Hey folks! Here I am, the only gila monster in Bangkok International Airport, concealed in the carry-on of my human buddy, Doug, using his one-hour free wi fi to give my final report on this journey. What a journey it was!
My original purpose was to convey greetings from the god of Funeral Peak in Death Valley, InsertHere, to his cousin, Tab B, in the Bhutanese Himalayas (keep reading for more on the unusual names), but it turned out they didn't have much to say to each other beyond a conventional, "Hello." I did, however, make a new Bhutanese friend, who turns out to be a distant relative of us gila monsters: a tokay gecko. I met him in the mountains near the famed Tiger's Nest monastery. His name is...I'll try to spell it in English letters: Ke-ke-ack-a-grrrrp. He explained to me that "tokay" is an onomatopoetic representation of their mating call. We had a congenial discussion about the contrast between us, as my kind doesn't have a mating call; we go by smell. I secrete a pheromone that suggests to female gilas that a needy male is near, while, if I'm lucky, I'll detect a pheromone suggesting that a female finds my message interesting. This is the wonder of travel: Meeting other cultures and discovering how for all our differences, we aren't so different after all!
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