Joan had already been locked into the safe enclosure. Bouncer only has 3 legs as when he was found in a trap, his leg was so rotten that it fell off when they moved him and they amputated the rest at the shoulder. He's still faster than Joan out of the pen though, so once we had been round the enclosure sweeping up bear poo (looks like sweetcorn) and leftover food, we placed their fruit around the enclosure in places they had to climb to and let them both out.

Next to the pen with the littler bears. We are cleaning out their enclosure later so for now we just threw the fruit over the enclosure wall, or put the papaya and watermelon through the bars as otherwise they explode on impact.

Next over to Pepsi, Cola and Pon. They weren't yet in the safehouse, so we rounded them in (they know to go in because if they don't breakfast is delayed), cleared up their poo and leftover food and started to put food out. Unfortunately this was a mistake as we were cleaning their pool today, so if we put food out around the enclosure we couldn't clean. Simon had to feed the bears carefully through the bars of the safe house as best he could, as they are meant to have their food placed in each corner so they don't fight.

Time for breakfast. We can help ourselves to any fruit or veg in the fruit house, so I had a couple of bananas and mango before onto the next mucky job...

Cleaning the bear pool is apparently the worst job, even worse than cleaning the otter pool (stinks of fish), which I thankfully escaped as it was scheduled for yesterday. First the swampy water is drained, and the detritus at the bottom swept out i.e. plant matter, poo, food etc. Then it's down on hands and knees with a short-hair wire brush and all the slippery, green algae needs to be cleaned off before the water can be refilled. It's back-breaking work, but if that's the worst it gets then that's okay. Then we chopped up some bamboo, dripped honey down the tube, and wiped yoghurt on branches around the enclsoure as enrichment activities.

Back to the volunteer house for a break where I discovered I have a free period for the next several hours - hooray! I could have hung around the central area and wait to be put to work on an 'extra' activity but experience tells me to value this time as it probably won't come too often. I think a nap, reading, or taking some photos of the animals is a better use of my time until I am more used to the schedule! I was pretty filthy already, I get the feeling I will rarely feel clean in the next month. My finger nails are gross, my shoes dirty, my legs were covered in mud and poo, I got bitten by red ants a billion times but it's okay. Again I have good grounding in lower than usual standards of cleanliness after 7 months travel, camping, sweaty buses and sand....

After a little read and a nap we did the second bear feed which is identical except we added some eggs to the feed. And at 4.30pm it was nocturnal diets, i.e. preparing the food for the nocturnal animals; 10 palm-faced civits, 1 spotted civit, 1 bintarong, 1 hogbadger and 4 leopard cats. All the fruit had to be peeled and chopped (oranges, melon, watermelon, cucumber, papaya, bananas) some chicken and eggs boiled and distributed. The leopard cats also get dried cat food soaked in the chicken broth and some Whiskers! The bintarong also had to have medication added. Then we distributed the food in the cages, making sure first that the animals were shut away in the 'safe area' while we put the bowls in and letting them out again afterwards.

Showering was pretty heavenly and we made a swift exit at 6pm to a number of taxis for a 40 minute drive to Hua Hin. Originally 5 volunteers from the centre booked to go, but with 12 new volunteers, we totally crashed the party and 17 of us set off for the bright lights. In Hua Hin we made our way to Mamma Mia for a fabulous Italian meal (actually run by a bona fide Italian). I relished a glass of good red wine, plus some tagliattelle with crab, cream and mustard. I resisted dessert in favour of a Brandy Alexander at Sam Sam cocktail bar after a wander round the night market. Our group got picked up at 10.30pm so we could be home before we turned into pumpkins. The ride home was pretty hairy as I dislodged a creepy black spider in the back truck seating and it scuttled across me twice. The guys offered to turn the light on but I preferred not to see exactly what it looked like, feeling that ignorance was probably bliss. It's a testamount to how used to creepy crawlies I have become that I can be so laissez faire. Still, I stayed pretty still for 40 minutes for fear of disturbing it again...

Mamma Mia Cucina Italiana (2nd April 2008)

This is such a fantastic restaurant! It’s a bit pricey compared to other places in Thailand but well worth the cost. The first time we came it took forever to order because we couldn’t decide what we wanted. Fortunately I had the opportunity to return here a number of times to try all the things on the menu that I liked the sound of! Every dish was absolutely divine, although the portions are a bit on the small side so many people ordered a pizza to share as well as their main meal. Also the wine is very expensive; at least as expensive as or more expensive in fact than a house bottle would be at home (UK – house bottle usually 14UKP, here 17UKP!)). We still loved it though. Apparently Claudio (who is often seen around the restaurant) is a bona fide Italian that set up business in Thailand producing authentic Italian meals (though with no training, just a talent for cooking).

Second Day at the Wildlife Volunteer Centre - bears and nocturnal animals (3rd April 2008)

Slightly later start today; I'm on a 5 minute per day reduction alarm programme until I can work out exactly how long I need to get up blearily, throw scruffy clothes on, slather on sun screen and make coffee before work starts. Bears went pretty much the same as yesterday minus the pool job which was replaced by a volunteer meeting.

After breakfast and meeting I was on 'nocturnal cages', i.e. cleaning all the cages all the cages of the noctural animals; It's much the same as bears; sweeping poo, changing water etc. I then had a break between lunchtime and 2.30pm and again I napped in the heat of the day, though waking up in a humid room under a mosquito net takes a full 45 minutes to wake up and shake off the lethargy. I'm fairly sure I was a total dunce for the second bear feed. This time Joan and Bouncer got shoots as an additional treat as a hark-back to Joan's early days at the centre when all she would eat were shoots after her crappy diet in captivity. Every day all the animals are on a slightly different programme either to vary their diet, give them treats or medication, or enrich their days by placing their food in unusual places. It really is quite a feat when you realise that this individually-tailored programme is carried out daily for 270 animals. This revelation became somewhat less exciting when I realised tomorrow my team will have to feed 171 primates twice.....

Uneventful evening apart from the sudden remembrance of the nocturnal animal's evening feed at 8.30pm. This saw Neil and I with flashlights wandering round the now impossibly traversable park trying to retrace steps taken originally in daylight and now with no recognisable landmarks. We were as quiet as possible to avoid waking the monkeys, but Neil just about shat his pants when there was a metallatic sounding scuffle from behind us and a long-fingered hand grabbed his shoulder in the dark.......Much cuter were the black bears laid flat out on their backs on the top of the giant tree trunks in the enclosures snoring away like babies, and Miaow the tiger stretched out like a giant house cat near the enclosure door.

Third day - Primates 1 team (12th July 2008)

So I wasn't looking forward to today much just for sheer number of primates to be fed, but with a team of 5 we had all the food chopped up and distributed pretty quickly and then it was just a matter of feeding the right bowl to the right monkey. Our team was mostly preoccupied with the gibbons, which are the more difficult of the primates. We started with the solitary animals, i.e. the grumpiest ones who have to be kept separate for the safety of the other ainmals. They were alright though, we just have to place food bowls in trays attached to the enclousure exterior and they are, at this point, thankfully more concerned with the food than terrorising us. Changing the water buckets is more difficult however, once the primates are well-fed and looking for some way to entertain themselves, making life diffcult for the volunteers seems like a fun game. I ended up watering the female-hater and Neil the man-hater, which in retrospect was ill-thought out. Both of us ended up soaked as we flung the watering can in the air trying to move out the way of a charging monkey hell-bent on scaring us witless. At this point I was also able to use the proverb 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' absolutely in context. The monkey didn't care though, he just stared me out and guarded the water bucket till I stumped off and left him triumphant but thirsty. Maybe the second water run will catch him napping on the job...

After breakfast we collected the food bowls, did a mammoth wash-up session and then had a break for a while till after lunch when we had to unload the food truck for the fruit and veg house. Then a break before lunch, another nap and another bleary, lethargic afternoon feeding the gibbons again. This was punctuated by a thrilling but harrowing event when two of the bears had a barney in the nearby enclosures. We were drawn initially by the roars but the monkeys were chattering so much in agitation at the noise; tensions running high amongst all the nearby animals who started screaming and leaping up and down, they too worked up to get close to their food bowl anyway.

The two bears, Bozo and Tam have been fighting on and off for the past 3 weeks - they are fighting over territory of the tunnels. She, the larger of the two, is the protanganist, but they both refuse to back down and the fight really kicked off with Tam slamming Bozo to the ground and against the wire netting. Our Thai keepers were up on the enclosure walls, all slipping a catapult out of their back pockets like drawing a gun from a holster. Unfortunately the hoses they turned on them, and the stones they fired were completely ineffectual, and the fight only drew to a close when they managed to seperate the two into different parts of the enclosure. Bozo seemed to have recieved a neck wound and lay panting in the pool for most of the afternoon. Apparently what he really needs is the snip, but as the bears are so overweight, putting them under general anaesthetic is dangerous. Clearly this situation is reaching a climax however, and with the possibility of one killing the other (it has happened before), the danger is very real for both of them.

4th Day - Primates 1 team (5th April 2008)

A day much the same as yesterday today, we are on the same team 2 days in a row so we get to do all parts of a task and learn it all better. The hardest part is remembering which animals must be fed in seperate cages, which have to be divided and locked up, which have to be fed simultaneously, and which have to have to have their food withheld as a bargaining chip for some other task that has to be carried out in their cage that day. I always imagined we would be supported by a full team of staff, but as staff numbers are low, that means that responsibility comes early, and with 3 weeks experience you are considered expert enough to lead a team for the day. Since I will be here a month, I am excited but seriously apprehensive about the inevitable fact that what I learn now, I will be expected to teach in just a few short days!

Our day only differed from yesterday by the extra duties of cleaning and bleaching the food prep house which was back-breaking. I don't think I ruined any of my clothes with bleach, but since we are all wearing throw-away clothes anyway it doesn't really matter. We also did some seed-collecting for Simon, picking up bean pods from outside the centre gate and little black seeds down at the bear pen ready for the reforestation team to plant them. I meant to help with wood-staining some beams for enrichment but never quite got round to it, such is the way a day pans out...

