May Lunatic cover story

The LUNATIC Magazine May Cover Story combines hygiene and monkeys.  We do not have a picture of the German tourist who made this month's cover, but believe me he deserves the honor.

Bako National Park in Malaysia has a canteen where the people staying in the park can buy bottled water and their meals.  Of course, the outdoor tables attract some of the park's wild boars and monkeys.  There are signs posted everywhere that say "look out for wild animals", "do not feed the monkeys and pigs" and the Malay equivalent of Yosemite's "a fed bear is a dead bear" mantra.

We did not see anyone feeding the animals, but problem monkeys and scavenger pigs do prowl the canteen outskirts from time to time. 

At breakfast on the third day we were there, we had our first encounter with a "problem monkey".

Apart from his (there is no doubt as to which sex any macaque monkey is) taking a crap on one of the tables, our problem monkey was climbing beams, dashing under chairs, dodging the slingshots of park staff, making noise and attracting the attention of everyone.

The park staff was successful in scaring the monkey out of the immediate dinning area.  We went back to eating our breakfast and one of the staff got some tissue to erase all traces of the problem monkey incident.  The guy with the tissue did not look like the cook.  He for sure was not the cashier and I did not care to look any further into the matter because we had already eaten most of breakfast by then and he sure did not wash up after handling monkey poo.

It was a few minutes later when an older German tourist walked into the canteen.  He got two hard boiled eggs, two pieces of toast, and two bananas. (this spread cost him around a dollar fifty)

He placed his plate on the table next to ours and went to get a cup of coffee. 

As soon as he was ten steps away from his plate, the problem macaque was back.  As fast as snakes, the monkey was over his chair and on the table.  He grabbed the two bananas, placed a piece of toast under his arm and turned to make a get away. 

The  German tourist was pretty quick for an old guy and got back to the table in time to make the monkey drop the toast and scamper away.  In the confusion, the monkey knocked the eggs onto the floor, but did manage to get away with the bananas.

What happened next is what has earned the German tourist the cover of this Month's Lunatic.

The guy picked the eggs up of the floor and placed them back on his plate along with the toast that the monkey dropped from under his arm onto the table.  He went and got the coffee that he originally started for and two more bananas. He then sat down, peeled his floor eggs, ate his monkey armpit toast and sipped his coffee.  I do not know if the man got to the bananas, we had to leave after seeing him (Seeing him!!) eat the toast.

Because of this grown man's complete lack of healthy eating practices, he earns the May cover of Lunatic Magazine. 

I am not sure if the monkey had any lasting health problems because that tourist had touched his food, but I can imagine that the fella might benefit from a stool test upon his return to Germany. 

Paul

Leeches or Mosquitos?

What's worse?  This is a topic Paul and I have been discussing lately.  I was horrified when a close friend suggested that leeches were preferable, but I've come to agree.  Leech bites are more predictable, leeches are more obvious, and leeches don't carry nasty diseases.  on the other hand leech bites are pretty ugly...... Our thought for the day ~ Jen

Universal Sign for Crocodile?

It's really important to know whether there are crocodiles in the river nearby.  Over the last month I've seen people from all over the world try find out and I've discovered there is a cross-cultural sign for crocodile.  You know what it is if you think about it.... ~ Jen

No Booze

You don't need booze to have a good time.  As true today as when my high school health teacher, Coach Gresseto, said it so many years ago.

The debate here is about the differrence between need, would like, see no practical reason for not, and was designed for.

We are in a very dry very muslim area of malaysia right now at a beach resort.
We are having a very good time and there is not a drop of booze to be had. 
  I would like to have a beer or two with my beautiful sunset dinner on the beach.
  I can see no practical reason for there not being drinks at the beachfront restaurants and coffee areas that populate the island strip. 
  The place was designed for drinks as much as was any strip of palm thatched beachfront eating and drinking establishments anywhere else in the world, yet the sky would fall if anyone were to crack open a coors around here. 
  People have built areas where drinks would be served (if there were any), but they have decided to fill those areas with small cake displays and coffee services.
   The areas are so like bars in everyway except for the most important.  There are even dartboards and pool tables in these areas.  You could hustle a few eclairs out of a guy for kicks, but then what?  "Hey how about playing for a cream custard longjohn this time?"

  The areas are close enough to have fooled me into sitting down more than once.  I know how geese feel when they land in a big blacktop parking lot that, from the air, they have surely mistaken for a lake.

Got to go. They have line dancing in the cake and coffee area after dinner at a spot on the south end of the strip.  Hope it is not too late of a night.

Paul

Shark.

