My uncle and the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project

After all the rain in Koh Phi Phi I unfortunately left early and wasn't able to see anything. A little rain, no big deal. But when it's dumping, time to move on. I have been in Phuket for the last four days staying in Surin Beach which is north of Patong. The reason I wanted to spend time in Phuket is because my uncle (my Mom's older brother) had lived here for several years before his untimely death 11 years ago. I wanted to come see where he lived especially because he pioneered something of great significagance- The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. If traveling here, you will find it on the Phuket map and mentioned in the Lonely Planet.

This project was started in 1992 by my Uncle Terry (aka TD Morin), and instead of plagerizing, it might be easier for you to read this quick one pager:
http://www.phuketmagazine.com/html/Environment/Gibbon%20Rehab%20Centre.htm




Ok so now hopefully you have a bit of the background. The GRP is now run by volunteers and with no help from the government, it is completely reliant on donations from the public. Let's hope the donations are all going to the right place because like many developing countries, Thailand has an extremely high level of corruption.

The other day I visited the project and from the bottom of the trail I could hear the gibbons yelling (they call it singing). You can only get so close to them as the volunteers are careful not to have them interact too much with humans, including themselves, as it is harder to release them back into the wild. One gibbon doesn't sing at all as his previous owner had trained him not to and now he can't mate or go back into the wild. Most gibbons are grabbed from their mother when they are babies because it is easier to train them and the mother is then killed. Other gibbons get killed when they get too big to be cute. Some get badly beaten for insubordination or for biting humans, to the point of limbs being amputated. Hey I know it is not what you want to read but it is true. Just like some of them have herpes, Hep A and B and the volunteers have no clue how they have gotten those diseases.

When my uncle arrived in Phuket in the late 80's he discovered that instead of hearing the gibbons singing in the jungle, they were at bars and restaurants (i.e. pet the monkey for a dollar). He and two others developed a project and had a hard time getting it continuously funded until finally it achieved success. Now it has been taken over by W.A.R. (Wild Animal Rescue), whose merits the jury is out on. I can say for myself that the facility looked good and the gibbons were well looked after and that is the most important. I am very proud that he took the initiative to get these animals out of bars and restaurants and back to the jungle. He and his collegues definitely made a difference and a contribution.

I thought I would try to meet some friends of his while I was here. I heard about this Aussie ex-pat that went by the name Diver that had a little bar on Surin Beach. So I had a taxi drop me off before the sunset so I wouldn't be roaming around in the dark and happened upon a bunch of ex-pats sitting around a table drinking beers.

Sure enough, one of them was Diver and upon realizing I was a relative of his old friend, he immediately welcomed me into the group. Within 5 minutes they found me a place to stay. This guy Diver is a legend for continously pulling people out of the surf, I guess he has done about 150 saves. Which is miraculous because he always has a beer in his hand. I reckon he wakes up at about beer thirty, drives on his motorbike to his bar and then goes for a swim. He gets yelled at by his Thai wife Bani and as soon as she is done scolding him (and she should because I doubt he did what she told him to do), his friends show up for happy hour. He hangs out in his banana hammock (don't know the proper name for that swimsuit) until it gets dark and then dresses up in Addidas shorts. They continue to tell the dumbest jokes until they all go home and do it again the next day. Livin' the dream, I tell ya. He was friends with my uncle for years and lived with him for a period of time. Every time he introduced me to people as his relative, people had either heard of or met him which was cool.

My visa is running out so I need to go out of the country and come back in. So next up is Siem Reap, Cambodia. For more info on the GRP, please visit http://www.gibbonproject.org/.