5th Day - Primates 2 team (6th April 2008)

Tried to get an early night last night, which only serves to make me more bleary in the morning, raising myself from a deeper sleep. I wandered out into the cool fresh air, blinking in the half light and poking out the sleepy corners of my mind when all hell broke loose with the dogs already. An intruder dog entered the centre by accident and as people ran from all directions to pull the bigger dogs off, I could only watch resignedly with my toothbrush stuffed in my face, wishing animals could wait til after coffee before kicking off...

Next drama was the death of little Tommy, our resident chick at the food prep house. Suddenly over 6.30am coffee, everyone started shouting and pulling the dogs away from a corner of the room. Emma picked up the limp chick and walked with him into the light to see if he was still conscious, but it was too late. We hoped it was another chick, since no other chick has pierced the communities heart like little Tom, the chick abandoned by his mother, and constant companion at the food house where we prepare all the meals every day. When we set off for our jobs today, Sarah reported back that regretfully Tommy had not turned up at the food house. His little fluffy scuttling will be missed, as 7 people slip and slide around the fruit-stained floor stepping carefully over his cheeping.

Primates 2 is an easy day, lots of big breaks between tasks. Cleaning up monkey poo isn't great, but it's not as bad as I imagined either. Thankfully we only have to clean about 5 cages (both inside and outside enclosures) and the hardest part is the logistics of moving monkeys from one part of their cage to another (by use of treats and bananas) and in what orders. They were fairly relaxed today, and we had no real trouble manoeuvering them, but 3 puppies wanted to come and help and they only served to agitate the macaques who leapt up and down and chattered. Plus, if you don't realise the puppies are there, when they snuffle up behind you your instant reaction is that somehow a monkey has escaped and is about to bite your leg. Or they are as difficult to get out of the cages (you wouldn't want to leave them in by accident!) as the monkeys. They like to eat the monkey poo. Gross.

After cleaning we fed the baby macaques and the macaques we had just cleaned and headed off to breakfast and a 2 hour break. Emma too had been having dramas, new baby gibbon, squirrels escaping, more dog fights, perhaps there's something in the air today? It's cooler thankfully, we could hear the faint rumble of thunder all morning. Fortunately for me, the rain started on my break but when it started, it really started, and we worked among the sludge and puddles for the rest of the day. The monsoon season is due in May, but apparently it's starting earlier and earlier every year....

After breakfast we had to scatterfeed in the macaque fields (seeds, monkey biscuits and fruit thrown over the enclosure walls into the grass so the monkeys have to forage), and enrichment. Then lunch, then in the afternoon we had to sweep outside the cages that don't have gutters. Some of the macaques took particular exception to our brooms, and as I blew kisses at one, he raced over to the wire and grabbed my broom end. My flirting quickly turned to a brief struggle to pull it back!

6th Day - Primates 2 Team (7th April 2008)

Dark day today which impacted on my mood, or more accurately, I couldn't really wake up properly since it felt like it was still half dark. The thunder rolled in the distance all morning while we cleaned out Hue, Chak Cham, Jo, Mink, Sid, and Duwan. Everything pulled off without a hitch apart from forgetting to ask Primates 1 team to withhold food from James and Madge in Solitary block as we were due to clean their cages today. So without food to convince them to enter the side cages while we cleaned, instead we were tasked with cleaning the school bears pool. I wasn't looking forward to this but in actual fact was quite good fun. It was hot, sweaty work, but there's a lot of satisfaction to be gleaned from watching all the green algae swirling away after you've been scrubbing on your hands and knees for an hour.

Once again we were treated to a bit of a downpour but it cleared up by the afternoon and we were back to bright sunshine and humidity - good thing too since our day off in Hua Hin is tomorrow and the rain didn't bode well for a day on the beach! We fed the monkeys in the block and then scatterfed the macaque fields again and treated the lucky WSPA Block to some frozen bananas and mango icecubes as enrichment. I made the mistake of leaving my hand too close to the wire on one occasion though and got a quick scratch on the hand from a grumpy macaque. No matter, he didn't break the skin, just gave me a surprise.

In the afternoon we cleaned the baby cage and Sid's inside cage which we missed this morning, and then cleaned outside the gutterless cages again.

At 6pm the taxi picked up me, Laura and Elise to go to Hua Hin for our day off - hurray! We found a guest house near to our regular taxi pick-up drop-off point, the Ban Soomong guest house, which had bags of character and was a good deal at 1200 Baht for the room with hot water, cable and air con.

We set out immediately to Mamma Mia, the fabulous Italian restaurant that we favour. After a slap-up meal and a litre of wine we set off for a few cocktails at Sam Sams lounging around on the leather beds with recliner cushions, slurping on our glowing daquris and Martini cocktails. Feeling suitably warmed up we set off the night market and had a more relaxed wander around than our brief zip-through on our last evening in town. Making our way back after a few stops a couple of hours later we decided to cut through the streets and stumbled across the drinking strip cum Red Light District. Loud tourist bars with bar stools, pool tables, beer on tap had Thai girls (and ladyboys) in various states of undress or skimpy clothing draped across chairs and sofas looking for a rich, white westerner to 'spend time with'. We have seen plenty of this during the day time; fat, balding old men walking around with Thai girls in hot pants and heels. They don't seem to be close, there's no obvious affection, just a trophy girlfriend-for-hire. The genuine Asian/white couples are easy to spot because they are easy in each other's company, though I'm sure it must be off-putting to them to be 'sized up' by every passing westerner that takes a dim view of the infamous Thai sex-trade. I can't pretend we don't make judgements too.

Anyway, walking through this strip was eye-opening, and just a bit uncomfortable, if only because it's not ever pleasant to see women plying this sort of trade. It's not about whether you agree with it, it's more about an inherent sadness and sickness that men and women want to indulge in this trade rather than enjoying meaningful relationships some other way. Live and let live though. What else is there to do?

Back at the room we snuggled into crisp, white sheets on thick, luxurious mattresses and had a blissful and long sleep in a cool, clean room.

Baan SomBoon Hotel (7th April 2008)

This was a lovely little find, a great hotel with oodles of character. The reception is decorated with lots of curios; picture frames and knick-knacks adorn the walls. The room itself was cleanly decorated around uber-comfy beds with thick mattresses and crisp white linen. The bathroom was nice, and the staff were friendly. Next morning we were even more pleased to find we had free breakfast which we ate in the shade of a lovely outdoor wooden seating area surrounded with fish, love birds, parrots etc. There was also a beautiful garden with a trellis table amid the flowers. This is such a beautiful place tucked away down a concrete side street beside Burger King! We paid 1200 baht for a room for 3, though one person had to sleep on a less comfortable cot that was brought in specially. I would definitely stay here again.

Hua Hin (8th April 2008)

Up at ten to 10am after about 9 hours sleep and we threw clothes on to enjoy a lovely (inclusive) breakfast in the pretty guesthouse courtyard surrounded by love birds, fish and turtles. Life's always better after coffee, bananas and marmalade (Dad will be pleased). The road down to the beach is lined with little stalls of shells, souveniers, sunglasses etc, so progress was reasonably slow but we finally made it down to the hot sand. We decided to walk left at first, but got harrassed by every tout servicing rows of sunbeds and umbrellas so close together there was no sun. Sometimes I have patience with this, and sometimes the futility just irritates me. If I have quite obviously said no to the previous 5 men running out from beneath the parasols to ask if I want a sunbed, then the chances are not that I will say "Oh actually, sure, that's just what I'm looking for!".

We set off back towards the other end of the beach and round the peninsular we found some more spaced out parasols beyond the resort. Here we settled at sea-side sunbeds and ordered a round of Mai Tais, and kept these coming all afternoon. Mostly we chatted about love, life, the universe, but occasionally we lazily raised ourselves from our towel-clad recliners and wandered down to the bath-warm sea to swim, float, and soak up the delicious decadence of the day.

At around 5pm we made a wobbly start back to the strip in order to find food and something low and wet before we fell over. We weren't drunk by any stretch, but the sheer heat and mild dehydration from drinking cocktails made it a slightly hazy walk. We made it to the Blue Elephant Terrace, conveniently right beside SamSams and had a lovely dinner of cotton fish and mango salad.

After dinner there was just time enough for another trip to the night market to secure some previously coveted bargains before we met the taxi driver at 9pm for our carriage back to Condarella's scullery, or more accurately, our 'jungle shack'.

7th Day - Deputy to 4 Teams (9th April 2008)

REALLY hard to get up today. Yuck.

Today I was on 4 teams so I didn't know where I was meant to be when, all day. Plus it was just hard work and tough sheduling.

I spent the morning with Elise doing 'Special Diets' - this is the food prep for the horse, otters, mousedeer, rabbits, porcupine, iguanas, cockatoos, hornbills, langurs and loris. The langurs are leaf-eaters only, so we prep veg first so there is no cross-contamination. The otters get fishes, soaked dry cat food and cooked chicken. Everything else mostly gets a range of fruit and veg. I always promised myself that when I was put on special cages that I would feed the otters first, since their high-pitched mewing can not only be heard across the entire centre (so everyone knows when you've got round to feeding the poor things) but it is also as pitiful to listen to as a bag of kittens being murdered.

I was stunned that on reaching 2 metres from these crying animals that it is no longer possible to listen to or give instructions to your partner as the shrill scream is so loud and so intense....!

By this time we were pretty late for breakfast, and I had barely time to stuff toast and coffee down me before I was due to do 'Other Wildlife Cages'. We started with the 'hardest' - the bird cage. Randy the Giant Hornbill is a particularly vicious giant bird who likes to terrorise volunteers (what animal doesn't find this entertaining I hear you ask!?). The only way we can clean the cages is for one volunteer to distract him by throwing him bits of papaya, and for the other to do a quick whip-round with the broom sweeping up leaves and guano and changing the water in the water trough.

Since I was scared of direct contact with Randy I decided to opt for sweeping. This proved to be a mistake when my flip-flop broke for the second inoportune moment (the first was halfway up the ladder to feed the cockatoo in a high-speed ascent) when it got firmly sucked in by mud sludge, leaving me hopping around on one foot. Elise shouted to do the sweeping in bare feet but red ants were climbing all over me and Randy chose now to dive-bomb me. Hopping around waving my broom, screaming and cursing, we just about managed to get the job done and safely out, when we remembered the water bucket was never changed. I point-blank refused to get back in there. It's only in retrospect that I remember my mortal fear of birds. Anyone remembering the 3 bird attack incidents during my first weeks in Australia, or the long-time fear of budgerigars from when I was 10 yrs old may be surprised that this didn't occur to me before I got in a cage with a 3 foot bird hell bent on snapping at my legs and head with it's 2 foot long beak.

