Runaway Gibbon - 1980 Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand I spent half a year in 1980 as a volunteer at a refugee camp for Laotians in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. That’s me on the motorcycle. The project was sponsored by a religious charity so we were put up in a rundown house next to where a missionary was living. The place had no glass in the windows so we slept under mosquito nets. The property had 2 primates, a macaque and a gibbon, each tethered with a very long rope to their own tree. The gibbon and the macaque were actually guards and raised an unbelievable racket when any unknown person or animal, like a water buffalo, came onto the grounds. They were wonderful and friendly and I am sad I didn’t see them returned to the wild or a sanctuary but this was 41 years ago and attitudes were different. One day the rope with the gibbon got tangled so I was trying to fix it when he decided this was his chance. Now I would have preferred him to be free but I would then have been in even more trouble. So I started chasing the gibbon. The odds were not in my favor. Gibbons are excellent climbers and live their lives in trees. So I was outclassed but I did my best; clambering over rooftops, across roads and up and down trees. The chase came to a conclusion when the gibbon ended up on the grounds of the nearby Wat (Buddhist Temple). A friendly monk caught our runaway and, with a big smile and a laugh, he was returned to the tree. I had seen wild gibbons when on Borneo so I already admired them but this increased my admiration. I have become an advocate for these amazing primates and am so glad sanctuaries are now there for monkeys and apes. I also gained a whole new appreciation for gibbons after my chase up and down a neighborhood in Ubon Ratchathani! #Story #RunawayGibbon #1980 #UbonRatchathani #Thailand #Wat #Gibbon #GuardianPrimates #Ape #GibbonApe #Macaque #VolunteerExperience #UbonRatchathaniThailand The 2 photo on the left are mine the gibbon is a stock photo from Pixabay and is a photo of a wild gibbon. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKswaH0laZ5/?igshid=2t7gsprpfweu
