We’ve got some unusual natural phenomenon here in Thailand. Reptiles, birds, mammals and insects you just don’t see in other places. And the funny part is how used to seeing them we get; so much so that we don’t even take notice.

I’ll never forget the look on my brother’s face when he saw two cobras involved in their intricate mating ritual. Across the street from my condo in Phuket is a swampy lagoon where cobras congregate about the same time every year and mate. “Are those #$%*ing cobras” he gasped. “I didn’t know they did that”. I joined him standing all agog, unable to tear himself away from the reptile porn. “Oh, there back” I replied matter-of-factly. “How did you think they make little cobras?”

Last year I was sitting under a coconut tree on a beach in Koh Samui. Beneath a small pier I saw a monkey (a macaque to be more exact) chilling out in the shade. Every time a person walked out on the pier to take in the air or light up a smoke, the monkey came to life and appeared to be waiting for something. “Food” I thought, “I’ll bet these people feed the monkey”. As it turns out the only thing that was getting fed was this monkey’s bad habits. Eventually someone flicked a lit cigarette out onto the beach and monkey shot like a bolt of lightning to retrieve it. He then retreated to the comfort of his shaded lair to puff away on what was left of the cancer stick. It didn’t even strike me as odd. A monkey smoking a cigarette … see it every day right?

That’s kind of the story this picture is telling. I took it at The Avenue shopping plaza on Pattaya’s Second Road. I’d just come from the movie theater upstairs and was greeted by this scaly fellow. He was doing a little window shopping on the ground floor. If you consider that those tiles he resting on are about 60 centimeters wide then it appears he is nearly 2 meters long. That is easily the biggest damn iguana I’ve ever seen. The best part was that he was walking around with total impunity. Nobody was chasing him away. Nobody was trying to take a “selfy” with him. When he sauntered out into the main walkway to check out the next shop, other shoppers just casually got out of his way.

When I pointed out the giant lizard to the clerk in a mobile phone shop, she took a quick look, made a sniffing noise and said, “Mai arroi”. According to her, iguanas don’t taste very good.

Lucky lizard.

Orlando Barton

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