Next we cleaned up the steaming piles of horse turd from the mouse-dear and porcupine enclosure, changed the water buckets and added more water to the mud pools for the wild pigs. Here my day almost got dramatically worse when I left the enclosure gate ajar while I put the hose away and was suddenly reminded of this fact by the sound of snorting and honking from the pigs behind me. Thankfully an escape attempt was averted and we moved on to the otter cage. We were meant to clean the otter cage but having not used the food at feeding time to manipulate the otters in and out of their inside and outside enclosures we could only clean the inside cage. Once again we had a close-run disaster when I pulled the sliding gate out of it's stays and it swung freely leaving us with the only option of getting into the cage with the otters to shut it.

Again, disaster was averted, but I was beginning to realise it wouldn't be my day today.

Then onto the iguanas who need sweeping out, water changing and given a shower with the hose. 2 of these hate the bath, or at least look distinctly put out when you drench them with water, while the other 2 clearly love it. They close their eyes and almost seem to smile dreamily, waving their tails and swaying their heads back and forth in delight. Cleaning the iggys in Quarantine also meant I got to spend some time with the baby gibbons, and a grown gibbon who I spent quite some time exchanging 'ooo' sounds, or as I like to think of it, having a conversation. At one point he reached out to me, and I badly wanted to put my hand out too, but fear of the tricksy games these gibbons play I was scared he would grab my hand and yank it towards the cage like I've seen them do with broom ends and bowls. Later a colleague reminded me that much more importantly, the primates should never be touched, since they are so close to us physically that we can pass them diseases and infections that wouldn't affect us but might be fatal to them. And especially those in quarantine (even if most of them are just there because of space issues). Sometimes it's hard to remember however when the Thai staff regularly have phsyical contact with the animals. I'm glad I didn't make a stupid mistake though, however cute and innocent the gesture appeared...

Finally we cleaned the loris, which just requires sweeping the leaves in the enclosure round the tree base and changing the water bowl. We also cleaned the baby loris in the hospital, who slowly rounded his huge, beautiful eyes on us when we roused him from his slumber. Finally we got some mango leaves and fed them to the iguanas for their weekly 'enrichment' and fed the baby squirrels in the hospital lots of tiny, mashed-up food. By 11.30am I was due to fll the water bowls on the primate cages and I just made it back for twelve to sit down for lunch.

No rest for the wicked and as soon as lunch was finished I was due back on water runs for the primates, and then Laura and I cleaned the volunteer house bathrooms and emptied the shitty tissue bins. I then decided to have a well-deserved nap seeing as my schedule had left me no minute all day for a rest. At 2.15pm I started on Primates 1 team helping with food prep and feeding, and then at 3.30pm I moved to Primates 2 to sweep outside the cages. By 5pm I was totally shattered, hot and sticky and well deserved of a glass of wine and some relaxation but STILL after dinner we were down to wash-up and clean the kitchen for house duty. When I FINALLY got to sit down we played some Texas Hold Em (card games and gambling is illegal here so keep shtum), chatted and I eventually got into bed around midnight. Primates 2 tomorrow though so hopefully can have plenty of nappage to catch up!

8th Day Primates 2 (10th April 2008)

Today was the first day that I've been on a team with 3 people who are already trained and can just get on with the job thank god. Lieke, Stina and I ran through cleaning cages, though somehow we still finished in the same time as it took Lindsay and an untrained me in tow. Weird how time works like that here...

The day went fairly uneventfully (for this also read 'smoothly'), and then in the evening we had a quiz and a bit of a party to say goodbye to some of the long-term staff who leave tomorrow; Stina, Rebecca, John, Sarah, and Brad. The quiz was 5 rounds about the centre, and I suprised myself with how much I knew. The teams were headed by the long-term staff, so there was a certain amount of rivalry as to which of them would win through their centre knowledge. Our team was eventually called the winner, though a re-count revealed that our markers had just been too drunk to count properly and we hadn't won at all. It didn't really matter though, the prize we would have won was a trip to the National Park, but Simon won't have time to take us before the wet season arrives and it becomes dangerous to go. We may pay to go instead on a day off.

Elise and I had prepared vodka watermelons, so after the quiz everyone chatted over drinks, getting noisier and more animated as was expected. I shared our watermelon out and called it a night at almost midnight, though some the leavers stayed up till 3am and went out in the boat on the lake! They are pretty lucky they didn't have an accident in the water in the dark...!

9th Day Other Cages & Primates 1 Team (11th April 2008)

I was on Other Cages this morning on my own and since I was due to help clean solitaries at 9am I figured I had to clean all 13 enclosures in 2 hours. I started with Ollie and Olivia, the otters, then Sam's enclosure with the wild pigs and mousedeer which is mostly sweeping up pig swill, horse turd, and making mud baths for the piggies. Then the loris, which are a pain because of the red ants that hang out in the food bowl and make it difficult to collect them. I came back to the otters' cage to clean the outside when Elise came by to feed them so I could shut them in. This is probably the worst job; otter poo smells like nothing else. *heave!* Since she hadn't fed the birds yet I asked her to help me clean the aviary, but when she went to feed the langurs first she found one dead in the cage.

She was really upset and worried that she would get blamed as she has been on Special Diets for a few days, but I assured her he would have to be malnourished for a pretty long time to die from it. As it turns out the vets think it was a snake bite in the night, so she needn't worry. But it is pretty sad for everybody, the langurs are the sweetest-looking things in the centre and everybody's darlings.

I really wanted to find someone else to help Elise do the aviary but since most people have already gone to breakfast I had to face my fears and go in with Randy the dive-bombing Hornbill. Since we were armed with food it was easier than last time, but he still found time to terrorise us while swooping to all the various perchs to steal the papaya (his favourite).

Hungry for breakfast and thirsty for life-giving coffee, I still had 3 iguanas to clean out and the baby loris in the hospital. The iguanas were easy, though climbing through a hole 2 feet wide by 2 feet tall on the ground and climbing into a cage full of branches to hose was really one of those 'I can't believe they've got me doing this' moments. The loris was easy, and I finally made it to breakfast by 9.20am. Thankfully cleaning solitaries was cancelled so I was free till 2.15pm apart from a couple of 10 minute water runs! Hurray!

I like doing the water runs - the monkeys get water 4 times a day, though 2 people from Primates 1 do the first round and clean the buckets at the same time, and then another pair do the other 3. The water runs only take a short while and there is always the amusement of the asshole gibbons who rush the wire fence and shake the bucked, throwing the water everywhere and making you jump back in fright. If someone is nearby, you might employ them to try and distract the little bastard, but they are pretty smart. Emi had no water in her watering can and I was trying to fill the bucket with a long-armed aggressive gibbon sitting on the wire by the bucket waiting for me to make a move. We swapped cans so she could fill the others but he just followed her, knowing that the empy can was just a decoy.

Then at Big Mama's enclosure in the forest, her cage is next to Tung Tong's, and standing on an elevated platform, both water buckets lie within reach of both monkeys, so filling them is a problem if either or both of them are feeling mischevious or sitting near the buckets. You can try and do a quick fill up but the danger of being grabbed by one or both is particularly acute when at the top of a ladder. We managed though, like we always do.

I popped down after dinner to the internet cafe and Pilar and I had a slightly scary walk back in the dark. We aren't advised to walk to and from the village at night because there are been so weird people around at times, so we go in groups if we go at all (though more often we just go during daylight). More frightening though were all the stray dogs, who snarled at us as we walked by, sometimes looking like they wanted to approach but thankfully always keeping a safe distance away. Once we we away from the village though the walk through the dark forest was just nice by moonlight, with brief flashes of pink lightning in the distance from a non-existant storm.

10th Day Primates 1 (12th April 2008)

I woke today after a lovely dream about having a relationship with a bear. This would have been freaky if it hadn't have been such a nice dream, I was almost sad to wake up and realise I have no bear-love in my life.

The day started off normally, but when I went to let out Pepsi Max after feeding (he needs isolating from his lady partner during feeding otherwise he eats all her food and attacks her) he managed to grab my headscarf. Since he was still in the little isolation space we sat and stared each other out for a while, but it was clear we had reached an impasse. I wasn't letting him out without my headscarf, and he wasn't going to give me my headscarf at all. He played it cool, sometimes flinging it over his shoulder casually and leaving it on the floor, but when I reached in to get it he would jump at the bars. Eventually, when he left it on the ground, I started to slide open the door to the big cage by increments, and as soon as the gap was wide enough he slipped through leaving the scarf behind, clearly too afraid I would shut him back in again if he wasn't fast out of the door. I then pulled the scarf out with a broom handle before he could reach in and grab it again. It was a close run thing, I was truly expecting the scarf to be torn into hundreds of tiny little pieces...

About 45 minutes later I went back round all the cages to pick up the empty food bowls. At Sid's cage I noticed his bullying cage-mate was sitting with him in the overhead walkway but thought little of it other than it was unusual behaviour, Having picked up the bowls I walked back under the walkway and felt something warm and wet down the back of my neck. Yes, I had been peed on by that damn monkey. I immediately hosed myself down of course, but it definitely set the tone of the day. Could it get any worse?

Fortunately the rest of the day passed without any more dramas, aside from missing about 20 bowls when we set the dishes out for monkey breakfast tomorrow. We located most of them though, and finally trudged off to the showers, the mystery more or less solved.

We had planned a light drinking night but some people wanted to watch the Animal Planet doco that I saw on my first night so we all ended up sitting and watching it. It was actually really good to see it again, as at the time the names and stories didn't mean as much as they do now, knowing the animals personally. In the programme they rescue Oompoom and his playmate Apex and put them in the brand-new purpose-built enclosure. Oompoom later killed Apex, and the enclosure is now seperated into 2 halves, one for the 4 school bears and 1 for Oompoom as he doesn't seem to be able to share. The other story was about 2 babies, Pepper and Pindah when they were babies, who are now in the '9' enclosure with Poppy, Pepsi, Pooh and Phon. They are all given the run of the new enclosure, and Oompoom immediatley set about destroying the grass, pulling it up because he was more used to concrete. Edwin comments on film that the volunteers would be furious. I guess we would have been too to watch all our hard work be scratched up by a bear.

