Saeng Thong Hotel Cha-am

... under the red corner. All very jolly.

Loving Hua Hin - long, blonde beach (but not very wide at high tide), fantastic restaurants on piers/jetties over the sea, and an interesting view into the lives of the girlies (who work the girlie bars) from our balcon looking down into their private lives with their kids.

... It's so strange that two of my closest friends here, Sally and Becca, live so close to me at home - I'm sure there will be a reunion one day! Tuesday 19th August Today I was back on Primates 2, my favourite team, with Marnie and Marie. For enrichment we made little parcels from banana leaves, containing mashed banana and a rambutan (a small round fruit), tied up with vines. The macaques and gibbons seemed to really enjoy them even if it did take us twice as ...

... cut out by hand and flew like a dream. The only problem is that we had to take it all apart for Phil to transport home on his scooter. Copter is a really nice boy and we hope that all goes well for him in the future. It looks as though we will not get the opportunity to say goodbye to him and Mam. Fantastic storm tonight or rather two storms that met just above our hotel and shook our windows so violently we ...

... in the lake in front of the sanctuary. Mieow the tiger is getting a new, better enclosure a little deeper in the forest. Those are all wonderful improvements for them. I hate seeing them in cages, but I'd hate it more if they were all released and killed automatically because they have never been able to learn wildlife smarts. Imperfect solution, big problem. In the meantime, I only have one more week to volunteer here, so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing to help them.

... I don't remember them all. I need to try to learn them again and describe them. I know that the Temple Bears were rescued from a temple... and the 4 School Bears were rescued from being kept unsafely, unkindly, at a school... and there's a bear names Oompoom, whose rescue was documented on an Animal Planet documentary... I'm going to have to learn their stories again and then post more. Meanwhile, I'll put in some pictures.

... been 100%... we decided to split them up so we headed of with an extra bod in our van - obviously at my end! We drove on into the day and eventually stopped for lunch and supplies at Kanchanaburi after having been waved through the checkpoint everyone had been worrying about without us, in the back, even seeing it! Supplies consisted of big bags of rice and rubber rings for the kids. And where do you go when you need supplies? Why you pop down to your local Tesco ...

... chanting, compassion talk, chocolate hot drink (dinner), hot spring, meditation, group walking mediation, and then sitting mediation. A long day, the parts that I really liked were the morning thoughts, yoga, meditation talk, compassion talk, chanting, and the hot springs. The mediation part was ************* your body and then on your attention span. I have a short one! Though I got better, and I understand the process now ...

The hottest thing in Thailand these days is a supposedly Buddhist good-luck-charm pendant called Jatukam that comes in at least four models called "Super Rich", "Super Millionaire", "Immediately Rich", and "Money Flowing In". In addition to money, the devotee is promised superman-like invulnerability to traffic accidents. You may line up at the temple at Nakhon Si Thammarat to buy one for 100 baht [about US$3] or so or you may buy them from ...

... but it just rings and rings. Reality sinks in. Like a drug addict in withdrawal he begins to whimper and he talks rubbish to himself. He is in denial no more and he realizes that he cannot live without her. He might call Soidog to have a beer and talk it over. He talks tough and says "It's for the best, mate" but the Dog can see that he's out of aces by the way he holds his eyes. Eventually she calls. By then he has melted into a small blob of quivering liquid. He will do ...

Well, the rest of the world has finally caught up and we're all now officially in 2004. Welcome...Enjoy the show. Hope you're enjoying the day off and not nursing a vicious hangover. Please let me know how the civilized world rang in the new year! I rang in 2004 at the wildlife center, with gibbons singing in the background and everyone desperately hanging on for midnight. At first, we did a countdown at 11, because we really didn't think we'd ...