Now, I know most of you folk probably won’t find this story too amusing, its kind of topical and somewhat tropical, but here goes anyhow…

During my 5 trips to Thailand in the last couple of years, I have taken many pictures of plants, flowers and things of a botanical nature to help promote Calypso’s new botanical adventures. While doing a photo shoot in Mae Fah Luang Arboretum, located in the Golden Triangle, I took a picture of a curious looking Ficus tree. After reviewing my picture, when I later returned home, I was scratching my head trying to think of a title/caption for this picture. As I was somewhat stumped, I uttered to myself, Oh well…and believe it or not that became the caption/title of this photo.

The story does not end there; whenever I’m on MSN chat with Fatcheek, my friend and collaborator in Bangkok, I almost always start off the cyberconversation with oh well and it seems that this trivial phrase has now become one her favorite expressions as well. Now can you imagine, if this trivial expression is passed on to her circle of friends and they pass it along to their circle of friends, this ‘oh well” phrase could become one of the most popular idiomatic expressions in Thailand.

Many years from now, legend will have it that this ‘oh well phenomenon” started with Hanumann assigning the caption of oh well to the unusual photo of the Ficus Tree. Oh well…

On my last trip to Thailand in Nov 2004, I made the acquaintance of Kung, a delightful young Thai lady in the Kamala beach resort area of Phuket. Note this is the same resort area which was devastated by the Giant Tsunami in late December, but this is another story.

It seems that the young lady took a liking to me; even though she had limited facility with English, I always was able to make her smile and laugh. I invited her for breakfast at my hotel, Kamala Dreams, for three of the four days that I was there. At the breakfast table, I would try to practice my few words of Thai with her. Naturally I had a lot of difficulty with the pronunciation; Thai, as all Asian languages are, is very tonal in nature and as a westerner, the tonalities of the language are very difficult to master. If a cat or dog walked by us, I would point and say Meow (Thai word for cat) and Ma (Thai word for dog) and in general I would ham it up act like the royal monkey that I am. After all, as we all know, Hanuman is Ling Yai ‘the Big Monkey” in Hindu legend and folklore. I would always remind her that I was Ling Yai and point to my head and then flex my bicep and utter ape like noises - Ooh, ooh ooh….

Well, my friend really loved my routine as she would always break out laughing hysterically and proclaim to the young waitress at Kamala Dreams - ’ Hanumann , ting tong , Hanumann , ting tong!”

In English, Ting Tong means madman, insane or lunatic. As Hanumann , I have a big brain and I love to entertain people by playing the clown (or in this case, the big ape). One cannot take life too seriously!

The white nosed coati, the tropical relative of our raccoon, is a very interesting and relative common animal in Costa Rica. Affectionately known as ” the Costa Rican Squirrel”, this creature is commonly found at bird feeders at many eco-resorts getting a free meal. The coati by far, has more charisma and class than the common squirrel and is very acclimatized to human beings.

Driving through the countryside, occasionally one will encounter a mama coati leading her offspring along the shoulder of the highway or sometimes they will even be observed attempting to cross the highway to reach the other side. Kind of risqué though! I guess Mama Coati pays close attention to traffic conditions. Typically, a female coati will have from 4-20 babies in her litter. Now that’s a lot of children to keep track of. And where is Papa Coati in all of this?

When I was driving to the Arenal Botanical Gardens in Costa Rica this past February, I had a most memorable encounter with a Coati Family. On the shoulder of the highway, I sighted a mother Coati leading her 12 or so children along the shoulder of the road. I was tempted to pull my car off the side of the road to take some pictures but I did not take action and continued driving to my destination. Oh well, I missed a fantastic photo shoot, but I still have the memory!

Costa Rica

Hanuman is the most important monkey deity in Hinduism. He’s very powerful, has a very big brain and he likes to be a comedian and entertain people.
Hanuman is the son of the God of Wind and can thus fly through the air. Also, when Hanuman yawns, he exhales suns, moons, and stars.

Of all the exotic, beautiful birds in Costa Rica, this small peace-loving country chose the relatively nondescript Clay Robin as their national bird. Feeding along side the robin is the more flambouyant scarlet-rumped tanager. The Robin was by far the most dominant bird at the feeder as other species seemed intimidated by his presence.

Costa Rica

While I was traveling thru Costa Rica this past February, I stayed a couple of days in the mountain resort of San Gerardo de Dota, about a 2 ½ hours drive southeast of San Jose. Located in the Cierra de la Muerte ‘Death Mountain”, San Gerardo is noted primarily as the place where birders go to observe the spectacularly beautiful Resplendent Quetzal. This beautiful bird, which belongs in the Trogon family, is the national bird of Guatemala and was worshipped in pre-Columbian times by the Aztecs. Believe it or not, Costa Rica’s national bird is the Clay-colored Robin, a relatively nondescript gray robin. Go figure!

On my second day in San Gerardo, I joined a young German couple (both lawyers), on an early morning tour to observe the Quetzal. Ernie, the owner of Trogon Lodge, conducted the tour. Ernie took us to an area where Quetzals are known to feed and nest; as it was the beginning of the nesting season, it was almost “a slam dunk” that we would encounter these spectacular birds. These quetzals feed on wild avocados and live primarily in the cloud forests at elevation 5000-6000 feet above sea level. The quetzals are highly territorial. Ernie got all excited as we found a mated pair of quetzals who were defending their territory against some intruders, a pair of collared trogons, who are more common at slightly lower elevations. The male quetzal especially was quite agitated, displaying as he flew around the periphery of their territory in an effort to scare away the intruders. Needless to say, it was quite an interesting experience!