The other stories were about Zack, a gibbon baby, who later was seized by the government with another 500 animals when Edwin was involved in that court case over 'illegally kept animals' when he was campaigning against the zoos in Thailand from making animals perform. And also Joem Jim (pronounced Chum Chim), a gibbon who was kept in a tiny cage for 20 years by a private owner. She had a broken foot, probably caused by her initial capture as a baby, if mum was killed by gunshot and baby fell to the ground, and her foot has healed deformed and at an angle. She is still in solitary block where she seems much happier, and calls and coos to her heart's content, which she never did before. It was really good to put real experience to names and animals I saw on the first watch.

11th Day Songkhran! Thai New Year! Primates 2 and Other Cages (6th April 2008)

Lieke and I were on Primates 2 and Other Cages today; it looked like a busy day but I suggested we split up, me doing Other Cages, and her doing Primates 2, and actually by 9am we had all 26 cages cleaned and done. Emma was pleased, but warned us the jobs are meant to be completed in pairs for safety reasons. She knows we know what we're doing though, and there are some cages (Randy's!) we'd never be stupid enough to go in alone.

Because we had some time, Simon roped us into digging up soil for the tree forest re-potting, so we took wheelbarrows down to the new gibbon enclosures and dug soil out from where they have been making the foundations. This was seriously sweaty work, so we were glad when we had enough after 15 minutes to fill the space in the tree centre allocated for the pile.

Lieke and I were also set to enrich the Macaque and Gibbon block and it had been suggested to take mango leaves and branches and feed them to the animals, or play with them through the wire so they have to reach and grab for them. We had intended to take branches from the mango trees near the vollie house (volunteer house), but he wanted the trees down here cut back so he equipped us with a 20 foot bamboo pole with a circular saw mechanism at one end manipulated by a pull-cord. This was set to be an amusing spectacle, as even manouvering the giant bendy pole was a task in itself. We managed to cut (pull down) about 5 or 6 branches before the pull-cord came undone and we gratefully returned the 'broken' saw to the tree forest and took the mango branches up to M&G block to play games. Some played, some didn't. Quite often the dominative member of the group would play, but the others wouldn't be 'permitted', or were afraid to play, since the mango leaves also form a tasty snack aside from the play act in getting hold of them. Later when we came past though, we noticed that all the members of the group were still enjoying them, so perhaps when the 'elders' had their fun and got bored, the others felt confident enough to have a go. Primates enriched, job done!

Back at the centre around lunchtime and following religious ceremonies in the morning, various waterfights were now in progress. Thai new year is marked by these water fights and we'd been warned not to bring electricals out all day as you are in constant danger of recieving a surprise soaking/dunking/spraying etc. The volunteer house was absolutely soaked, with Thai staff and volunteers all carrying around buckets, bowls, jugs, bottles and some water guns. The outdoor kitchen got a good clean today! I went down to do one final cage at the hospital and found the vets fighting Emma with water guns. I was changing the baby loris water bowl and threw the clean water down Emma's back as I passed. All 5 people chased after me and cornering me with their guns....till I reached for the hose and chased them round the hospital!

Incidentally, we had a beautiful leopard cat in the hospital. He was pretty aggressive but gorgeous.

Since most of the Thai staff had a day off (or as close to a day off as is possible when 270 animals need to be taken care of) we had to make our own lunch and dinner. I volunteered for lunch duty and after a few dramas (Emma set fire to the pan handle making fries), we managed to get lunch out at the Elephant Kitchen. It definitely helped to have watched my Dad do big meal production lines, and I got a clap for my assistance and relieved of immediate centre duties. Still left to do the washing up though...

Later we had a 'party' for new year down at the Elephant Kitchen too. Emma had been shopping and bought lots of barbecue stuff, cheese bread, crisps, sweets, corn and pasta. Since most of our meals are Thai curries with rice and noodles, it's a rare treat when we get western food. We even had music, which we're not really allowed up at the vollie house due to our proximity to the primates. If people were drinking and voices were raised, we would easily wake up the sleeping primates and once they are awake they will call for an hour in the night...

12th Day Primates 1 & 2 (14th April 2008)

Horrible night's sleep last night; the room was so stuffy but I'd spent about half an hour before bed staring out from my mosquito net at the evil bastards who have been biting big lumps in my legs and arms for the past week. It seems like since the 3 monsoon rains we had that they have been out in force and despite nets and repellent I have always a new itchy lump to add to my collection every morning. Lieke didn't believe it till she watched me turning round and round frantically in my net squeezing and squashing about 30 of the buggers both on the inside and the outside. We were hi-5ing to squash them between our hands. So when I kept waking up hot, I was too afraid to sleep outside of my silk sleep sheet, and despite being parched too afraid to leave my net in search of water.

Finally, at 2.30am after fitful dozing trying not to touch the net I finally succumbed to dehydration, doused myself in repellent and wandered out to the fridge. The centre is pretty creepy at night. The dogs could go off at any moment thinking you are in intruder, and there is the sound of gravel crunching, probably from them, or from said intruder or axe murderer. As I stood at the water cooler my shadow slid across the wall but I couldn't see the light source. It seemed to be from a torch but when I looked behind me there was nothing there. Eek!

Since it's getting towards the wet season the number of volunteers seems to be tailing off, and we seem to have had a few dissenters recently who have paid up for a number of weeks and then decided to only stay for a short time before traveling round Thailand instead. To be fair, I don't think the centre minds so much since the money can go towards the animals rather than the upkeep of the volunteer (about 45% of the volunteer money actually goes to water and food for humans not animals), but at the same time the same amount of work still needs to be achieved - 270 animals still have to be fed, watered and cleaned no matter how few staff.

The upshot of this is that today I was not only leading P1 team but also P2 with Elise, Francesca and Angelike who had all only done P1 once, and Elise had never done P2. Fortunately for me a bunch of people opted to help out, so Emma helped with feeding out P1 and the water rounds, Gerard helped with P2 because it's his last day and he's only ever done bears, and Laura helped with P2 even though it was her day off and she was heading to the resort with Lieke at 10.30am. Lovely people!

Lyndsay is leaving soon and as we talked last night about how it feels to be going, I realised that I am both counting the days till I finish, but also counting the days that have already past, if you know what I mean. Currently I am halfway, and that is a relief but also sad. Everyone describes this weird mix of feelings and I'm starting to realise just how much I've come to take for granted this very intimate contact with very wild animals, and how hard it will be to give that up. I never wanted to volunteer with wildlife because I'm an animal-lover especially; I just wanted to volunteer and feel like I was doing some good in the world. But never in my lifetime did I ever imagine I would have the opportunity to work so closely with such amazing animals, it really is a bit of a fantasy come true. Every day we are getting to know these wild creatures more and more intimately; to know their moods, their likes and dislikes, their personalities. Some we blow kisses with or flirt with, some we talk to and talk back with, some we play games with; some aggressive and fierce, some playful and fun. We know when to approach with caution, when to stay well back, when to pre-empt a charge and to ignore the gibbon hurtling towards you bareing it's teeth and trying to snatch at you. Sometimes they will do what we want them to do, sometimes they stick the proverbial finger up and make life as difficult as possible. I really have come to love the Primates especially, even (especially?!) the bastards, as they keep things interesting and even their posturing and fierceness is funny. It will be hard leaving and knowing I can't go out any time I like and have these really unique experiences; just feeding and watering and talking to monkeys.

So anyway, I thought today I might describe some of the characters we have on the block. In P1 we start by feeding solitary block; the real assholes who won't live with anyone else. Some are quite sweet; Loi always blows kisses and sets back his ruff, which we are told means 'you are welcome', so we all love him. Nee on the end is blind, so he's very docile and never tries to grab you. Chim Chai is the deformed gibbon from the Animal Planet programme, but she's pretty friendly (well, not aggressive anyway). Kot is a bugger, though he rarely tries to grab me which is good because going to the food prep house we have to pass him 20 times a day. Sometimes he gets a strop on though - I try to keep my distance generally and ignore him to avoid confrontation; when he loses it he is really nasty-looking. Mel (Gibbon - geddit?), Nin and James are okay. Milo has really big, pointy teeth he likes to bar at people. Madge doesn't much like girls so if you walk too close to the centre of the path (i.e. closer to the cages) he will charge the wire and you will shit your pants. After 2 days here you just get used to walking on the outside edge of the paved path, and walking in single-file even if you are talking to a friend.... Bong and Gilbert sit by the fruit house. Gilbert tries to shut volunteer's heads in the chiller door, and Bong is one of my favourites purely because of the phenomenal noise he makes all day singing and calling.

Then we feed outside Quarantine; these guys are pretty easy-going, we just make sure the bowls go down on opposite sides of the cage at the same time so no fights break out. Bowls are evenly spaced so one primate can't steal another's food, and at the same time so they are both occupied immediatley rather than pacing between bowls, cherry-picking and no doubt falling into a vicious argument over their favourites. Just so's you know, monkeys really do LOVE bananas, it's usually the first thing they go for. Go figure. And bears really like honey.

The 3 storey circular cage at the end has both gibbons and macaques, so we feed the gibbons in their high baskets first, and then put the macaque food in the low baskets, otherwise the gibbons steal everything.

WSPA block is fairly easy (Molly, Ringo, PT, Ovaltine and Rose); the only one to be really careful of is Pepsi Max, and his 'wife' Oumphang. I've talked about him before - he has to be isolated from Oumphang or she won't feed because he will steal her food, or beat her for it. We put his bowl in the basket in the small isolation cage; sometimes he'll go in, sometimes he won't. If he doesn't, we close the small cage but leave the food there so he can see it and smell it, and feed out everybody else before returning. Usually by then he will go in, and then we can put Oumphang's food out too. She normally sits in the corner of the cage, and won't move. At first we had to feed her there, and even sometimes hand-feed her since she would allow the food to sit untouched, or let it fall on the floor, too afraid to pick it up. Since she gained confidence though, we have been putting her food in the basket on the near side of the cage so she has to move out of the corner to get it, and thankfully she's been doing this okay finally.

