Little bleeders

Next morning we had booked a guided walk through the jungle. According to Helen there was a small waterfall and pond about an hour up a jungle trail where one could swim. The walk was straightforward and not particularly strenuous.

The guide was from the local village - ethnically Malay but from a group that had been nomadic until recently and remained animist in religion rather than converting to Islam. Anticipating the possibility of leeches we were equipped with German hiking boots, thick sports socks and long trousers. At around 10am our guide showed up, a tiny guy dressed in shorts and equipped with the very latest in jungle hiking technology - old blue flipflops. (Graham and Jean, please note.)

Off we set at a fair pace, our guide maintaing a cheery conversational soliloquy in Malay (so no doubt a wealth of information on local fauna and flora, plus for all I know an assessment of Col. Gaddafi's career and chances of surviving the week, are lost to us). The monologue was punctuated by drags on a roll-up cigarette (no filter) and interrupted by pauses to focus on lighting a new one.

The first part of the walk was along a tarmac access road. This had apparently been built by property developers in the 1990s; with basic infrastructure put in the land had been parcelled into lots for sale. The development had collapsed in the Asian financial crisis of 1997-8; repossessed by the banks the plots remained unoccupied. There was however an official-looking front gate with empty guard post and a couple of forlorn one-room "pavillions" that no doubt were part of a clever marketing plan to suggest the possibility of a thriving community.

After about 20 mins our guide veered off onto the jungle track proper. The gloom under the tree canopy made it seem initially cooler than in the direct sun, but it also seemd suddenly much more humid, so the overall effect was probably neutral. In any event we were pretty well soaked in sweat after 5 mins.

The track itself was narrow and slippery but no real problem for anyone halfway fit. Mr. Flipflop skipped effortlessly ahead, pausing every once in a while to grin encouragement or cheerily point to the roots and branches to use as hand or footholds on the steeper points. I commented later to Birgit that for him it was probably as if a couple of tourists paid me 50 quid to walk with them to the top of Portobello Road.

Not long in our guide turned with a particularly wide grin, pointing at something in the middle of the trail - an inch-long leech, its base anchored on the ground, waggling its evil little head blindly in the air. I guess they're alerted either by the scent of passing warm blood or by the vibration of something big passing on the trail. Once alerted I spotted quite a few and was able to neatly step over them with a certain "missed me" sense of satisfaction. I failed to notice however that while my attention was distracted several of their better-camouflaged cousins had taken the opportunity to hop on board.

A piece of advice - thick cotton sports socks are no hinderance for a leech! When I checked my ankles out of curiosity several tails were sticking out of the cloth, the heads already burrowed in to the flesh. True to leech legend I hadn't felt a thing. I have to admit there is something disgusting about them, and I reacted pretty instinctively in brushing them off in spite of the story-lines in The African Queen and elsewhere warning against the danger of leaving their heads inside to cause infection.

So my time at the idyllic waterfall was spent removing my socks and rolling up long trouser legs which had proved useless.

The four or five puncture wounds bled spectacularly since anti-coagulant gets injected as the blood gets sucked out, But that wasn't the end of my vicious little buddies' talents - I swear I caught a couple doing end-to-end back-flips up my boots and trouser legs like some Soviet gymnast of the worm world.

I took a picture of one of the little guys which I attach for your education and delight.

I should also mention that Birgit did go swimming, only to emerge with an even larger, acquatic cousin on her stomach. Her reaction outdid even Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. After brushing it off she did ask our guide in sign language whether he could use his cigarette to burn them off - his response was an incredulous giggle. Waste of good tobacco probably.

So the moral is - don't sneer at flipflops on jungle trails. His approach was to stop every minute or so and remove any passengers before they could drill through the skin.