Green Vipers (Death with no feet)

Dear Gentle Reader,

Your humble scribe has shown you Hong Kong's fearsome spiders of the apocalypse and shared both his cockroach horror tale from Taiwan and images of the giant cockroaches of Hong Kong. 

These stories remind your humble scribe of an altercation with a snake that occurred in Taiwan, near Hong Kong.

First, Taiwan has a lot of poisonous snakes.

Here are the main poisonous snakes that a Taiwanese mountain biking website feels its members should be aware of...

Here are some venomous snakes that Yang Ming Shan National Park thinks are important to warn English-speaking residents about on its website. 

(Yang Ming Shan or Yang Ming Mountain is a mountain/nature reserve just beside Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Your scribe lived directly beside the mountain when he first moved to Taiwan.) 

We had one friend in Taiwan who came home from a night at the bar and found a Chinese Bamboo Viper in front of him after he descended into the balcony before his door.  

Our friend made it through that chance encounter. 

The snake did not.

Another friend, who taught at the American International School, always took a rest in the teacher's lounge between classes. Something did not feel "right" about the cushion one day and, when she stood up to readjust the cushion, a snake reared up.  

In that situation the firemen were called and the snake was captured and identified as venomous. 

Taiwan is a not a country that you want to be a fireman in. 

Even if you can escape long-term cancer from fighting fires in plastic and resin plants, there are always the snake removal jobs to do you in...

And then there was Ned...  

Ned liked exploring the backroads of Taiwan on his 150 cc motorcycle, dodging rogue trucks and betel nut crazed drivers. 

(Aside: Betel nuts (and betel leaves) contain a powerful, natural stimulant which is released by chewing. If you have been driving with no sleep breaks for a couple of days, chewing betel nut will keep you zooming around, but not very safely. 

Chewing the leaves and nuts also released a pigment that stains the user's teeth and lips red. 

You might think it obvious to never get in a taxi when the taxi driver's mouth is apparently dripping blood. 

Many people, surprisingly, do not follow that internal (I presume) and prudent advice. 

Usually they live to regret it. This aside is now over.)

Despite the rogue truck drivers and the crazed, betel nut chewing drivers, Ned loved driving quickly on the ribbon of black asphalt that sinuously wound up, down, and around the mountains of Taiwan. 

On one trip, THLUMP.

Ned drove over a brilliant green snake sunning itself on the black asphalt. 

Ned's motorcycle skittered somewhat from the impact and Ned slowed to a stop to ensure that everything was fine. 

Then Ned looked back.

Lying motionless on the road was a one meter (three foot) long irridescent, emerald snake.

Ned, seeing that the snake did not move and was truly dead, turned in a tight circle, drove back, parked his bike at the side of the road, and bent over to look at his "kill".

Our great hunter picked up the snake; it was beautiful.  

Ned thought that it would be a waste to leave this beautiful snake, so he dropped it into his backpack, to somehow preserve when he finally returned home.

The snake was heavy and lumpy and was bumping against his back through the thin material of his backpack.

After a while Ned became worried about the snake. 

He worried that the snake might rot before he arrived at his destination; things turned bad quickly, in Taiwan, because of the heat.

Ned did not want rotten snake juice running down his back--he had a girl to see.

So, Ned stopped his bike and dismounted.

Ned slung the backpack off his back and dropped it on the ground at his feet.

Ned unzipped the bag and plunged his hand in...

...

Ned grabbed the snake and held it in front of his eyes one last time...

...

and he threw the brilliant, green snake into the tall grass beside the road, zipped up the bag, mounted his bike, and drove away. 

...

Ned told your scribe this story at a party where your scribe first met him. 

Your humble scribe was incredulous.

"What did you mean by 'pristine condition'?" your humble scribe asked Ned.

"Perfect. Not a mark on it." he replied.

"Right..." I said slowly... 

"But, what about the tire tracks?" I asked, after a bit of a pause.

"Tire tracks?"

"You know, tracks in the snake from where your tires hit it?" 

A questioning silence filled the air.

"Depressions with tread marks?" I added helpfully.