In Gibbon and Macaque block (M&G) we have to isolate Loso from Daan and Pattie, as he is a vicious bastard. He doesn't much like going in the small cage, and it's pretty scary at times as the only way to secure the gate is with a stringy rope. Fortunately the bars have been made impossible to reach through though you still fear he can as he chatters, rattles and screams at you, his little claws scratching at the metal about a foot away from you. Daan and Pattie get larger portions as they got skinny while he was stealing their food.

Lamung, Noodles, Little Mo, Coco, Lola and Betty get fed at the same time, bowls all down at once (with a helper), Seb (I call him Mr Big Bollocks) is on his own, and then George and Susu. George is another asshole who deprives his 'wife' of the best food. Emma says she hasn't seen it, that they are both just aggressive with volunteers, but I think he's pretty vicious and certainly never lets her choose what she wants from her dish. Nieng has a cage all to himself and is a mean little shit. He looks evil as hell when he loses it. Nothing cute or sweet about that monkey. Bomb is super-aggressive but really skinny because of a heart condition. It's kinda funny cos you tend not to jump when he crashes into the wire because he's only half the size of a regular gibbon, which must be sour apples to him. Beth and Bam who share his enclosure are sweet, and Jung and Gao next door (Gao is Thai for 9 because she's only got 9 fingers).

In the forest are 3 tree-top enclosures with 2 gibbons in each. Big Mama and Tung Tong, appiliated gibbons. Big Mama is huge and makes a phenomenal noise when she calls. It's really impossible to talk over her when you are feeding or watering and she's singing. The other gibbons are pretty docile. They seem to be pretty content; probably because their enclosures are so close to natural habitat. I still get nervous filling water or putting food out/collecting food bowls if they are near the baskets though. They have long-arms, are inquisitive and/or mischevious. It doesn't pay not to alert.

Finally the macaque fields are full of mostly nameless monkeys who run, swim and scamper around the fields. We have one field of stump-tails, one of pig-tails and one of long-tails. There's only a few of note; the mums with babies, and one particularly fat macaque with saggy tits. With true originality I call him 'Mr Saggy Tits'. He tends to sit with his legs propped up on the wire, with his big belly sitting on the concrete and his man boobs hanging down to his knees. Amusingly I tried to take photos of him the other day and he seemed to be quite camera-shy.

In Primates 2 there are Joi and Ting Tong. Joi is big (big bowl) and totally schizo. I caught him sitting in the corner moving leaves around the other day, but then periodically freaking out and messing up the leaves till they swooshed around in a flurry, before settling down to move leaves from one place to another and then freaking out again. Havin cleaned out his cage though, there are plenty of red ants so perhaps that's what he was getting frustrated at. Besides, he has a good reason to be schizo; he was loved as a pet for 2 years as a baby but when he grew big teeth and attitude he was nailed into a crate for 7 years in the dark. Food came in the top of the crate and waste out the bottom. Understandably he now longer likes the dark or small spaces so we move him into Ting Tong's cage when nwe clean rather than into the small side enclosure.

Ting Tong was paralysed in his back legs when he arrived and the recommended course of action was to have him put down. The vets operated on him though and miraculously within 3 weeks he was walking again. Unfortunately he is still mentally-scarred though and nothing can stop him pulling out his fur until he is bald.

Next door Sid is also scrawny and bald, but probably due to vicious room-mates leading to malnutrition. Normally we would separate him from the most aggressive male at least during feeding but because one of the field macaques is in their inside enclosure we can't. I've been hand-feeding Sid when the others are distracted by food so he is getting a decent meal when I'm on Primates 2 at least. But Duwan (the slightly less aggressive male) has also been seen grooming Sid and hanging out with him in the wire walkway so maybe there is a change in the feeling towards him.

The others, Song, Hue, Chakchan, Mink, Jo, Chumchay are all pretty okay. They have their moments but mostly they are pretty easy-going.

13th Day Primates 1 & 2 (15th April 2008)

Another day on Primates 1 and 2. I was mostly working with Lieke who is now team captain of P2 and I lead P1. We're a good team together; we had all the cleaning done by 10.30am! I really don't mind doing both jobs; it's only as bad as working on one team but having pool duty in the middle of the day, plus I don't mind being kept busy all day; having long breaks means I get more tired and lethargic and it is harder to get up and work.

In the evening Emma had arranged for us to have a kareoke evening down at the Elephant Kitchen. I was pretty set on not going to this as I hate kareoke with a passion. I think it's neither fun to do or to watch, and if that makes me a party pooper, I don't care so ner. But since so many people had insisted they weren't singing, Elise guilt-tripped me into going as she said it would be sad if no one showed and they'd gone to so much effort to set up for us. Long story cut short, I went.

Down at the Kitchen the music choices were at times really obscure! For the first 10 minutes there was a lot of 'NEXT!' as we scrolled through all the CD/DVDs trying to find one anyone knew. Eventually Emma kicked off the evening with a song, and after that it pretty much turned into more of a group sing-along. Since no one was moving from their chair to sing with the microphone (which was being handed "hot potato"-like around the group), and everyone was singing along anyway, it was a lot less intimidating to sing, and I sang two songs - only the second and third time I have ever sang kareoke! So I was proud of myself; it's on my '101 Things to Do Before I Die' list to do kareoke, so that's cool.

By the end of the evening only our little group of 7 were left - the 'old timers' I suppose that have stuck together through our first weeks together; me, Laura, Elise, Lieke, Katie and Steph. We were fairly rowdy and having a great time. With the flashing fairy lights in the dark, and us all singing together, we finished on a high - Coldplay - Speed of Sound - it felt like a lighters in the air swaying, end of a concert kind-of-feeling.

14th Day Primates 1 & 2 again, & Cha-Am Night-Market (16th April 2008)

P1 & 2 again today. It was hard getting up, but once again, we got through the day okay, just putting one foot in front of the other and taking each task as it comes. At the end of the day you always wonder what it was you were so worried about! I guess it's just hard getting out of bed early.

Anyway, we were all trying to get through our tasks quickly today as we were leaving in taxis early to go to a bat cave and to Cha-am for the night market, so we were motoring through everything. I lost my headscarf to another cheeky gibbon, but fortunately he was in a raised cage and when he left it on the 'floor', I turned the hose on, he bounced away and I retrieved it with relief. One day I'm sure I won't be so lucky!

We were done by 4.45pm (hurray!) and by 5.30pm we were off in the taxis to the Bat Cave (cue much "dunuh nunuh nunuh nunuh BAT CAVE" type-jokes). We parked by the roadside and walked a little way across a stream and to a raised veranda beside a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. In front of us was a large rocky outcrop with two caves high up on the face. We sat for about 45 minutes till it was getting fairly dark with dusk, and then....and then...wow....and then...About half a million bats came streaming out of the cave, forming a long, waving stream of black, bending and swaying, swirling towards the horizon. The stream just kept on coming, and minute after minute hundreds and thousands of bats flew over us. I had spent the time before they came out planning how to take the best shot of them, though after about 20 seconds watching them realised a video would be more effective. After one badly taken video however my camera battery died....and then Steph's camera went....and then Lieke's camera went! It was very frustrating! But we all got something anyway. Hopefully we will get another chance to go and see it! It was truly a David Attenborough moment - I felt really privileged to see it. As we walked back to the cars, some of those numerous bats were swooping around the branches above our heads. They must cover such a phenomenal area to be able to feed so many.

Back in the taxis and off to Cha-am Night Market. We arranged to meet the taxis at 10,30pm nearby, which didn't leave us a lot of time by now, but as it turned out it was more than necessary. The night market was pretty big; mostly clothes stalls, shoes, toys, electrical goods etc. We saw many pets being sold; tiny puppies, rabbits dressed in clothes, lop-eared baby bunnies, mice (some dead and dessicated, some alive), and fighting fish kept in milk bottles. Naturally it's harder now for us to see this kind of trade and not feel angered or sad.

We wandered around, buying some things, and trying to find something we dared to eat. Lots of places were selling food, but mostly seafood (dodgy!), and meat curries and noodles that had been sitting around a while. I was looking for a vendor that cooked stuff at request while you watched but couldn't find anything. Eventually we filled up on freshly-squeezed satsuma juice, whisky fruit slushies and vegetable mini-cubed fritters. The market started packing up at 9pm so we headed to the internet cafe. As we wandered past a stall that looked like it was selling crepes we stopped to ask what kind and the seller rolled a taster one with thin pancake and green sugar strands for us to try. Laura said it was like a pancake with candy floss in the centre, Laura screwed up her face in disgust and said conspiratorially "guys, this tastes like fried hair...". None the less, we ate it gratefully, went to the internet cafe till it closed and 10pm and then wandered back slowly to the rendezvous point. Cha-am was kinda weird, with the streets deserted at 10pm and no business's open. Elise and Sarah had spent the day at the beach there and confirmed that it was definitely a place for the Thais to hang out, rather than tourists - they were the only white bikini-clad people on the beach. We could have found more places to drink and eat at the beach but we didn't realise the beach is about 20 minutes walk away and didn't have time/impetus to go. I probably won't return on any of my days off now; I'll go to the resort or back to Hua-Hin instead.

15th Day Bears, Other Cages, Nocturnal Diets (17th April 2008)

A punishing schedule today; I clearly made a mistake in confiding in Emma that I prefer to be kept moving rather than having lots of long breaks...

First bears, which I haven't done since I arrived, and had 2 new people to train. I spent some time last night re-familiarising myself with the procedures though, and I pretty much remembered everything. We pulled that off without a hitch and made good time before breakfast.

Then, Other Cages with the new people again; I let them deal with Sam's horse shit but dealt with the otter poo myself. It would be a bit mean giving them that on the first day! Plus we all did Randy's cage together; I was super-proud of myself for daring to take on the Evil One directly and kept him from pecking my legs with the broom whilst feeding him palm berries and monkey chow as an enrichment treat.

Thankfully Simon came in to assist after a bit (I retreated behind a pole), played with Randy and threw berries up to the smaller Hornbills so they had to swoop and fly to catch them. The new people were finding it hard with acclimatising to the heat so while I strode about with a broom, they lagged behind panting, so we didn't finish up before lunchtime. I grabbed a bowl of food, and finished up with the iguanas before eating.

