Geckos

Geckos are a large family of mostly smaller lizards. They live in warmer countries around the globe, particularly in the tropes. About 1,500 species of geckos exist, the largest of them grow up to around 40cm, as the tokay gecko. All the geckos have in common the peculiar ability to climb up walls and windows and can even walk along ceilings in a considerable speed. They are mostly nocturnal and feed from insects as mosquitoes, flies, ants and take advantage of electric light in and around buildings where insects are attracted to.

The characteristic sound, where the geckos have their name from, comes clearly from the tokay gecko. In countries like Thailand, Laos and Cambodia one can hear the ‘ge-koh – ge-koh – ge-koh’ often several times a day in rural surroundings. In many places where I personally stayed while travelling Southeast Asia a tokay gecko lived and came out at dusk. The smaller, more common geckos who appear in a larger number utter another noise. It’s rather a quiet, chirping sound.

Another peculiarity is that the geckos do not have eyelids. They clean their eyes sometimes with their tongue, what moistens them as well.

When being under attack the geckos can detach their tail. The tail then is still waggling hectically for a while, still showing the stress the animal was under, and maybe distracting the attacking predator from the main body.

Cats love to catch geckos and to eat them. I know a cat which caught a tokay gecko and ate him – only the tail was left. Other potential enemies for the geckos are birds, snakes and other, bigger lizards and rats.

Lizards in general have many teeth. Geckos for example have some 100 teeth, and they fall out and get replaced every three to four months. That reminds to their ‘big brother’, the crocodile.

Many kinds of geckos are bright and colourful, but the most common geckos in Southeast Asia are not – they are pale and inconspicious.

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This is only a part of the richly illustrated article ‘Geckos in Southeast Asia’. Read here the whole article on Gecko.

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Garuda

A Garuda is a mystical animal in the Hindu religion. Garuda is a bird, or half bird half human, equipped with supernatural attributes. In the Hindu mythology the Garuda is the vehicle for the god Vishnu. Garuda is also an antagonist of the nagas, the mystical snakes who frequently appear in the Hindu cosmos – and in Buddhist temples.

The Garuda came to Southeast Asia with the early Indian cultures. In later centuries, when Buddhism was introduced in Angkor and the early Thai civilizations, the old Hindu mythology wasn’t abolished but rather combined or intermixed with the new, more sober Buddhist teachings.

The origin of the Garuda in nature is presumably an eagle. As the eagle in many western countries, the Garuda is used as an emblem for powerful institutions as in the military or as state symbols in Indonesia and Thailand.

So, the Garuda is the emblem of the Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand. Garuda Indonesia is the biggest Indonesian airline. Garudas are also appearing often in temples, Hindu as well as Buddhist.

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Cats in Southeast Asia

It’s said that housecats live together with humans since a long, long time. Almost since 10,000 years already. That’s about since the end of the last ice age. Probably it comes together with the first sedentariness. Nomads couldn’t move with cats.

The cats in Southeast Asia have, except of some well treated pets of the middle-class, normally a much harder life than in Western countries. The ordinary people don’t care much for their animals. They let them do what they want, so long they don’t bother them.

They don’t see the animals as pets, rather as livestock. There is normally no birthcontrol done, and many of the young kittens die because they lack food and medical care. The lack of medical care is also a problem for older cats. Many of them get worms, lice and scabies. In bad cases the cats loose parts of their fur and eventually even die. Many of the neglected cats become strayers.

It’s not seldom the case that kittens are taken away from their mothers much too early and given away (or being abandoned, though normally not killed. Thai People don’t like to kill, they probably think they would spoil their ‘kharma’ by doing so). Cat’s who were taken away from their mothers too early have the trait to suck on one’s arms or fingers. They also have the tendency to develop less well (in size and health) than kittens who were fed by their mothers at least for two months.

What’s also remarkable about the cats in Southeast Asia is the fact, that many of them have crippled tails. I have heared many stories about that. Some people say, kids play with them and break the tailes. My Thai neighbour told me, Thai People would break the tailes for gaining good luck, particularly money. Thay maybe happens sometimes, but it’s not explaining the phenomenon. I saw that some cats are born with crippled tails. It must be genetically.

It’s also the case that sometimes cats end up in the cooking pot. It’s much more common for dogs, but cats are sometimes eaten by people as well. Especially in the poor, rural parts of Southeast Asian countries.

Cats are feeding almost exclusively from meat. There is no other mammal which diet is that much specialized on meat than that of cats. Additionally they eat sometimes a bit grass. Southeast Asian people give their cats food remains from their own food, what includes much rice. Being hungry, cats eat rice mixed with sauce and a bit of fish or meat, but if there is nothing else they even feed of pure white rice.

