Thailand Wildlife

After giving elephants a blog post all of their own, we realized that we also needed to recognize some of the other animals that we've came across since arriving in Thailand.  Moving here, we knew we would be exposed to all kinds of wildlife that we would not typically come into contact with in the United States.  Sure enough, we've had wildlife encounters that range from cute little geckos to pretty frightening scorpions.

The geckos are the most useful of our "pets” in our house.  Small ones (about 2-6 inches long) can be found all over our house, and are a good sign because they eat bugs.  We also have one large one, which is close to a foot-and-a-half long, that we rarely see but often hear at night.  

This gecko wanted to read the letter my mom sent me.

Bugs win the prize for being the most numerous pet.  We live in a pretty rural area, so bugs are everywhere – and they definitely make themselves heard at night!  Bugs here range from the annoying: spiders, ants, and mosquitoes… to the beautiful: an awesome giant grasshopper, beautifully colored butterflies.  Our personal favorite, though, has to be the giant beetles that some of our students keep as pets and will even bring to class with them.

Beautiful, multi-colored butterfly.

The scariest of all of our wildlife encounters was this scorpion.  We were following a line of ants to see where they were going, so our heads were pretty low to the ground when we moved an empty crate of water bottles out of the way…and found this guy right in front of our faces!  After recovering from the surprise, we got a broom and swept him out of the kitchen and into our back yard (where we haven’t ventured since).  

         Another one of the more charming of our pets was this tiny frog.  These are found all over the place here, and we've also had some bigger ones come into our house - once discovered they quickly hop their way back down the drain and outside!

Right in our neighborhood, we have even more pets.  Dogs are ubiquitous throughout Chiang Saen.  Some of them are strays, some of them are pets, but all of them roam free.  They can be found all over our school campus and throughout the city.

This dog looks so happy because he just relieved himself on my bike tire.

One of the school dogs, heading up to the second floor.