After a restful break for lunch, we were back on Bears again; preparing 4 large crates of fruit and 4 smaller tubs for our 19 fluffy loves. We were pushed behind schedule though as Meyn our bear keeper struggled to get all 9 bears in the small enclosure at the same time so we could get in and clean. Unfortunately this took 25 minutes of getting 8 in and then one leaving as we managed to get the final one in. Finally he managed and we were grateful that the sun was hidden by cloud as we cleaned up the enclosure as this is a brutal time of day to be out in the field with no shade shoveling shit!

After bears I trained on Nocturnal Diets, which was a bit of shambles as I've only done it a couple of times, plus as enrichment we were placing food around the enclosures rather than leaving them in bowls so it took much longer. We finally, finally came in at 6.30pm, just enough time to shower before dinner. I had doggy duty as well after dinner; preparing 16 meals for dogs with dog food and dinner leftovers, plus feeding Sandee the bintarong at 8.30pm. Thankfully for me I managed to palm off these duties on some kind friends and stumbled down to the internet cafe to make contact with the outside world before an early night and a deep, deep sleep.

17th Day Primates 2(18th April 2008)

After such a full-on day yesterday Emma had been kind enough to put me on Primates 2 for the day with no extra duties. Primates 2 is easy, quick and has a break of at least 3 hours in the middle of the day. We cleaned all the usual cages in the morning and I was pleased we were on time for breakfast until I remembered our castrated macaque that has been kept in one of the inside enclosures had been returned to the field and consquently we would need to clean two cages that had not been cleaned in over a week. We were late for breakfast but I was glad later when it gave cocksucker the opportunity to be moved from the baby cage to the clean enclosure. He has been bullying the other baby macaques, thinking he's Top Boss, but he needs to be taken down a peg or two by playing with The Big Boys and realising he's just a pipsqueak.

After breakfast I was waiting in the volunteer house for Simon to appear so I could offer my help for some of the extra jobs but as I sat there reading, Emma caught me nodding off. I explained why I was waiting and she sent me off to bed, telling me to take a decent rest after yesterday, so I gratefully climbed into bed for a decent nap before feeding out to P2 at 3.15pm. Cocksucker seemed to have settled in well, and he has access to social interaction with both the macaques next door and the 10 macaques in the field so it will be good to see how they get on.

That evening we sat out in the outside courtyard and played Celebrity Head; the game where you have to guess what celebrity name is on your forehead. After a couple of rounds of bands and actors we played rounds using well-known animal personalities from the Wildlife Centre! I was Bandit and Tung Tong, our one-legged baby disabled macaque and our miraculous recovery bald macaque. The rounds lead on to some freaky and funny conversations as to which characters would be sexy if they were human? Many people agreed that Kot would be, though he hates me and I hate him so I can't see it personally. He would be the "bad boy, crew-cut and leather jacket, leave-you-in-the-morning type". Personally, Bong (gibbon) is one of my favourites; easy-going but noisy and fun-loving!

18th Day Primates 1 & House Duty with training (19th April 2008)

Another gruelling day today training new people on Primates 1 and with house duties in between. Feeding out was as normal, then cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, then cleaning the bathrooms and bleaching the kitchen after lunch. I had enrichments for Solitary Macaques to do, then P1 feeding again, followed by cooking pasta for everyone and washing up after dinner. Finally, we got to sit down and watch Planet Earth which was, as always, a visual delight before turning in early. After such a long day though I cried off work tomorrow and asked for a well-needed day off after 11 days with no break. I haven't minded, and it was my choice not to take a day off; as long as I have time to read, sleep and write then I don't need a day off; afterall, what might I do with it? But the schedules finally got to me and I looked forward to a nice break.

19th Day - Day Off (20th April 2008)

Up at the normal time of 6am this morning to join the elephant volunteers for their walk to retrieve the elephants from the forest. It was a beautiful time of the morning to be out, and away from the sound of the calling gibbons, the forest was so serene and so peaceful, with just the dawn chorus of the birds instead, that are usually drowned out! We sat and waited for a while for the Mahout family to retrieve each of the 5, and watching them lumber out from the canopy was such a beautiful sight. The trees we walked back through were almost autumny with their red leaves, and the early-morning gleam of sunshine through the trees cast a gentle orange glow on the elephants. Having had a brief encounter with them at the elephant kitchen, as I stood at head height with them on my own marvelling at the size of their heads as they stood before me (waiting for something to eat it turned out), I was a little intimidated by their size and stayed out of the way as much as possible (or at least with another person between me and them at all times) but on a couple of occasions I strayed close to them and they started to approach me, mistaking my camera for a mango, at which point I squeaked and hid behind someone!

After breakfast with the rest of the volunteers I went back to bed for 3 hours and woke up just before lunch so I went to join them for a snack. We have a volunteer organisation observer with us at the moment and she wanted to see the temple whose grounds the centre sits on. The temple is significant in Thailand because it has a 'Buddha Footprint' so is more sacred than other places. We wandered up to the footprint and looked back down on the grounds, then around to the giant Gold Reclining Buddha and then to the main Tample. We also mistakenly wandered into what we think was the monks' quarters and got chased out by an aggressive soy dog.

I spent a while at the internet cafe before meeting the others coming down to the village night market, We wandered around, bought a few more bits and pieces and got back in time for dinner. I had a mysterious headache (bad timing) so got an early night.

20th Day - Primates 2, Enrichments and swimming at the river(21st April 2008)

I had a good day today; Emma had kindly put me on P2 again with Emilie which gives me loads of free time. Since they have finally bought new paintbrushes I set about wood-staining about 12 enrichment beams, a task which I have been clamouring to do since I got here. Then after lunch I was struck by inspiration and made 16 seed-shakers to enrich the WSPA block. I fished out lots of bottles from the recycling and the enrichment box, pushed 5 holes in each and put a couple of handfuls of sunflower seeds in each and gave them to the gibbons and macaques. The primates were thrilled with them; they were so successful in fact that a few of the gibbons managed to pull the bottles through the wire, and then went and sat in their favourite place turning and turning the bottle and nibbling the seeds that fell out. I was dead chuffed - I'm usually devoid of smart ideas when it comes to enrichment and usually end up copping out with frozen bananas or watermelon!

After work we had time to say goodbye to Lyndsay at 5pm who finally leaves after 2 months at the centre. It was a sad moment, but made easier by the promise of a swim in the river afterwards with the Thai vet and his assistant. I hadn't been before, though it is popular with everyone here and many locals. The current was really fast and the river was high; there are two ropes that span the river to stop people floating away, and ropes attached to logs in the river to hang onto. The girls jumped in (except Lieke, who I pushed in) and I met them at the logs 20 metres downstream. I had difficulty getting up on the log; the current was so fast I couldn't get momentum up and out of the water, my legs were being pulled under, but I eventually managed.

We got back in time for dinner and a shower, and then were treated to 'an audience with Edwin' unexpectedly. As we sat around with beers and wine, he came to join us with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and soon all the volunteers were sitting around the big wooden table together listening to stories about past volunteers (we are so tame in comparison!)

21st Day - Primates 2, Otter Pool & Hua Hin (22nd April 2008)

Primates 2 today and I was training Emilie. She was pretty good, so we got through most things fast. We had a brief drama when we left the scrubbing brush in Menk's cage (but recovered it with the aid of a banana in the isolation cage) and then again when we mistakenly left the water hose threaded through the wire fence and let schizophrenic Joi back in. Emilie ended up in an amusing tug of war with Mr Issues, but we were saved from a mangled and chewed hose by the Thai staff thankfully. They always seem to turn up just when you need them!

I tried to take my day off today, so I would avoid cleaning the otter pool but unfortunately it wouldn't schedule so I was down to do the worst pool of all. I have so far managed to escape it but today finally was the day... Let me reiterate - there is nothing worse than otter shit. And we had been told about the red worms and fishheads found in the last pool (though it beats the cobra found in the tiger pool drain I suppose). We had drained the pool early but it had stopped draining because of a huge clump of hay stopping the pipe so we had to bucket the rest out. Fortunately we have wonderful elephant volunteers at the moment who are always offering themselves for extra duties, and despite our horror stories had not been assuaged from helping. In fact, the otter pool wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe; the smell wasn't as bad as I imagined, there were no worms and fish-heads, we were in the shade for a change, and the pool is smaller than the bear and tiger pools so it doesn't take as long. Once again, the feeling that if that's the worst this place can get, well that's really not that bad afterall.

After work we jumped in taxis to Hua Hin for the night. Another wonderful dinner at Mama Mia's, and then to the night market. I didn't really know why I was going; I'd been twice before and not been moved by anything much to buy it. Tonight however, I was suddenly struck by the 'this is my last time here' shopping frenzy and ended up buying heaps of presents and things. Sarah and I both failed to finish the market, or get a cocktail before we were due back at the pick-up point, so we settled for a bottled alco-pop from the supermarket to be enjoyed in the taxi home amongst all our bags of loot.

22nd Day - Primates 2, Other Cages and off to the Petchvarin Resort (23th April 2008)

Training again today which I expected to go slowly but we were all done at Primates 2 cages by 8am, almost an hour early for breakfast, and done with Other Cages by 11am, an hour early for lunch. This was in part due to a move-around of cages, which means 2 cages previously done in the morning has become 4 cages to be completed in the afternoon. Sid's group has been merged with Ting Tong so cleaning their cages with Cocksucker's and Joi's means shunting 4 cages of monkeys up and down into each other's cages with the aid of food to get them to move. Sam also loved playing with my least favourite bird, Randy, so I let him spend a good 20 minutes having some one-on-one time (while we filled the bird bath) while I watched from the safe position on the other side of the wire!

The 4 cages in the afternoon was pulled off without a hitch despite my misgivings about them all moving and once we'd swept outside the cages I was free to get ready to go to the nearby resort (where wildlife staff get a discount of 1600 Baht/night) for the night for another day off tomorrow with Sarah. We got picked up at 6pm in the pick-up truck (distinctly inelegant for arriving at a 4* resort in our nice clothes, compared to the usual executive car) and after 25 minutes arrived at the remote resort complex lit with glowing orbs that nestled in the gardens casting shadows with the palm fronds. We checked in and settled into our lovely air-conditioned room replete with cute elephants made of rolled-up towels and sweet-smelling fruit. We set out for dinner at the Thai restaurant and enjoyed a fantastic coconut chicken soup in a clay heated pot with rice before returning to the room. There was only one English-speaking channel, with the FTSE index and interviews on the trade floor which I was tempted to leave on for the pure need for English background babble after so many days of peaceful quiet but we found a design channel and had that on for a while before bed.

