Gecko, gecko, on the wall…

Vientiane doesn’t have a lot to offer in terms of wildlife…except for of what some might call the “creepy crawly” variety.

Huntsman spiders are more common than I’d like, a bit too large for comfort, and unfortunately seem to like to hang out in bathrooms–perhaps the last place one would like to be surprised.  They’re much preferable to scorpions, however, which exist here but seem to be relatively rare (I saw one while driving once and a coworker had one in her house).

When I first arrived, I delighted at the abundance of geckoes in my life here.  They’re literally everywhere, inside and outside the house.  Most people here seem to be squeamish when it comes to geckoes.  In response to the icebreaker question “What scares you?” numerous students have mentioned that they’re afraid of them.  They can be disarming at times–I’ve found them hanging dead by several fingers from the ceiling, or scrambling to get out of my bathtub when I turn on the lights, and they’ve fallen onto my leg while motorbiking at night.  Small gecko turds are unpleasant, but commonplace…on my desk, in my bathroom, underfoot in the house when I least expect it.  And the chirps are a new sound to add to the ordinary ambient nature sounds, but I find them charming, and am still happy to see geckoes around the house.  After all, they eat the dengue-ridden mosquitoes.

Caught in the act of wreaking havoc on my room.

There are two main varieties of geckoes–the little, chirpy ones that scamper around the kitchen, and the large, spotted characters that say their name, gap-gay, gap-gay–if they chirp nine times, it’s lucky–and glare intimidatingly from the porch.  I had one of the latter making mayhem in my room for a few days last week, knocking things off my desk, until I finally spotted him in a corner one evening.  We haven’t seen each other since, and the frequency of the jumbo-sized gecko poops on the floor seems to be decreasing.

My, what a long body you have…

On Sunday, I encountered the most disturbing wild visitor to the house thus far.  I innocently strolled into my room, looked up at my wardrobe, which I was preparing to pack up (I’m moving this week), and…meter-long snake!  We stared each other down.  I ran out of the room and ran back in.  Snake was still there.  Luckily my landlady was here with some gardeners, so I ran out for some assistance.  What does one do when faced with a three-foot long snake in the bedroom?  They came to my rescue, while screaming themselves.  The bamboo stick they brought to throw the snake out the window with ended up turning into a bludgeon, and the snake didn’t leave the room alive.  I was a bit upset, as execution wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I couldn’t exactly complain when I was the one standing on my bed.  And my room is now a safer space.  Afterward, the landlady told me that finding a snake in the house is considered lucky in Laos, so I should buy a lottery ticket.  Lucky me.