Geckos galore

©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

One of the joys of the tropics are all the friendly and sometimes not so friendly creatures that want to share your days and nights with you. Geckos are the best and centipedes, spiders, scorpions, mosquitoes and cockroaches are the worst. Here in our bungalow on Koh Chang we have very few mosquitoes, only one poisonous centipede in the bathroom and no cockroaches but oodles of geckos and one big tokay gecko. The geckos make their own sound that is a little bit like their local names ching-chong or chick-chack but the large, colourful tokay has it's own distinct mating call - a tight, high pitched tok - kay, tok - kay, tok - kay from which it gets it's name. The sound is repeated and if you hear it speak 7-8 times some say it means good luck. The tokay gecko is the second largest gecko species, nocturnal and native to SE Asia. They are looked upon positively by most people in Asia, so much so that the Chinese consume them for medicinal purposes. They feed on the many small insects and rodents that might want to pester you, so please welcome them. But they do poop a lot!

Illustration: Drawing of a gecko (with only four fingers, they actually have five) that my son Burton and I did together, painted, then fooled with in the computer.