I have to interrupt the Mongolian stories to give a Thailand update---
--- horrible creatures invade Uttaradit!
Well, not really, but I have had a lot of encounters with the local fauna this week. I've gotten pretty used to the geckos all over the house and the occasional frog or centipede in the kitchen but this week we had a special scorpion guest join us for breakfast one morning. Usually I'm first in the kitchen, but lucky for me, Al was this time, so he had it all taken care of before I came down. hey can't kill you unless you're unlucky enough to have an allergy to its poison but still, I don't want a scorpion sting surprise while I'm getting ready for the day.
Today I finally had a snake encounter, which I knew was just a matter of time. We have a lot of vegetation around our house and we have daily encounters with the things snakes like to eat, so we knew they were around. I like snakes but as there are so many venomous ones here and some rather large ones as well--- I've been wary of them.
I was riding the bike down the main street, near the rice paddies, when what I thought was a stick out of the corner of my eye reared up and struck at me. Of course, on my bike I just whizzed by and tried not to veer into traffic while screaming and trying to get a better look at the thing. I don't know what kind of snake it was, but I'll try to find out. It was as long as some of the large rat snakes I had seen in Kansas and it was a light brown with thin, dark stripes running the length of its body (not around it's body but from it's head, down). From what I've read many do fake strikes before actually biting so I don't know if it had really tried to bite me or not. Yikes! I'd like to think that because of the speed of the bike I had surprised it and that if I had been walking it would have heard/seen me and gone away (at least that's what I have to tell myself since I walk there all the time)!
Anyhoo... another day in Thailand!
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