Today I did something totally unexpected of me, as a person and as a physics student. Having decided to move out of my comfort zone and experience more, I went and caught bugs with some of my biology student friends. And it was not your typical stroll in the park and catch a few bugs affair, nuh-uh, it was a full blooded, hike up the hills, running around with butterfly nets like mad men type of hunt. Heck, it even warranted its own special trip to the nether regions of the island.
The day started very early, at 6.30am to be exact. That was the scheduled pick-up time for the participants in our expedition. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it due to a slight error in understanding. In a state of panic, I had to resort to contacting Ju Ping, who was the leader of the day. Thankfully, this was quickly sorted out, with his mum making a detour to fetch me, but not before making making me sweat it out anticipating the reception she might give me. But guilt aside, I was lucky to get off with nothing but some mild chiding.
As our destination was located on the other side of Penang Island, we had to go over hill and dale to get there. The trip was literally hair-raising (not knocking on your mum's driving skills, Ju Ping), courtesy of the open window policy we were adopting. Seated at the side, my hair was constantly in a vertical state, but no where near as wavy as Wei Fang's were though :). We arrived at Ju Ping's house safely, but his mum's driving skills were not my main concern anyway, it was his actually, for he was to be our killer driver for the duration of our bug-catching operation.
The exact spot where we wage battle with our six-legged foes is an orchard owned by one of Ju Ping's family friends. After parking the car at the foot of the hillock, Ju Ping was given a tour of the trail we were to follow, while we the four remaining bug-catchers psyched ourselves up to take the slow walk up the incline while hopefully bagging bugs.
It was during this wait while doubts about the enormity of our task cropped up. Our erstwhile cocky and confident heroes started to lose belief, making statements and questions like, 'It's not easy u know, the other team only got 8 bugs in their entire day out in the field!' or 'The bugs might mutate and kill and preserve us instead! OMG!'. Ok ok, I made that last part up, but we were less than optimistic. And after finally getting our leader back and getting on our way, our fears were initially realised. Bugs were no where to be seen, and the ones sighted were the types not worth seeing. Our early attempts fell flat too, adding to the self-doubt. I guess our day just got a little bit longer.
As they say, it only takes a crack to burst the dam. I could not agree more with this statement. We did not have to wait long to open the floodgates. Yours truly played a part in getting that first kill, ahem ahem, by performing a downward cut like a samurai with a butterfly net on the unsuspecting bug, while our Animal Planet watching, Steve Irwin imitating leader coaxed it into the container. It might only be a small bug, but it was a morale booster, for me at least, and showed that we stand a chance against them.
This initial success seemed to burst the dam, as we found a cluster of earth bound bugs soon after, easy meat for us pro catchers ;).In the next hour or so, we were really racking up the bugs, with more than 20 caught. Not a bad rate by all means. Unfortunately though, depending on how you see it, most of them were of the small variety, and Ju Ping reckoned it was wise to move on to bigger game. To do that we must hike deeper into the orchard.
Along the way to the Promised Land of big bugs, we managed to come across many more smaller bugs, but we could all thumb our noses at them now. Too bad for the lack of huge ones though. However, we did manage to come across a monster...arachnid. The spider was huge, about the size of my palm, and the main line of its web was as thick as the threads my mum uses for her crocheting. It was very colourful, which probably signaled that it's poisonous, and its fangs look like they could give Dracula's a run for their money. Since this was not what Ju Ping and gang were looking for, we said good bye and left it alone, but not before regretting not bringing a camera.
Being all tired from the hike, we decided to take a break, right on the road, before making our final push to a shed further up. This gave us a moment to truly enjoy our surroundings, and Ju Ping remarked that he could just sit there all day. Very true words indeed. Break over, we packed up and continued on our way. We anticipated another long hike, but we felt really stupid to find that the shed was actually a stone's throw a way, literally, from where we rested.
We kept our end of the bargain by hiking up, but the big bugs did not, as not one of them was in sight. I guess they wised up. Nevertheless, it was a fun hike, with lots of joking and fooling around, most of them courtesy of Wei Fang and Shy Yan, who fought a running battle of one-upmanship throughout. We had to go back to base camp though to murder the bugs and mount them.
Catching them was tough, but nowhere near as tough as knocking them out and preserving them. For starters, we could get them into the plastic containers, but how could we get them out without accidentally setting them free? A conundrum indeed, but the Bio guys were truly intrepid, and managed to improvise some 'techniques' to achieve this. Then there's the other problem of preserving them.
I have been told that a needle filled with formalin will be stuck into the anus of them bug, but I really have to see it to believe it. I could not fathom how they were going to do that on the oh so small bugs, but our expert poker, Shy Yan proved me wrong by casually screwing the bug in the ass.
Killing works the appetite, and it's bad news when you have five hungry teenagers. To save the dog from having chunks bitten off him, Ju Ping cooked up a storm.
*this is getting long, so I will continue tomorrow*
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