Day 94 - Gibbon Sanctuary and the most entertaining public bus ride ever

We walked outside our hostel to take a bus to the Gibbon Sancutary that was just north of Phuket Town. There were a bunch of taxis lined up and ready to take us there. I knew it was accessible by public transit but all the taxi drivers try and convince you that it's not possible and too far away and that it would cost 400B to get there. Even a bus driver took us to the taxi driver who had been trying to convince us that we couldn't get there because he was his "friend". Being someone's "friend" in this country really doesn't mean much here, it could be some random for all I know. It was ridiculous. I was starting to get fed up with people constantly lying to me. Finally a local sitting around watching all this unfold, told us to walk down to the end of the street and catch a bus to a place called Bang Lom which was just a walk from the sanctuary. The bus cost 40B instead of 400B.

This ride was the most entertaining ride on a pubic bus ever. The bus kept stopping to pick up people with all of their boxes and then stopped to pick up all the mail from the post office. All the bags of mail were thrown on top of the bus. I'm sure what my friend sent this morning is currently sitting on the roof of the bus. We continued to pick up locals with large rubbermaid containers and bags of rice. We even picked up the sickliest looking guy I've ever seen. Totally pale and stonefaced with his mouth gaping open, holding onto a photosensitive labpack from the hospital. I'm pretty sure it was his bloodwork. Next we picked up a ladyboy in training who was about 15 years old who was clearly a boy with a stuffed bra and pink wallet.

After about 1 1/2 hours of picking people up and dropping them off, we finally arrived at the end of road to the Gibbon Sanctuary. To get to the sanctuary we had to walk through a forest of rubber trees that they were in the midst of cutting down. Upon arrival to the National park I was surprised by the 200B ($7) entrance fee that was being charged. What the hell? It was a ridiculous amount of money for a National park to charge. Especially a national park in Thailand. Thanks again Lonely Planet for not letting me know.

The sanctuary was started to rehabilitate gibbons back into the wild after they have been rescued from being used and owned illegally as a way to make money through taking photo and performing tricks for tourists. All the gibbons were in cages and were to have as little human contact as possible to allow an easy transition back into the wild. However, some gibbons have contracted diseases such as HIV and hepatitis through being injected with drugs to keep them awake to perform by their owners and are unable to be rehabilitated due to the risk of spreading disease. These animals live out the rest of their lives in captivity with other gibbons with the same disease. This is definitely a place that should be checked out.