We spent just a few days in Bangkok to get thorough proper medical attention since the healthcare in India isn’t worth shit, you may as well go to McDonalds and ask for an operation, at least their prices do not change on an hourly basis. It was good to be back in Thailand at least now we could eat food without fear of bacteria infections.
Decided to fly down to Phuket and avoid the gruelling 10 hour bus journey from hell that we experienced early November. We have been doing so well to avoid flying everywhere, but there is a point that you say no more buses, and in Thailand, this has to be said. Flight was fine and we were picked up at the airport by Song, one of the staff at the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project (GRP). The staff are so friendly and made us feel right at home.
Over the next 5-6 days we were trained at the quarantine section, rehabilitation and education centre. The work is really interesting, caring for the gibbons that have been treated badly by humans in their early years.
The GRP centre is typically receives gibbons when they are about 5 or 6 years of age from people that try and keep these wild animals as pets or the organised syndicates that use gibbons as tourist attractions in bars restaurants or as photo opportunities along the street. Gibbons are very cute and tame when they are young, but soon become aggressive when they reach their sexual maturity around the age of 5 or 6 years. It is at this point their illegal owners can no longer control them and they are given to the centre. However, more than often the gibbons are badly treated by humans that do not understand their sudden change in behaviour.
When the gibbons first arrive, they are kept in the quarantine section for around 6 months. This time is taken to monitor behaviour patterns in the presence of other gibbons, dietary needs and to test for diseases such as Hep A & B. These diseases are not typically found in wild gibbons, but the street peddlers inject their pet gibbons with amphetamines to keep them awake in the evening for human entertain in bars and restaurants. Gibbons normally go to sleep in the late afternoon till dawn, but this is no use for the individuals that continue to make a living from keeping gibbons as tourist attractions, hence the injection of drugs using used needles. There are 16 gibbons in quarantine, two of which are Hep B positive and will sadly go no further in the rehabilitation project, but all is said, their life now is much more comfortable and they are well looked after.
Once a gibbon has the all clear, they can be moved to the rehabilitation centre which is location in the Bang Pae Waterfall national park, close to the muslin village of Khao Pra Thaew on Phuket. This is a protected forest, one of the last in Thailand, and the GRP was given a piece of land in 1992 to set up the programme. In rehab, the gibbons are kept in cages and over a period of years are paired off to start families. If successful, the families are slowly moved up higher into the forest away from human visitors to the education centre. This process is used to teach the gibbons how to be gibbons again and not really on human contact. Typically, it will take between 6-7 years to successfully pair gibbons and start a family. Once this have been completely, the family will be released into the forest, but feed from an open cage for a further 12 months. Slowly, the gibbons food ration is decreased to ensure the gibbons forage for themselves and eventually move away from the cage to claim territory of their own. To date four families with 16 gibbons have been successfully released into the wild with a further two new born babies in December 2009. When you see these gibbons high up in the tree canopies, knowing what they have been through and the time it has taken to rehabilitate them, you get a real sense of happiness in the work you do at the gibbon rehabilitation centre.
Our month at the gibbon project went so quickly as it was one of the most enjoyable times we had so far on our trip. The month was rounded off in a strange way as our last day we were documented by the discovery channel for a show called Animal Asia or something similar. Mariana declined the offer to star in this programme and nominated me for the task, so for about 4 hours I took the crew around the rehab centre and into the forest to show them all the good work the centre does. At one point that did film Mariana with the ‘poo’ stick, but we will wait and see how this comes out on the dvd.
We are seriously considering going back to the project in the near future as they made us so welcome and we felt like one big family. All the other volunteers were similar minded people who are sick of being told what they should do, so instead pack their bags and enjoy the freedom of travelling.
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