Some Denizens of Bangkok and Spain

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1:-) The Indigenous Bangkok Cockroach

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I stayed at the Hotel Indra Regent a few years ago in Bangkok, Thailand. Great country, enjoyed it immensely, very friendly people. It was October, and it rained, God how it rained: for a couple of hours it rained worse than I had ever seen before, even here in Manchester. Bangkok has more problems with low lying land and puddles in the streets than has Venice, and the rain quickly flooded the street to a depth of a foot or so. This effect must have been a regular feature because the locals went about their normal business as usual, merely wading through the floods. Struck me as dangerous way to travel, in that the state of the roads and pavements (sidewalks to our colonial cousins) was risky at best, even when dry, there being many holes big enough to fall through. Cars continued to pass along the road, leaving wakes akin to that of the Cunard Flagship, wakes that visibly rocked other vehicles parked by the roadside. I was fascinated and amused by all this, and safe on the high ground of the hotel steps, watched. For a while I watched, I watched until the cockroaches, possessed of the same sort of self preservative ideas that I had, also made for the high ground. Being locals they knew the terrain well, and their high ground was higher than the hotel steps that I had chosen. It would astonish you to have seen the speed at which full grown cockroaches scuttled up my legs! Two seconds more and they would have found adequate shelter and extended the medical records of "things you can pick up in Bangkok". Cockroaches, I had read, were the only creature capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust, and so I retreated and rapidly joined the locals, ruined my trainers (sneakers) and waded into the market across the road, luckily avoiding the aforesaid holes which probably lead straight to the sewers and then on into the Chao Phrya river.

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2:-) The European Cockroach

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A friend of mine, holidaying closer to home in Spain with his wife, on their honeymoon, also met the town cockroach. Ed had never liked insects, his horror would rise exponentially according to both the size of the insect and its number of legs. Anything bigger than a ladybird had him running for cover. But this cockroach was the undoubted ruler of the town, as big as a rat, said Ed, with at least seventeen legs. And there it was, at the top of the bedroom wall, up against the ceiling, threatening them, watching them, plotting its next move. Ed would have happily retreated at this point, but his wife insisted that it went, or she went. Being on honeymoon it was necessary that he demonstrate his manhood and so, gritting his teeth, he cautiously moved a chair against the wall and rolled up a copy of the Sunday Times (taken for some bedtime reading?) Climbing on the chair he tried to swat and flatten the beast as it lurked evilly above him, but could not quite reach it. However as he hit the wall for the third time the monster was dislodged, and dropped on top of the paper, now being retracted for the next blow. This action merely served to launch the beast at Ed's head, causing him to panic, and fall from the chair, breaking a leg in the process. The roach sauntered casually back into the bathroom, mission accomplished. It now lives happily with its family disturbed briefly, once a week, when it repeats the process. Beware!!!

Ed? Honeymoon? Well.... luckily he still had the Sunday Times!

@ (Reference material from both the Thai and Spanish Tourist boards.)