Tuesday, November 25, 2008 6:06 PM
Pai, Thailand.
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I was awoken the past three mornings by a strange, intermittent sound. A haunting, plaintive animal cry which I can only describe as a cross between a cat's meow and cow's moo.

Typically stupefied in the mornings, I do my best to ignore it. On day three curiosity finally triumphs. I look out my bamboo hut window and see a water buffalo standing in the rice field.

Like a man with a second lease on life, like the intoxicated tourist overcome with profundity at everything he sees, I spring into action groping for my PDA on the night table for a sound recording. Of course, by the time the marvel stutters into record mode the animal falls silent. I give up after a dozen attempts.

I'm reminded of my time on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua when a large number of howler monkeys descended frighteningly close to my dorm early one morning. Their howl is so loud and piercing, so fierce and alien, I still get chills down my spine. I got some extraordinary good recordings only to have the PDA undergo a rare meltdown crash wiping out its entire SD memory card.

Today we learn from the farmer that water buffaloes are usually silent. This one, a female, had had a companion, a bull that was slaughtered a week ago.

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