Re: OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- From: jXwXeXrXmXoXnXt@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 06 Apr 2006 14:26:42 GMT
Good luck on your trip!! Whee, it's here! :)
Joyce
badwilson <badSPAMwilson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We are so organized! Rented a house in Margaret River
(the town we're going to be living in in Australia). I hope it's not
a mistake to rent a house sight unseen, but I saw plenty of pictures
and had a guy I know in town look at it. We were happy with it
because it has a fully fenced back yard with a very high solid wood
fence. This way we can let Vino out during the day when we're at
home. This is his greatest wish and it would make us happy to see
him be able to get some outdoor time in a safe manner.
Now that everything's done and organized, we had some time
to go out and do touristy things. Yesterday afternoon, we went
up to Penang Hill, the mountain in the middle of the island.
You take a funicular up to the top and it's so far that you actually
have to change cars halfway up. The top is about 2300 feet
above sea level and was a good 5C cooler. Which brought it
from a sweltering 36 degrees to a barely tolerable 31.
There was a large group of monkeys playing around on the tracks,
but they all ran off into the trees when the funicular went by.
We had a little lunch of fried noodles and beer at the top, and
then we walked around checking out the view. Got some pictures
of the Hindu temple and of the Mosque too.
There is a hotel and we walked through it to check out the view
from the front. They had some nice gardens that grew up in vines
on an arbor of sorts. I was taking a picture of this hanging flower
which was an amazing blue green colour, when a hotel employee
came up and said: "Those snakes are alive, you know!"
I was like "Huh! What snakes?". Suddenly Dennis grabbed me
and pulled me inside. He pointed and suddenly I noticed that I had
been standing right below a pit viper in the vines a foot above my
head! Altogether there were 3 pit vipers in the area. Those are
extremely poisonous! I was practically shaking, I couldn't believe
it. Turns out they are the "pets" of the hotel and supposedly not
aggressive, but still! I stayed inside and Dennis got a few pictures.
We left the hotel and walked around a bit, went a few km's down
the road and saw a few old British colonial houses, kind of Tudor
style-ish. With hedges around and all that. So weird seeing that
in this tropical setting!
On the way back down in the funicular, the group of monkeys re-
appeared and chased the car a little ways down the tracks. I got
a picture, very cute!
Today we drove about an hour south on the mainland to this big
eco park. They had this island which has orangutans on it. They
are transplanted from Borneo and they are raising a bunch of babies
that had been abandoned by their mothers for various reasons.
We got tons of pics of cute baby orangutans, they really are the
most adorable creatures. So much like humans! We learned
a lot about orangutans and their plight in the wilds of Borneo and
Sumatra.
Then we went to this wildlife reserve that had all sorts of other
animals. There was this bear cat which looked quite vicious but
then a handler brought one out for us to play with and it behaved
exactly like a house cat. It was the size of 2 or 3 house cats, but it
just wanted to play and rolled over on it's back, baring it's belly
and batting our hands. It was black and had an extremely long and
thick tail.
In one area there were some really big iguanas blocking our path
and we ended up having to take the long way around instead of
stepping over them. We also went into a snake enclosure. It was
creepy in there, it was kind of dark and they had all these discarded
snake skins hanging from the ceiling. The creepiest part about the
snakes was that we positively identified the snake that came out of
our kitchen ceiling in Thailand. It was a common cobra. Oh. My.
God. It's a good thing I didn't know that before! But there was really
no doubt about it, it was the same snake. Brown on the back and
white belly. The scales had the same size and look and everything
was the same. Am I ever glad I'll never have to go back to that
house!!!
There was also an area with waterslides at this park, but we were
starving and decided to skip it and have dim sum instead. All in all,
a fun, but freaky, couple of days!
Tomorrow morning we take Vino to the state vet to have a check
up and a worming treatment and some Frontline. We are also
meeting with the cargo guy from the airline and hope to be able
to talk him into letting us show up with Vino a bit later than 3:15 am
on Monday morning.
In the afternoon, some friends are driving down from Southern Thailand
and we'll be hanging out with them for the weekend. That should be
fun.
This is my last update from Asia. Watch this space for Australia
updates :-)
--
Britta
--
To reply privately, take the X's out of my user ID.
.
- References:
- OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- From: badwilson
- OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- Prev by Date: Re: OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- Next by Date: Re: OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- Previous by thread: Re: OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- Next by thread: Re: OT - Last Asian Update (Long)
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
