Critters we have met

Fricking tourists.

For me, one of the highlights of travelling is getting up close to all the odd animals they have in different parts of the world. The past few weeks have been great for that. As well as the giant spider, camels, fox and elephants mentioned already, we've had to give way to water buffalo in Laos, avoid the dozens of peacocks wandering outside the royal palace in Dubai, and been rather nauseated by the menu in a Vietnamese restaurant. Civet and pangolin? Aren't they endangered?! Thıs was the same restaurant that served crocodile - which I do not recommend, unless you like your meat fattier than Homer Simpson.

My favourite animal encounter happened at a park in Bangkok. We were sitting reading our books when we saw something moving in the water that wasn't a fish.

Then, as Agatha Christie was about to reveal whodunnit, this little monster appeared a couple of metres away.

It was about a metre long and its forked tongue flıckered in and out like it thought the air was ice cream. You should have heard the sound Lauren made when she saw it. She had already been shat on twıce by pidgeons that day, so clearly the animal kingdom was conspirıng against her.

To be fair, she was not nearly as wimpy as me when I found a cockroach in our room on the boat in Halong Bay. I'll sidle up to critters that could rip a limboff (see the pic below), but cockroaches turn me to jelly.

Phet the orphan tiger, rescued from the black market in Laos.

A hat-hungry eagle in Dubai.