El maravilloso viaje de Tobi a Vietnam

I uploaded some fotos, unfortunately I just had a few, but they give a pretty good impression of our life here.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53421&l=708f2&id=698210007

After my first night in the center I can say that it was a weird feeling to be the only human being in vicinity, Ok, it was cool to hear the sound of the jungle (mainly the cicadas) while falling asleep, but I was still a little bit overwhelmed of so much responsibility. So I will be glad when Falk comes back in a week and everything went well.
In the morning we worked another time in the garden of the house in the village, where I lived before and will live again.
It seems impossible for me to work in this goddamn garden without getting stung by some insects. This time it was 3 wasps, who thought that I approached too much to their nest. Okay it would also get pretty pissed off when someone handling a huge knife (compared to my size) came close to my house.

After my first night in the center I can say that it was a weird feeling to be the only human being in vicinity, Ok, it was cool to hear the sound of the jungle (mainly the cicadas) while falling asleep, but I was still a little bit overwhelmed of so much responsibility. So I will be glad when Falk comes back in a week and everything went well.
In the morning we worked another time in the garden of the house in the village, where I lived before and will live again.
It seems impossible for me to work in this goddamn garden without getting stung by some insects. This time it was 3 wasps, who thought that I approached too much to their nest. Okay it would also get pretty pissed off when someone handling a huge knife (compared to my size) came close to my house.

Yesterday everyone left to Phong Nha (the release site of the monkeys) and so Ben and I we are the only foreigners here in the center.
Because of this I have to change my room and move into the center to have a look at it till our German animal keeper comes back next week.
At first glance it might seem a little bit too cautious, but we had an incident two weeks ago, when two gibbons disappeared at Hill 2, our open-air enclosure, and another one was found with three gunshot wounds.

This morning we woke up and heard some terrible music, which made me mention that it was as horrible as Modern Talking.
Surprisingly half a minute later we heard the chorus: “ Cherry, cherry lady…”
So in fact it WAS Modern Talking.

Nearly September, so the day of departure is approaches rapidly. Less than 5 weeks and I will go. During that time I’m gonna go to the Ha-Long Bay and also spend one day at Tam Coc, which is less famous, but a lot closer.

At the moment we have a German Film team here in the center, which is making a movie about the release of a group of primate next week.
So yesterday we had a little “party” (or what they call a party here in Cuc Phuong) with free beer and potato chips (or more likely rice chips). Later Ben and I finished the evening with a vodka-cola copa at our terrace. By the way, the vodka is a local brand, and (of course) made of rice. We added some freshly picked lemons to it, so it was terrific. Living in the tropics can be soo cool ;)
Even though Ben might not agree to it, because he is suffering of something we call double M, the mosquito measles. His legs look even worse than mine 3 weeks ago looked.

When Ben moved in the house, things changed a little bit. Especially the quality of food improved; on Wednesday we had spaghetti with cheese sauce and today we are gonna cook a vegetable pan. Who is now surprised that I want to cook a something WITHOUT meat, hasn’t seen the meat they sell here on the market. It lies all the day in the sun (as no one has a fridge) and is usually covered with flies and other insects. For that reason we decided to cook vegetarian, at least when we cook for ourselves.

On Monday the center will be really deserted, because most guys leave for the release ceremony. So it’ll be just Ben, me and our Vietnamese keepers. Our manager Tilo will stay away for nearly three weeks, so we’ll have Ben’s farewell party already tomorrow, two weeks before his departure.