Village life is not for the faint-hearted
April 6th, 2009My kampung is surrounded by trees and other greenery; it offers a spectacular view of Mount Kinabalu, and mist-filled evenings.
However, if you have romantic notions of the quiet, uneventful village life, you are wrong, for you will never be left alone: there are many creepy crawlies lurking outside, and more often than you think, INSIDE.
It’s only quite recently that I resolved to take photos of them as they make their presence known.
Recently, this multi-legged creature was spotted on the floor downstairs around 10.45pm:
There have been at least two occasions where red-green coloured centipedes suddenly dropped from the ceiling onto the floor upstairs, right next to where we were sitting.
I have seen baby scorpions inside the cracks of the concrete floor downstairs.
As far as I can remember, I have been stung by bees while inside the house on a few occasions.
If not shooed away, birds like to set up home right in the middle of the house. In fact, various types of insects have set up home at various parts of the house.
Many years ago I saw what I thought was a goliath spider – reddish, with very long legs, under the kitchen sink.
I was once attacked by a larger than average spider whose spouse I killed earlier for suddenly appearing beside me as I was studying.
Skinny spiders with long black arms, we call them “sindawang” has a penchant for setting up their web on the house balcony; we used to feed them insects and watch intently while it grabs the prey and spins it round and round with its web until all you could see was a white blob.
In the early evening a few days ago, just outside the house, there were some fire ants:
You do not want to accidentally walk in there!
Whenever we walk upriver to check on the water pipe supplying water to the house, we occasionally get entangled in giant spider webs with the spider itself hanging startling close to our faces.
Snakes are a common occurence – the biggest one I remember was a python caught trying to get away with some chicken.
Early last year around noon, I almost stepped on this beauty as I was walking out the door:
Welcome to village life!
… So keep in mind that these things can appear at any time, for example while one is doing things in the house, like affixing an LCD mount …
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as awesome that those looked. I won’t wanna be waking up to discover it around me..creepy shite @_@
Truth be told, I didn’t mind these creatures when I was smaller – it’s a different story now haha
Great stuff – some of the species may not have been discovered yet, giving you a chance to name an undiscovered species bengodomonius insecticius. :-)
Could very well be, and I am sure there are many more varieties a short walk away in the woods, but I’m not really into entomology…
how about rusipinkalaban insecticius tiuss and gatimgoidau mammoth mogolimpasa brasilius tiusss!!!!
Did you hear the story about Sabud being bitten by a “tangkalamai” (centipede) on his foot, but he “cured” the “wound” by simply urinating on it? True village boy!
that is why i call him – The Great Sabud!!!!!!! equivalent to the Great Muta and Alexander the Great!!!!
Woah!!! Hebat… Susah mau jumpa tu serangga di kampung sya yg dakat bandar tu hehehe.. Python? I’m scared of creature from snake families… When ever i walk under a big tree, i’ll always look up to check if there’s a python hiding up there.. Kalau tiada barulah limpas :D I like your kampunglah.. really kampung environment. Not like my kampung.. can consider bandar sdh :D
Unfortunately, I think I have lost that kampung spirit already – I cannot imagine letting my kids run around in the woods everytime I balik kampung. And I definitely cannot do what I used to do when I was small – like turning over stones in the river just to see what kind of insects lurk there haha
Your kids must be good in science then because they have all the specimens right in their backyard. I don’t think I will ever want to visit your place. Tengok gambar pun sudah ngeri
My kids are terrified of them! Luckily, the most terrifying specimens don’t make their grand entrances too often, perhaps once or twice a year only :-)
*SHRIEK*!!! No thanks!
but ahhh during mogolimpasa session…… we dont care what spesies drop by!!!! even UFO!!!!
By God! If those are the flying type of insects I would be terrified; even having a cockroach flying around made me scream like a baby!
You think if we have the exterminator do some work around our kampung home once in a while would help prevent this?
Exterminator – perhaps will work for the smaller creatures. But the bigger ones – I don’t think so!
yea… i remembered the previous years when i went to your house at the afternoon discovering that golib and permaisuri are trying to kill a snake. I guess it is a cobra. The snake was black and as big as 1 1/2″ pipe, stood in an attacking position when i arrived there. Unfortunately the snake was given a deadly blow by me using a spade… dalam rumah masuk cobra, mcm mana klu time megnum tiba2 limpas monsoding…hehehehe
Yes I heard about that cobra: that will make visitors even more scared to come here?!!! But I heard Karam Singh Walia already confirmed coming in May???
karam coming?? be afraid, be very afraid….. aiyaaaaaaaaaaa
[...] in May 2009 I wrote about some creepy crawlies that can be found around and INSIDE the house in my [...]
[...] The whole idea of taking photos of these things started with my first post in April 2009. [...]