Cats & Snakes & Monkeys …. Oh My!

Cats

When we moved into this Hotel, There was a stray cat problem, it’s quite common in predominately Islamic areas, No dogs to chase them away you see.

The staff set about rounding up the cats for relocation, Other GM’s will set baits to poison them as they’re considered pests. Hubby initially considered this to but I couldn’t let that happen to the poor lil kitties. So a “catch and relocate” plan was devised.

I even caught a few felines myself popped them into a purpose built cage that engineering knocked together and had our driver relocate them to the fish markets. I know it’s not ideal but it’s the best option we have here.

Snakes

Who knew that stray cats were a great deterrent for snakes? Not long after our cat problem was resolved the monsoon season began. The nearby mangroves flooded and we had new little visitors take up residence on the hotel grounds, driven in land due to the flooding.

Pythons, This was a first at the hotel, we do see snakes near the perimeter some times but never on the grounds. One decided to slither up a palm and enter a suite via an open balcony door, After a bit of research (read: google) by myself, I found that snakes don’t like pungent smelling plants so will avoid them also sulfur & mothballs act as a good deterrent. Me personally I think stray cats are the best deterrent as the seemed to keep them at bay for so long.

Monkeys

Months later the sulfur/moth ball mix is working wonders around the hotel. We’ve had no snakes on the grounds for quite some time now.

What we do have is funny little white faced monkeys! Maybe Gibbons? I’m not to sure.

They’re cute silly looking things so we leave them be and they reciprocate. Occasionally the cheeky lil monkeys get a bit to close for comfort and inhabit our sky walk (it’s a bridge that connects the hotels towers together). They were out again the other day when Hubby was using it, The monkeys started hissing and screeching at him so he called up the engineering guys to chase them away, I have no idea why he chose the engineering dept over say, housekeeping or the porters and come to think of it, this is also not the first time monkeys have acted aggressively towards him. I recall being at “Monkey Beach” once and hand feeding wild monkeys, up walked Hubby the monkeys screeched at him, ran off then started doing wild monkey sex to each other!!

Once again I’ll put in the disclaimer that my stories are 100% true, trust me I could not make this stuff up if I tried, I’m not that imaginative.