3 Spiders, man

Not too looking forward to Spiderman 3 pleeeease.

I was playing on Facebook yesterday evening. Just as I thinking of something amusing to write on a friend’s wall, I saw a frantic movement rush out from behind my temporarily-placed cork board. I made an involuntary yelp (which was, lets be honest, a scream), stumbled backwards, tipping over my chair and desperately fought with the wicker and metal as I tried to escape the monstrosity that had invaded my relaxed calm. I partially composed myself and considered if I was brave enough to catch this wild savage in a pint glass and throw his eight-legged ass out of my room.

In the end, after some more nervous laughing and involuntary nosies, the spider - an easy category 2 – went out the window and crashed onto the driveway outside my room.

Not that I’m scared of spiders.

As part of my new job I'm off to the Amazon to collect samples from wild discus fish. I will fly with the PhD student to Manaus in Amazonia, Brazil, then get a 1 day boat trip up the Rio negro to a town called Barcelos. This is one of the main hubs from where discus fish are caught to be sent off to aquarium shops, and will be our base for about 6 weeks. Ive been writing the risk assessment for the trip and have had some fun in the dangerous animals section.

Basically, if you want to meet a nasty end at the hands (or mouth) of a wild animal, the sheer diversity of killers offered by the Amazon makes it the number 1 choice.

There are, of course anacondas:













and caimens (though the anacondas look a bigger threat):












But in amongst them are the real nasties, like vampire bats- which seem to be experiencing a rabies pandemic and (unusually) attacking humans (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4398660.stm), toothpick fish- which detects the urea of your urine and swims up your urethra (thinking it’s a fish’s gill; http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=797) Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Not forgetting piranhas, electric eels, bullet ants, scorpions and spiders. The Amazonian forest is in fact home to the Goliath Bird-eating Spider- but he sounds like a right tiddler.

Still, its OK as I ain't scared of spiders.

Part 2 of 2. Fly high

Part 2 - Kong

A week later and ive peaked again, geographically this time, as I reach the top of Lantau peak in Hong Kong. It’s a cool place Lantau, my friend has left the high rise and pollution of the main Island and now lives on the 52nd floor of a block of flats overlooking the sea and in the background, the airport. Twenty minutes walk from their flat and im in some serious jungle, this is not the image I get in my head when I think of Hong Kong, but easy to forget its not just an urban jungle. The other islands have some un-tourist-ed (maybe I could form this into a new word?) trails, beaches, eagles overhead, king cobras, and according to a newspaper report last year pythons that are big enough to eat dogs. The peak is one of several over 900 metres here, and unlike most of the similarly sized mountains in the UK I had to start the walk from sea level- infact its from sea-reclaimed land, so probably slightly below.

The flat is not actually the 52nd as the Chinese don’t like number 3, 13 or anything ending in 4. Its high enough though, and I feel weird if I look over for too long. I know it high for two reasons.

1. If you were to build a paper aeroplane and throw it off the balcony it would fly for 4 mins 35 seconds. Not that id do something like that.

2. On the night before I left my friend heard a very loud thud followed by hysterical screaming followed by an ambulance followed the next morning by the reception guard confirming that there was a jumping incident. Im glad I didn’t hear anything, that sort of noise would haunt me for months.

All too quickly I’m on the National Express back from Gatwick. I see a headline on the front of the Guardian about an incident at the Happy Valley race course in Hong Kong on Weds night.

‘That’s funny’ I think to myself while turning to page 23, that’s where I was on Weds night.

I was on a night out with my other friend who lives in Kong. We’d been to a bowling alley (I got a KingPin esque 154 Get in!) and were now figuring out how we go about putting some bets on. This is the other side of Kong. Super bright lights saturate the hustle and bustle of big money city attitude under a wall of skyscrapers. I buy a hot dog and San Migel from one of the young hotties selling in skimpy yellow outfits and we walk and talk around the venue. I live up to my tourist stereotype and win some money in a few races and then lose and lot more convincingly in several more.

Id left it as that- a happy memory of a night in a life of my old friend, but it seems there was more going on than we’d both realised. According to the Guardian report the groundsman had found a series of tubes in the ground near the start/finsh line which contained poisoned darts. Its thought that they could be fired remotely in order to slow down whichever horses were not doing what the dishonest betting ring wanted. I almost wish the plan would have gone ahead- it would have given me a great reason why my 'system' of picking the horses which had the funniest porno names didn’t work. Double Pleasure and One Eyed Dick both failed to place….. maybe they didn’t find all the darts.