23rd Day - Day off at Petchvarin Resort (24th April 2008)

11 hours sleep in our lovely, comfy beds. I slept like a baby, though Sarah was a bit cold with the air con set to 26 degrees. It's amazing to think how much we've acclimatised - at home I would sunbathe in that temperature and here it is cold enough now to us to be air conditioned temperature! In Melbourne I refused to go outside in 41 degrees, and here I work long hours in 36 degrees without dying of heat exhaustion!

We had a continental breakfast in the European restaurant and then headed over to the spa for a massage. I had a neck, shoulder and head massage with lemongrass oil, and Sarah had a full body massage. We were asked to change into bizarre gauze knickers and dressing gowns, had our feet washed (much to Sarah's discomfort) and then lay down to a delicious hour of being kneaded and rubbed.

As I finished earlier I waited for Sarah by the pool. I was pretty self-conscious in my bikini, knowing that in Thailand it is not really okay to show so much flesh but I don't have anything else and the place was deserted anyway. Apparently they are busy on weekends but during the week it is empty. We ordered orange juices (delicious freshly-squeezed satsuma juice in fact) and slipped some vodka in on the sly, and lazed around the pool reading for a while. We only broke our arduous regime of swimming, reading and basking for lunch at the European restaurant (caesar salad and club sandwich) and to check out.

At 5.30pm we went to the spa again for a body wrap each with Thai oils. Since both of us are leaving soon, this is the last time we will be able to come here so we decided to splash out.Once again, on with the sexy knick-knacks and onto a bed to be slathered in a lovely-smelling clay-like substance that smeared over the skin like thin mud. Once we had been completely covered, we we wrapped first in fabric, then in plastic, and then finally in a thick blanket. Feeling like a (toasty-warm) Egyptian mummy the lights were dimmed, the temperature turned up a little and we were left to snooze for half an hour in the delicious, cosy wrap. Time ended too soon however and we were unravelled from our packaging and led to the shower. The clay had turned bright yellow and stained the skin like jaundice. It took some scrubbing and careful examination of all nooks and crannies to ensure all traces of bright yellow had been removed before we dressed again. Our skin, expectedly so, was smooth and sexy, and smelled divine. We left the spa (after purple sweet potato tea, or so we think it was) floating on a cloud, the smell of frangipani wafting after us.

Laura and Elise were just arriving for their night at the resort and they had brought Lieke in the pick-up so once they had checked in we all went for dinner at the Thai restaurant. We had a fabulously decadent meal; coconut chicken soup, Thai tuna canapes, fried river fish with vegetables, pork satay, chicken green curry, and fried garlic pork washed down with several Mai Tais, everyone's new favourite cocktail.

All too soon it was time for us 3 to head back, leaving Elise and Laura to their comfortable rooms and towel elephants and enjoy a nice drive back in the dark, with the cool air blowing through our hair.

24th Day - Primates 1 (25th April 2008)

A relatively easy day on Primates 1 with Lieke and two of the new Thai vet students who have been wonderful. It had been threatening rain and thunder all day and unfortunately the heavens opened just before second feed-out so we had to scamper through the rain with the bowls as fast as possible. I started to feel a little down; I hate the rain and it's frustrating being so damp knowing it will take ages to dry out because of the humidity. Ironically I can cope with being soaked with sweat but not soaked with rain... Plus, it's pretty gross when you take a step and get your flip-flop totally sucked in mud, and inevitably the strap pings out and you are left standing on one leg in the rain with muddy fingers trying to fix the damn gritty sole getting more and more soaked by the second.

We fed out, and I sat around dripping for half an hour (during which we had 2 brief moments of drama when a Thai guy brought in a dying python and tried to poke it through the fence for us to deal with which thankfully alerted our dogs, and also when the dogs tried to kill yet another chicken, the fourth or fifth in as many days - they obviously have the scent of blood.....) before going to collect the bowls and wash up the 171 bowls ready for tomorrow's feed. Annoyingly the roof drips right onto the outside sinks so as I stood washing up I was getting drenched by a steady torrent of water down my back. I didn't mind so much though since it was my last job and a shower and clean clothes beckoned. What I wouldn't have done for a hot shower though! By this point attempting to stay dry was pretty futile so I threw a bowl of water at Lieke and we ended up having a water fight in the rain with the stinky washing up water...

Warm and dry again we awaited the latest news on our evening plans. We had had a barbecue and kareoke planned by rain stopped play, so we started to make preparations to cook the food by other means when we had news from the elephant kitchen that the Thai staff had cooked afterall. We had a great meal of mushroom pasta, fried rice, corn on the cob and coleslaw. A hearty western-style meal after a shitty Thai-style monsoon day. Unfortunately our dinner was plagued by thousands of flying ants; termites in their brief nuptials as I now understand them to be. Apparently they are brought out by rain and zillions of them were flying round the lights cruising for a date before expiring on our plates and in our dinners. I was reminded that I was on house duty by the comments regarding the thousands of dead termites now littering everry surface in the kitchen while thousands more still flitted around the lights waiting to fly into our hair, our tops and our faces. I looked on in horror; unable to comprehend where to start with such a futile exercise. Emma said to leave it till tomorrow but with 'a little help from our friends' we managed to get the kitchen clean again, albeit by some pretty sketchy washing up and a production-line team effort. Kareoke was off though as it hadn't been set up, but everyone was in a sociable mood so the evening looked lively anyway, but then we had news that kareoke was on afterall and everyone trooped down to the elephant kitchen.

I was feeling distinctly unsociable after a wet day and a one-on-one with some pre-nup flying things but went down anyway. When I got down there however, the party was in full swing; John and Kim were on the microphones, the Thai staff were sharing shooters with the volunteers and a pool game was on the go. It was noise, laughter, singing, shouting. I tried to resist and wallow in my funk but it was impossible and before long I was singing with vodka in hand.

After a lot of dancing, sweating, hugging, and many, many embarrassing photos, I turned in, leaving the rest to their impending hangovers. Seeing the photos the next day showed me what a lucky escape I had. At least I could remember everything I got up to...;)

25th Day - Primates 2 & Other Cages (26th April 2008)

Despite a reasonably early night I still felt pretty lethargic this morning. At least I wasn't as bad as some people, but I am fairly sure no one was really up to working super hard today. Lieke was so sick in fact that she bailed on her first day with elephants, though I am sure it had something to do with pineapple picking - the hardest harvest and tougher than anything the wildlife teams deal with!

Thankfully I was working with Monica today who zipped through P2 while I sulkily pushing a broom around slowly. She did 4 cages to my 3 in the morning, and when I turned up in the afternoon she'd already completed 2 of the cages. Good lass! We split up for Other Cages but spent some time watching poor Seb (Mr Big Bollocks) be sedated before speying (no more Mr Big Bollocks) down at the hospital. It was sad to watch this magnificent macaque wobbling and crashing into the wire confused and bewildered as to why his limbs wouldn't obey before flopping to the ground. He wasn't suffering though, I think the dart dyringe suffered more as he got hold of it and chewed it to bits before slipping unconscious in a puddle.

The heavens opened again around 3pmish and I sulkily stared out at the rain wishing I had a hot shower and warm clothes. This was the culmination of a 2 day episode of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) I think and I stropped around the volunteer house angry at everything that wasn't right. I was sick of being muddy, of being wet, I couldn't shower because our shower was blocked and Laura's shower had a creepy spider in it. I had a bit of a freak-out, and one or two (!) rants, and just hoped for a better day tomorrow.

Day 26 - Primates 1 (27th April 2008)

As hoped I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today. I bounced out of bed and danced my way to the prep house for Primates 1. I was working with Monica, Leesa and Sine and the team worked well though we all had to feed out together for lack of anyone else experienced enough to split into 2 groups. I didn't mind though, I love feeding out. And as my days here get less and less, it's another chance to see my favourites. It also gave me a chance to help out with some other tasks, like litter-picking in the new macaque fields. Any bits of concrete, wire, building refuse and contractors' bottles etc have to be picked up before some of the solitary macaques and groups are released tomorrow. Sid's group and Cocksucker are going in! So we are looking forward to seeing how they get on there.

Monica was also in a mischevious mood today and we spent the day playing pranks, throwing stuff at each other, spraying each other and generally being a pair of idiots. I got a satsuma in the eye, which I probably deserved, though I couldn't see straight for 5 minutes and my eyes were sore for the next 2 days. Somehow I developed an allergy to satsumas - eating one now makes my eyes weep!

That evening Monica, John, Sam, Tamsin, Nicky and I played scrabble which Sam and I won by one point despite all John's careful strategy. For some reason we were on fire, and lucky enough to get Zs, Qs and Xs and use them wisely. I wish I knew why I am a total dunce at Scrabulous then? It was good to have a chilled evening with some wine.

Day 27 - Primates 1 & Hua Hin (28th April 2008)

Primates 1 again today - I am deeply suspicious that despite being given my favourite team (and the team I am leader of) so many days in a row before I leave, that Emma has concocted some horrible schedule for me for my last day. I'm just enjoying P1 though and watch the newer staff struggle through more challenging schedules while I get on with my favourite jobs.

I didn't get a chance to go down and see Sid's group, Ting Tong and Cocksucker get released but lots of people did and the reports throughout the day were that they were getting on great. Cocksucker has stopped screaming for attention and seems to be having far too much fun exploring the forest, trees and pool. Emma says she knew he was bouncing on the branches but couldn't see him, so it is a success, since the enclosures aren't meant to be viewing platforms, but homes for the animals. Any chance to increase their natural habtat and reduce contact/view of humans has to be a good thing.