Jen and I just spent three days snorkeling and the highlight of the effort was the four foot reef shark that we saw.  Jen saw one on the first day. Day two we saw some small ones and then on day three we both saw a biggie like the one Jen saw on day one.  In addition to the sharks we also saw big parrot fish, tons of colorful reef dwelling fish, a giant cowfish, mating puffer fish, a titan trigger, big conchs, and a sea turtle.  I have yet to see a can of coors, and I was hoping that with all of the bigger than usual things we were seeing the past few days, I would happen on a frosty one, but it has yet to happen.

Malay wildlife hide

When jen and I heard that they were going to send a married couple to Mars, we both thought of the togetherness that we have been experiencing during our travels.

Tonight we are spending the night in what amounts to a deer blind in one of Malaysias national parks.  The place is built to sleep twelve, but if our luck holds for another hour or so, we will have the place to ourselves.  The blind overlooks a salt lick and we are hoping for tapir or better on this stormy evening.

The evening should be like a couples retreat if we play things right.  Guys usually go to deer blinds to get some alone time.  I am glad jen is with me.  It was her idea to come and with two people we have a better shot at seeing animals.  The storm has the heat down and we are both better off for that.  It was a sweaty walk out here and if the temp stays, we just might get some sleep tonight.

...Turns out that we did get the blind to ourselves.  We saw a boar this morning and most of our clothes are dry for the sweaty walk back.  One rat woke us up, but we did not lose any food to him.  Not having company was a plus.  We got to play scrabble and talk and just hang around.  It rained almost the whole night and our metal roof told us how hard.  Phoenix dwellers seldom get to hear roof rain.  In the tent rain noise puts me into fits.  Under a solid roof there is something comforting about
it.  It reminded me of being really young and listening with my parents as we heard a memorial day at the pool turn into a game of monopoly.  Also it reminded me of being at work as a lifeguard and hearing an easy day and getting sent home early.  Drips through the roof sound horrible, but rain on the roof and the leisure it brings sounds good to everybody who has one over them. ~ Paul
Here is a photo of the hide, part of crazy long column of marching ants, and what I think is a giant millipede.  ~ Jen

Malaysia 639

It seems that when you get too many complaints against your bus driving ability, the Malaysia state bus company places you on the 639 route.  639 is the route that delivers tourists to the Perhentian Islands.  I am sure that some clever administrator figured that since tourists were in general not repeat customers and did not know how to lodge formal complaints anyway, moving problem drivers to the 639 route was a win win.  At least a win, problem solved.

We had a driver on the way there that we thought was bad on account of his complete inefficiency.  He stopped the bus mid route to talk to a friend for a full 15 minutes.  This was after he had us sitting on the bus for an hour waiting for a lady friend of his to show up.   We were on the two thirty pm departure and the four thirty spent more than three quarters of the entire 50 mile route following directly behind us in traffic.

On the way back, things turned from inefficient to downright dangerous.  We hit a goat.  Regardless, we did not stop and making a big deal about the driver charging us 7 malay ringet a piece for the 6 ringett fare would have been a waste of time.  30 cents is hardly worth fighting a killer who can kick you off the bus.

The dangerous part was that the guy was clearly dozing at the wheel and doing all the tricks that tired drivers do to stay awake.  He squirmed in his chair ala Stevie Wonder, clapped his hands loudly at various intervals, sang songs to himself, turned the radio on for us all to hear, stopped and ran around the bus, and finally used the two extra ringets snaked from us to buy a cold coconut shake.  To his credit, we did not swerve out of the lines.  Still, clearly our hot sleepy tired afternoon nap approaching bus driver was worse than our inefficient chatty bus driver.  The drivers we had on all of the other lines have not been noteworthy.  Not noteworthy is what I am looking for in a bus driver from now on.

Pictures from Last Week in Thailand

We spent our last week in Thailand camping at a marine reserve, relaxing and snorkelling twice a day.  We saw lots of eels, a pink and white lobster, and lots of clown fish (nemos) in addition to loads of other types of fish.  We also saw monkeys, a new type of hornbill, trogons, and a monitor lizard.  The big news of the week was waking up to a foot-long tokay gecko on the ceiling of our tent.  (We had the door open because it was hot.)  The gecko ran into a tent pocket and we were obliged to leave him there until he left on his own accord.  I did get a picture of him on the tree next to our tent the next day.  After crossing into Malaysia we ended up in Penang and are now headed to another island to do some more snorkelling.  After that we head to a national park to do some hiking, so we may not have reliable internet for the next week or so.  Hope all is well with all of you.