This is a bug of Thailand. He’s very cuddly.
The bugs are everywhere. They include flying ants, moths, mosquitoes, flies, bees, beetles, centipedes, millipedes, ants, and on and on. Butterflies are easy to get along with, obviously, and thankfully they are common as well. The worst are the flying ants. They come out in swarms at night after a rain, and their huge papery wings have a creepy rustle as they whap into the walls, lights, the mosquito net, and my face. But if I’m going to get along here in Thailand, I just have to let go of my ick factor and accept them as my neighbors. Once I do this, things get a lot easier.
Flying ant. Each morning I would find my bedroom floor littered with their wings. I crafted a lovely papyrus stationery out of them.
Mosquito net surrounding my bed. Note the gecko poop on the top. It’s a good thing.
Until I meet the beetle that hisses at me when I try to flick him off my sweatshirt. I flick again, he spits at me and digs his legs defiantly into my shoulder. I wriggle out of the sweatshirt and run away. It’s his now. There’s a USC logo on it, so maybe the other beetles think he went to college. It’s possible–with that hissing he practically talks.
View of the bug entrance to my bedroom. If I turned the light on, they had a neon sign guiding them, and they could invite all their friends.
In Los Angeles’ more temperate climate, applying the ‘live and let live’ philosophy with bugs is quite a bit easier. A few wayward ants in my office back in Los Angeles and I can rush to the rescue with my sheet of paper, fast-walking the little critters to the other side of the building and the exit outside.
Another bug of Thailand. Adorable.
But in Thailand, there are red ants that rather enjoy gnawing on your flesh, so when they do get on you and get busy, it’s hard to resist screaming, “Die, fucker!” as you slap your body like you’re putting out a fire, trying to squash the little bastards.
And there’s the bees. In my experience, if you meet one bee in Thailand it won’t sting you but it won’t leave you alone… ever. You can hike three miles and he’ll still be circling your eardrum, taking off and alighting on your arm. Might as well offer him some lunch, he’s not going anywhere for a while. If you meet more than one—well, I guess they don’t want to look like pussies in front of their friends. So they sting the shit out of you.
After careful observation, and getting zapped myself, I learn that the bees have a thing for rotting logs that are alongside or partially submerged in rivers or streams.
Butterfly. There are many different species in Thailand, and they’re everywhere. They are good bug role models.
During one hike we are walking along a river and I am behind a girl who is heavily fatigued. Her pack hangs low to the ground, unbalanced, and her steps are leaden and clumsy. I spot a fat, moldy log just up ahead of her, half in, half out of the water—potentially a creepy little haunted bee house.
Before I can say anything, this girl tries to scale the log, swinging her leg on top of it, and I hear a loud fwump. The girl’s entire leg sinks into the rotted log, the moldy wood swallowing her up to her waist. I offer my hand to help her out, breaking out in a fresh sweat, as I imagine a cloud of stirred up bees glomming onto her leg, stingers angrily tattooing her flesh.
Nothing happens. I’m thinking, Get her!
–No, not really. I am actually pleasantly surprised that there appears to be no one home.
Slowly she extricates herself from the log. The moldy wood reluctantly gives up her leg with a heavy sucking sound, pieces of rot cracking and falling away.
I look up to see the mahout wildly gesticulating at us.
“Come on!” he’s panting, in heavily accented English. “Hurry!”
I’ve watched this scene many times. One or two times I helped to make a scene like this, since I used to be a movie trailer editor. I start running forward—we are all running forward—only I can’t help but stop to look back over my shoulder.
More rotting wood is splintering from the log, and the sizable amount of wood that is falling away–as well as the sizable amount of movie scenes stored in my head–suggest to me that this is a horror way more terrifying than mere bees. That some…thing… has been disturbed… awoken… and it is bursting out of the rotting log…
My mouth opens. I’m staring. My fellow hikers run by me. I’m that idiot in those horror movies who freezes and is the first to go, staring stupidly up at the huge thing as it springs and devours me. I’m forgotten a half hour into the movie.
Alien, I’m thinking.
Nope. Bees.
They stung three people, including the mahout. I was left alone this time. The girl who had served up half her torso for the bees to tenderize when she fell through their roof—she also walked away unscathed.
Tracks photographed near the river. Frog… or baby alien?
ANIMAL 