Jungle Bugs

After completing our stroll up the mountain it was time to chill in Poring and enjoy the hot springs that it had to offer. In need of the oportunity to soak in some hot water (cold showers tend to be the norm) after a few aching muscles, the hot springs didn't quite manage to live up to expectations. The springs aren't as natural as you may expect and although the water is hot, it is actually to be enjoyed within one of the many outdoor bath tubs that take a good hour to fill. It's a funny place though, being a popular stop for those that climbed Mt. Kinabalu the day previous, the villagers of Poring must think that all tourists walk with a limp and grimace!

Still keen to make the make the most of the grounds of the Poring Hot Springs area, and determined to loosen my leg muscles off some how, I set off alone on the 3.5km walk to what was promised to be a spectacular waterfall. Most of the group had decided to spend their day doing anything but walking, apart from two others who'd set of much earlier for the same waterfall.

By the end of my water-logged decent of the mountain, my boots had puddles in them so were out to dry. My clothes were also dripping, so to take the presure off me drying the stuff, I splashed out on the local laundry service (as run by an 8-year-old). Anyway, this left me with just shorts, T-Shirt and flipflops to walk in. This was fine until the rain started...again. I didn't think to much of it, just an annoyingly wet walk through some woods. The route seemed to lead me to edge around river rocks and wade across smaller waterfall pools before disappearing into the trees. I realised this wasn't as an obviouse path as I'd expected and a few times found myself confused which way to go. It's only then I realised I'd not informed anyone of whereabouts as I'd supposed to, so wondered what I would do if I didn't pick the right directons on my way back. I wasn't the only one. When reaching a section of fallen canopy, the deep bramble appearence with armies of ants on patrol created a difficult barrier for me, and looking down a I found a note left by the two other group members. Apparently they too were concerned about getting lost forever so left themselves a paper trail for a rescue party to find.

It was then that it started and I realised I was in a jungle. As I moved for a closer look at the note I spied a problem, it was an attack of the Leeches! They're horrible. Freaked out, I went to brush the first off, but it was still there, stuck fast. Eventually I detached it and turned my attention to the rest of my legs when next I caught one crawling up the soul of my footwear towards my toes...fast. It wasn't quite there yet so I just wiped the edge of my flipflop on the ground and was stressed to see it was still hanging on, crawling nearer to reaching me. It was like some sort of super bug, everytime I brushed it off, it got knocked off balance a little, but quickly steadied itself and wriggled on. I scraped the soul on the ground, a fallen tree and used a twig (which consiquently snapped) whilst all the time shouting at it, and still it just rolled a bit then climbed up more. I did eventually win the battle, and in celebration decided I'd seen waterfalls before so best I be getting back...quickly. My walk was more of a fast march to minimise the time each foot was on the ground, thus preventing leeches getting docking time onto feet - I didn't want a repeat of the last fight. When walking through long grassy sections, I even comtemplated ways to stop both legs brushing through the wet greenary and being subject to high leech risk, but excepted hopping wasn't going to help matters.

It was a funny walk back. I saw things like giant earth worms (like small snakes) and giant milipedes. I was torn between taking a picture of these rare sights to me or getting quickly to a safe zone, so found my self marching back and forth as I battled with my decisions. Eventually the camera always won over and I marched stupidly on the spot until I was ready to shoot, stopped to avoid camera shake, then began my enthusiatic steps the second the shutter clicked. I stopped for regular leech spot checks on my walk back and caught further seven in the act. I wasn't happy.

Making it back alive, the one thing I learnt was why you must always where long pants in the jungle, and as we were headed there for the night the next day, I was harassed to discover my (and only my) laundry had gone missing. So I'm leech-hating and trouserless. All that I can buy in this tiny, tiny village are braceletts or t-shirts, which aren't going to help, at this rate I'll be jungle trekking in my PJ bottoms, which I guess is the SE Asia way, but not ideal. After asking everyone I met in the village if they'd seen my clothes, eventually the owner came home from school and put her homework to one side and finally found my stuff under the cabinate or something! That was a happy moment, and to be fair my clothes were smelling the best they have since I left in January, just like mum had washed them.