Siem Reap and the scorpion! (and sensitive plant!).

Sorry to back track but I realised that I had not put anything on my blog about the scorpion! 

 

So…. I was walking back to the Garden Village guesthouse (in Siem Reap if you didn’t guess from the title) one night after going to the shop.  It wasn’t crazily late but was late enough to be dark and the road was pebble-dashed with puddles from a heavy rain shower.  As I trundled along in my flip-flops I kicked something.  It felt slightly strange, like not really heavy enough to be a rock.  So, I looked down only to see a rather large black scorpion angrily holding its pincers up to me and arching its tail in a slightly concerningly confrontational fashion.  This scorpion, other than looking slightly perturbed to say the least, was about 5 inches long!  I took a very wide berth and decided to watch my step slightly more carfeully for the remainder of the journey.  When I got back to the guesthouse I told a few of the other residents about my ordeal.  Dane, being the ever-weird Australian, was quite upset that firstly, these things never seem to happen to him and that secondly, I had not picked the scorpion up and brought it back to show him!

 

I have this thing where if I start thinking about an animal then anything I kick or step on worries me as I think it’s that animal.  I do this a lot with snakes, like when you are walking along and kick a twig and it does that whole flying in a snake-like fashion for a split second thing before your brain says, “twig” and settles down.  In the scorpion case I was obviously paranoid about kicking another scorpion while I was walking back.  Oh, I didn’t mention that about 10 seconds after I managed to get past the scorpion a local man literally jumped out of a dark alley and shouted, “hello lady” at which point I screamed and did about five steps of run as he split his sides with laughter.  Anyway, going back to the whole mind association thing, I thought this was completely normal but everyone at the guesthouse assured me that it was infact not and that I was a freak.  I still don’t (want to) believe them!

I’ve often thought that I should consider wearing trainers more when walking around at night.  I thought this firstly when it rained and the roads were literally hopping with frogs.  Ewww I can’t think of much worse, although I guess they might have a greater chance of not getting squished by a flip-flop rather than a trainer.

 

While I’m on the subject of nature and backtracking to things I have remembered that I forgot (it made sense in my head) I’ll tell you about the sensitive plant story.  Actually I’m not entirely sure that I did forget this.  Maybe I actually remembered and have now forgotten remembering having only remembered recently that I had forgotten when I had infact remembered.  Wow, you could write philosophical logic about that one!  Actually, thinking about it I’m pretty sure that I did forget to put it on my blog and that my memory is of telling someone else about it in Siem Reap.  Anyway, the amazing story I want to tell you about, which you probably won’t find that amazing, is about sensitive plants.  When I was growing up my grandmother (Granny Green – my father’s mother) was a very keen gardener.  One of the plants she grew was a small plant with green leaves (yes I know most leaves are green) which kind or curled up/ pressed next to each other when you touched them.  She told us it was called “sensitive plant” and I remember being fascinated by it along with my brother Ben.  i.e. he was fascinated by it too, not that I was fascinated by him, although actually he did fascinate me; like the way he managed to do things like crack his head open all the time.  Okay, I think this is going to be my last entry today as my digressions are now even paining me!  So anyway, when I was in Laos there were these plants everywhere that looked just like sensitive plant.  I kept touching them but to no avail.  In hindsight I must have looked completely insane stroking plant leaves, watching them for a second and then looking all disappointed before slowly walking away.  Anyway, so I get to four thousand Islands and I’m on dolphin beach with Nora.   I spy another “sensitive plant” type plant and begin to tell her the story of how I had been touching endless plants in the small hope that they would curl their leaves up for me.  As I got part of the way through the story I touched a plant and it WAS a sensitive plant.  It was SOOOO cool and she was excited by it too.  After that point I have found a lot of sensitive plants, including at the temples in Angkor but the first time was the best, as they say!

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20 Responses to “Siem Reap and the scorpion! (and sensitive plant!).”

  1. Russell

    Bless U!

  2. Sam

    Biless Miss Green Beans Pie!

    I hate Scorpions! They’re dangerous buggers and I’d hate to open a bag of tomatoes or Bananas to find one of the scampering out towards me – you’re so brave!

    I’m talking to Russell right now. The coolest thing is we’ve found out that you can access your webpage on Probation restricted internet access. But we can’t see the pictures:(

    Enjoy Singapore and Australia! I have some good news – I’m gonna be an spo. Mad isn’t it!!

    Now don’t get lost !!!!

  3. Zee

    Hi Sam and Russell,

    Glad to hear that you are making good use of the Probation internet!

    Wow, I can’t believe you’re going to be an SPO Sam, that’s excellent news. What happened to the other things?

    Would I get lost, I have an amazing sense of direction you know.

    Zx


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