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Crocodiles in Southeast Asia

Crocodiles appear in many tropical and subtropical countries around the globe. They are a very old species, means there happened relatively little change with them within the last two hundred million years. They are related to the extinct dinosaurs; their evolutionary development split up from that of the dinosaurs about 250 million years ago.

Crocodiles are also the origin of the Chinese dragons, a fable animal which appears frequently in Chinese and other Buddhist temples, but also in all-day-live as wallpapers, pictures in restaurants, souvenirs and so on. The ‘invention’ of dragons dates back 2,200 years to a civilization at the Yangze River; the dragon ‘long’ was a first, central example in the Chinese culture.

The dragon ‘long’ is a Chinese ‘import’ to Southeast Asia. Originally the crocodile was, respectively is, revered, if not worshiped, in several Southeast Asian cultures, particularly in nowadays Indonesia and Malaysia. In the Dayak and Kayan tribal cultures on Borneo crocodiles play a role, other examples are established in east and west Timor, Luzon, New Guinea and the Philippines.

Crocodiles generally played an important role in human cultural history; another prominent example is the ancient Egyptian culture, where images appear who show human-crocodile hybrides. Cultural influence of crocodiles imply generally awe of the big and dangerous animals.

Since the crocodiles are under permanent pressure by being hunted by humans, they barely reach the huge sizes as they did in the past. That’s between 1,20m and up to more than 6m length. Fossils of extinct kinds of crocodiles show that they reached up to twelve meters; the largest reported crocodile ever hunted extended more than eight meters. They grow over their whole live, but in an decreasing speed as older they get. Their physical structure is perfectly adapted to a live in the water.

The grand lizards feed from other animals, smaller and bigger, particularly fish and other lizards, but also land animals as mammals and birds. It appears not seldom that adults eat their own kids or juveniles. When they caught a bigger land animal they squeeze it with their teeth and drown it in the water. They spin around themselves with the prey in their snout to tear parts of it out and swallow it. Smaller animals they swallow in one piece. Saltwater crocodiles can even kill water buffaloes; then some crocodiles attack together.

As adults the crocodiles do not have natural enemies exept humans, but as youngsters they can become the prey of bigger birds, wild pigs, other mammals as tigers and more wild cats, phytons or monitor lizards (varans).

Humans hunt crocodiles since very ancient times. Basically crocodile meat makes good food and is an excellent protein resource. In Southeast Asia and China many parts of the crocodile are used for medical (traditional Chinese medicine) or magic purposes. The use of crocodile leather is a relative new phenomenon which dates back to the 19th century.

On the other hand do crocodiles attack humans. It happens particularly at riverbanks or lake- and seashores or when people having a bath and crocodiles are around.

The nowadays living 25 different kinds of crocodiles are separated into three families. It’s the real crocodiles, the aligators and the gharials. The Saltwater Crocodile and the Siamese Crocodile are both real crocodiles. There are no aligators living in Southeast Asia.

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People: Henri Mouhot

Travelling in the 19th century was by no means comparable to nowadays. There was for example almost no roadnet in the Siam/Thailand of the time. Even the capital Bangkok didn’t have a single decent road in 1858, only some dirt tracks along the many canals (klongs), who served as the main transport network.

Mouhot’s first trip then, after being introduced into the Western society in Bangkok and an invitation from king Mongkut of Siam, was a boattrip the Chao Phraya River upwards to visit the ruins of Siam’s former and legendary capital Ayutthaya. The worst thing he describes were the mosquitoes who were around in great amounts at day and night.

Ayutthaya was an easy starter for travelling inner Indochina, because it is close to Bangkok and was already known by Westerners. After coming back to Bangkok he prepared for a second journey along the coasts east of Bangkok, travelling via Chantaburi passing by Koh Kong on boat and entering the port of Kampot. I placed three quotations on the Kampot page where he described the place and met the king of Cambodia in an audience.

After visiting Kampot Mouhot travelled the land road to Phnom Penh and Udong, where he met the second king of Cambodia in another audience. Next he visited some mountain tribes somewhat riverupwards the Mekong River. In one of his letters to the Royal Geographical Society he describes the area as close to Laos and Vietnam. That sounds much for the area what is now Ratanakiri. He spent two month among the Stieng people, apparently one of the hill tribes, before he turned to Angkor. Mouhot spent only three weeks in Angkor and went on then via Battambang back to Bangkok.

Mouhot, Henri:
Travels in the central parts of Indochina,
London 1864
Volume I and II

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