My Nocturnal Excursion in FRIM III

Yet one more night was spent navigating through leech-infested jungle in FRIM. The only difference this time round was that I was not accompanied by loud, restless, hyperactive children. Adorable as they are (and equally annoying), I was without my customary 6 – 12 year old age demographic for this particular evening stroll.

Nope, Last Saturday’s nocturnal excursion involved the staff of HSBC.

You see, HSBC has long supported wildlife conservation by donating a filthy amount of money over the years and MNS, WWF and other nature-based NGOS have greatly benefited through HSBC’s generosity. As such, it is a norm for these NGO’s to accommodate the staff of HSBC on any nature oriented activities. This is just to ensure that the financial institution continues to fork out large sums of money for our usage in the effort to save the world.

Last Saturday, the MNS-FRIM Nature Education Center had organized a series of activity, part of which involved a frogging session.

Therefore they had turned to the only (gullible) person at their disposal, who had sufficient with the knowledge, expertise and the good looks to boot, ME.

I quickly forgot my annoyance of missing Liverpool’s early kick-off with Wigan as I found out that the 20 – 30 year old demographic was easier to handle. Reasons of which are;

#1. They are obedient.
#2. They are quiet
#3. They have stamina
#4. They have longer legs.
#5. The girls are of legal & consensual age

Anyways, we started at 7pm with dinner, rendang et all. I gave a short briefing afterwards at the center, which mostly involved me relating my previous experiences in the wild, purposely exaggerated of course.

At 8pm, I dragged them up to the waterfall in the hope to see the Poisonous Rock frog as one of the participants wonted to inquire whether licking this particular species would induce disorientation. In other words, she wanted to know if one could get stoned out by putting the frog in the mouth. I was curious enough to let her try it.

Fortunately of her, Rana hosii was inconspicuous as the only wildlife we saw was 2 other species of frog and one annoyed lizard. Although one participant got soaked as she found out that she actually had two left feet on the slippery boulders of all places.

After half an hour of fooling around at base of the waterfall, (jumping around for some, standing rooted to the same spot for others) I called for a change of venue and proceeded to Denai Engkabang.

The leeches were more aggressive than usual. Humid conditions and muddy terrain is a bloody leech breeding ground. They had their orgy on our blood that night, which meant that the group had to stop every 10 steps to scream and pull of those suckers (pun intended) from whatever anatomy of the body they (the leeches, not me) latched upon.

At the stream, (which my fellow readers, who have been following my exploits on Nocturnal Excursions would know, that this is the end of the trail) I asked them look around for themselves and see if they can spot some species on their own…… and also to allow me a fag break.

As suspected, there were the shouts of excitement on the sighting of the prawns in the stream and the glow worms in the leaf litter. *sigh* They were completely oblivious to the herp life in front of their noses.

The Wolf snake I tried to catch was more elusive as ever, slithering away into the trees before I could get my grubby hands on it. I swore it gave the finger to me before disappearing into the dark.

We returned to our cars at around 11pm. The participants were staying overnight at the center, so after a quick wash and another round of rendang, I headed back to Bangi.

3 days after, I’m my the bites are bloody itchy. I’ve got 3 bite marks around the feet and I’m constantly scratching it like a complete loony.

Sesiapa nak tolong garu kan?