It CHUCKED it down before prep started for second feed and I negotiated the growing massive lakes between the volunteer house and the prep house in my poncho with the hood tied up tight around my face. The water flowed down from the prep house to the fruit house like a river and the only way to collect the food was to balance on the edges of the path carrying the huge tubs of fruit. This meant stepping right next to Loi's cage (as opposed to Kot's cage on the other side which would have been a crazy mistake) and trying to tightrope walk carrying several kilos of fruit right next to the wire. We are always edgy near the cage fencing; you never know when something might reach out and grab you/scratch you/poke you. As I to-ed and fro-ed I kept falling into the "river" as Loi bounded over to the fence in his excitement to blow kisses at me, but appearing on my peripheral vision as a fast-moving blob of fur causing me to jump and over-balance. It was very sweet, as I trudged through the rain, but my feet got very wet!

When we finished I was more up for a night curled up with a book in a warm bed but we had planned to go to Hua Hin that evening and since I was leaving soon I thought it would be good to have a leaving 'do' that night. We had great pizza and wine at a restaurant 2 doors down from our favourite, Mamma Mia's and then headed to Sam Sam's. Pretty much everyone from the centre had come down so it was good for everyone to spend time chatting. Elise got crazy drunk with the Thai staff and they were loud and giggly all night. In fact they were practically off the scale volume-wise in the taxi back. Only dogs could hear Elise by this stage...

Day 28 - Primates 1 (29th April 2008)

Last day today! We have planned to go to the National Park tomorrow so today is my last working day though I won't leave till the 1st. Thankfully Emma didn't have anything up her sleeve and I was on P1 again all day so I made sure I spent some time with my heroes. I was particularly pleased to see Jung making friends with shy and skinny Tan who has been moved there because she's not eating. Jung would sit a few feet near Tan in a non-threatening "welcome" sort of way, then walk or somersault off, and when Tan moved somewhere else, Jung would return to sit beside her making gentle 'ooh' noises, till finally she sat right by Tan and chattered up against her ear in a gibbony sort-of kiss. It was so cute to watch, and made me love Jung even more.

I also spent some time with the babies in Quarantine; beautiful Kappy and darling Dong, the new appiliated gibbon who is silver-grey in his infancy though he will grow up black and white. Kappy is bigger than Dong and can already swing, though he keeps 'accidentally-on-purpose' kicking Dong in the head as he swings past. It is cute to see little Dong's face screw up in resentful frustration as he follows Kappy's back swing away before settling back down to cuddle his little pillow quietly. I hope Dong learns to stand up for himself and gives Kappy the retaliation he deserves but in the meantime he made me laugh as Kappy swung by with a kick and then hung from the cage top with his limbs spread. Little Dong reached out for Kappy's willy and gave it a tug, much to Kappy's surprise!

Since we were due a 4.30am start to the national park in the morning we made sandwiches, prepared water barrels and collected fruit to take and went to bed for 10pm. Unfortunately Emma knocked shortly afterwards to break the news that we couldn't go afterall because of landslide warnings. We were seriously put out by this, as we'd all been looking forward to it so much and were so surprised that somehow we'd managed to arrange a day off all together. Sadly, there was nothing we could do though so we just agreed to go to Cha-am or Hua Hin for the day instead.

An Impromptu Goodbye (30th April 2008)

I woke up at 5.54am this morning; 1 minute before my first alarm usually goes off! Hmmm. Body clocks are weird like that. I went back to sleep again though until 8am when I suddenly had a dozy flash of inspiration that I could get the bus from wherever we were headed back to Bangkok rather than returning and taxi-ing tomorrow. Cue a rushed packing job (which took far longer than anticipated and raised rather worrying questions about how much my luggage has increased by and what the weight limit is flying 'home').

Finally we set off at 11am after a quick goodbye to all the guys at breakfast and a big hug to Emma. As we pulled away I could barely believe I was leaving. Although it has been on my mind for days, it has crept up on me as my leaving day changed so many times until finally I just upped and left when I wasn't expecting to. As we drove through the forest I almost forgot to listen to all the gibbon calls and smelled the air sweet with animals, but when I did I was struck with sadness and surprise. As the month has gone on I have maintained that I probably won't return, on the basis that there are so many causes out there and so many projects in so many places, but as we drove away I realised there is no way I could ever be in Thailand and not come down and visit. I want to see all the changes, all the new enclosures as it grows and improves. I want to check in with my favourites; find out if they have integrated, if they have new friends, if they are happier and seem more enriched. The animals have got under my skin, and I will want to know how they get on in the future. Especially the gibbons, my new favourite primate. :)

At Hua Hin we had some dramas over me withdrawing money. With 2 days before I reach Australia and settle down with a job, my Mint account is frozen because I haven't kept up the minimum payments, and Egg was refusing to give me cash. Plus I forgot my pin for my current account. Laura lent me money to get me by but the question of excess baggage charges left a question mark over how much money I might need for the next 3 city and country-hopping. Weighing up whether to ship the stuff before flying or risk the charges was a toughy, and finally I decided to buy some cheap hand luggage and try to squeeze everything in.

We spent an hour at the internet cafe before heading down to the beach since it had become sunny and the usual 2pm downpour had not materialised. Down at the beach we sat on the sand drinking wine and enjoying our last hours together. It was strange when they finally waved me off at the bus stop - after 7 months traveling "on my own" (mostly) I had got used to living and working with a large group of people, so the prospect of going back to Bangkok on my own was a sad and lonely one. Plus the chances of us ever all being together in the same place again is so unlikely. It's sad that I will not spend time with them like that again. Elise, Lieke, Laura (and Lyndsay and Sarah who left already) - big kisses. It would have been a tough old slog without your smiles and laughter.

The bus took longer than I hoped but I didn't get ripped off this time by the taxi to the city. My hotel didn't have a cheap single room available so I took a 'superior' room; anything with air con, movies and....a hot shower. Heaven. It was good to get the first leg of my journey to my new home out of the way. Next leg - Bangkok to airport and onto Singapore, third and final leg - Singapore to Perth and bus to Hay Street! 72 hours and counting - a glass of wine flopped on the sofa with my new flatmates awaits....

Bangkok (1st May 2008)

So I didn't DARE go shopping today considering my vast quantity of luggage already, so instead I went to the opticians and bought some new glasses as I lost mine in Laos on the island with 4 hrs of electricity. I looked for an email address to contact them - HA! Unlikely... Then I just hung out on Rambuttri Sol, trying to get in as much sticky rice and mango as possible before I leave Thailand and this delicious dish behind indefinitely.

The taxi ride left a bitter taste in my mouth for my last hours in Asia. The driver refused to put the meter on and then over-charged me by 4 times the rate I estimated it should cost. He almost lost the plot at the airport and started to put my luggage back in the car when I argued with him over the price. I backed down in a reluctant sulk too fearful of another man-handling incident but tired finally of being ripped off my Asians. Most unBuddhist I feel.

Waiting for the flight took ages; there were three staff that seemed to be handling our one flight solely by themselves as they changed uniforms and appeared at check-in and at the departure lounge in various differing roles. I'd almost have believed it was a training exercise, and it took forever to board as they flitted back and forth. I tried to enjoy the experience as I remembered that this is the penultimate day to culiminate 8 months of travel. So I relished in the incompetence and delays. Buddha bless them.

Unfortunately I had badly planned my flight and the aeroplane dumped me out at Singapore at midnight and I had to decide what to do about sleeping before my flight at 4pm tomorrow. I decided to sleep in the airport (I have good experience of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements after a month at the centre and I've done it before for Vietnam and it was only slightly hellish) until I saw the Budget Terminal and realised spending 15 hours there would be impossible. So I decided to catch the aiport shuttle to a hostel, except the hotel desk wouldn't give me the details of any hotel that wasn't dramatically out of my price range. So on her advice, I caught the free shuttle to Terminal 2, trollyed over to MaccyD's and abused their free internet for several hours. I then sat down and had a lovely chat with a Malaysain woman on her way to Canada to visit her son, before having a reasonably unconscious nap (thank god I've bought an eye mask finally!) for 3 hours.

Singapore to Perth & Tips for Traveling Asia (2nd May 2008)

So today really culminates my trip! 8 months of travel; 6 countries, a bunch of monkeys and a lotta, lotta memories.

I could write some utter shite about how it was a life-changing experience and blah blah (it was of course, if only because I achieved a life-long dream and not everyone gets to), and that if you're thinking of going traveling you should just go (honest, book it now!). But instead, I'll just write some travel tips that seem to make sense now I've done it.

Travel Tips for Asia

• Some people say dump the Lonely Planet - if you are on a tight schedule and need to know everything without trial and error, get the book. If you are not worried about unexpected or unprectable delays and want to get off the beaten track (probably more by error than judgement), by all means dump The Book.
• Try local sweets and fruits (only peelable ones, or ones you have watched been peeled in front of you). It's a real pleasure finding wonderful new flavours you like.
• On bus journeys, buy lots of provisions (fruits, biscuits, sweets) and share them around. In some countries it's common to do that anyway, but even if it's not a local custom it's a nice gesture to local people, and also to other travelers who might become friends.
• Explore shops and supermarkets - I love looking at all the brands and types of products I'm not familiar with and trying them out.
• Don't buy all your toiletries or travel gadgets at home. Adaptors, toiletries, cushions and eye masks can be picked up at a tiny fraction of the cost in cheaper countries.
• Do NOT buy the Lonely Planet at home. Pick one up for the country when you arrive; hostels/book shops/part exchange shops/street vendors will sell them at a tiny fraction of the cost. Do not be ripped off at home! (eg $40 per book, compared to $4.50 or less in Asia)
• Don't bring too many clothes, you'll be buying new ones in every country.
• Bring proper walking shoes, even if you're not inclined towards exercise. To see the best stuff you often have to walk, trek, climb or cave and having durable shoes that support is important. They don't have to be heavy-duty, Merrell are light as normal trainers and well worth the expense.
• Don't expect to pick up cheap shoes and trainers in Asia if you have bigger feet. They are small-boned nations, they don't cater for giant western feet (anything above a 6).
• Don't use the hotel recommendations from Lonely Planet; commonly they are ruined by their own success and have little interest in good service and competitive prices since the advert brings them regular business regardless. If there are touts at the bus drop ask for photos, prices etc and if it sounds alright most drivers will drive you there for you to look. If you don't like it fine, but you have a free lift and doubtless there will be plenty of other guest houses in that area to look at too. Chances are though you'll get a great guesthouse that will bend over backwards for you since they all also want to be in the Lonely Planet.

So the only question that remains to be asked is... where shall I go next time? :)