Chickens and Geckos and Frogs Oh My!

Images Resized for User Friendlyness ... When I returned back to the United States -- back to the suburbs of Cincinnati after a year in rural Thailand -- I thought that I would have trouble sleeping because of the lack of nearby chickens. Seriously.

See, I lived in a small town called Kranuan, about an hour or so northeast of Khon Kaen and smack in the middle of the region that's known as Isan (and more on that some other time, lest I wander too far off topic). The town has two stoplights, just got a Big C supermarket a year or so ago -- replete with a KFC! -- and took about 10 minutes or so to traverse by bicycle -- five if the lights were green.

In short: really tiny, but nice.

The resident cock of the walk ...

I lived in the center of town, which also happened to be right next door to a guy that raised chickens. Now lots of people raise chickens in rural Thailand, but I didn't mind them, even when they started cock-a-doodle-doing at 4 a.m. In fact, after a week or two, I didn't even notice. Slept right through it most of the time, and just rolled over and went back to sleep the rest.

Fortunately, what with jet lag and whatnot, I didn't think too much about the chickens when I finally came home. Looking back though, it was nice to get up and hear then crowing me off to school every morning as I bicycled away.

Imagine this little dude if he grows into those big-ass feet ...

Then, of course, there were the myriad other creatures living nearby. There were a number of other types of birds besides chickens, of which this was one:

Then frogs (toads?) of many sorts, of which we have two:

The common ... house frog? These guys are nearly as ubiquitous as the geckos; they are all over Southeast Asia.

Spider frog (toad?)

Lizards, of course:

Assorted bugs, including this praying mantis on top of my bike lock (which I probably didn't need):

And this dragon fly, which isn't quite in focus, dammit:

During the rainy season you get a lot of these:

And let us not forget the umpteen bejillion geckos, of which this is one:

Bark bark bark bark!

There are of course all sorts of critters I didn't get on "film," as it were, such as that possum -- or its Thai equivalent; I never got a good look -- who got in my garbage every once in a while (I had a few pictures of him, but they were just blurry shots of his butt as he ran away). Then there was the tokay that I often head looking for love after the sun went down, but never actually saw him. So we will conclude with this shot of a tokay from my first sojourn to Thailand, way back in 2010:

He was a beaut. About a foot long and just hanging out on the ceiling one night.

Okay, that's all for now. But next time "we have no bananas ..."