"You don't understand" Ned said "it was perfect, that was why I liked it so much. I stil wish that I had brought it home." 

"Right..." I said. "Ummm, you know what snakes are made of, right?"

Snakes are made of muscle, mostly. Sure, they have bone and viscera too, but mostly they are muscle. When they are about to be hit, snakes tense up so that they do not get hurt. Snakes can get run over by cars and survive. They tense up, absorb the impact, get bruised, but survive.

"If a snake is dead from being run over by a car, there will be a big tire and tread mark, or a big trauma wound. Otherwise, that snake might just be playing dead..."

"Of course, after a while, a snake playing dead will try to get away. Or fight if it feels threatened...." 

Ned said nothing, but looked a bit pale.

"I think it was alive the whole time. In fact, it sounds like it was a One Hundred Pacer. You know--it bites you, you take 100 paces, and then the venom kills you." I said with a grin.

In retrospect, I was wrong. 

It was likely a Green, or Chinese, Bamboo Viper.

The Yang Ming Shan tourist information guide says this about the Chinese Bamboo Viper:

"In Taiwan, the green bamboo snake is the number one attacker of humans."

The guide goes on to say that "this viper is not too venomous, with only a 1 to 2% mortality rate". But, and here I am guessing, I suspect that the snake's odds of getting you "for good" increase if it bites your face or your neck...

So now you know.  

...

The other day your humble scribe was hiking, with some friends, up bamboo-studded mountains here in Hong Kong.

As we were bent over double, to go underneath very low-hanging bamboo that was matted with detritus, a friend's girlfriend, who had grown up in Hong Kong's New Territories, called out to us from the back of the line of hikers...

"Don't thrash about with the sticks so much..."

"You'll anger the green bamboo snakes." 

"Just stamp really hard so the snakes can hear you and they might choose to leave. But, if you see one rise, turn and run. You have one second when their eyes close, as they rise before they strike. Oh--and they'll aim for your face or neck."

Just the sort of thing you want to hear when you are crouched over double in a dark, bamboo, natural tunnel on a disused mountain path that the local old guy, crouched fishing at the stream at the beginning, said was dangerous.

Great. (I think of Ned. I don't want to be dead.)

Don't just worry about the spiders of the apocalypse and the giant cockroaches.

Worry about the snakes, too... ...Death with no feet, sliding silently amongst the bamboo stalks, blending perfectly into the background and the foreground.

...We'll go hiking when you come and visit...

Tschuess, 

Chris, Regina, and Pommes (who is suddenly pleased to be a housecat in Hong Kong)

Strike of the meme

Dear Gentle Reader,

Good morning, a bit late.

Sorry, your humble scribe is very ill today and just managed to claw his way out of bed. 

He is returning forthwith (to bed).

The exceptionally talented Candace of EyeCandy tagged me here...

She shared six unusual things about herself, linked back to the person who tagged her, and tagged six others...

I propose to share six things about myself and tag you all (my virus makes me cocky).

Six things about Sepiru Chris, not found in the archives:

(1) I possess a super power... 

...I am keenly observant. 

I note that university students are getting younger every year, and faster, too, when they get onto a rugby or (field) hockey pitch. 

Also, girls in discos seem to be getting younger and more impervious to the effects of dancing through the night than seems reasonable. Thank goodness I am already married.

Finally, years take less time to blow through than they used to. 

The reasons for these anomalies are shrouded in mystery, but their reality has been keenly observed by your humble scribe through his observational super power. 

Ta dah. Super power, off.

(2) No one really knows where my off button is, your Heroine or myself included. 

Point me to the cliff and I climb up or jump off to the river or ocean below. 

Put me on a trail and I hike. 

Put me in a kayak and I paddle. 

A friend and I (about 20 years ago) would flip coins onto aerial maps of the Canadian wilderness and try to get 60 to 80 km from point A to point B, regardless of intervening cliffs, mountains, lakes, swamps, rivers, waterfalls, and animal hazards. (By foot, obviously. True Canadian wilderness is truly inaccessible to vehicles.)

Only sometimes were we successful, and never in the designated distance limits; big detours were always required.

(3) Despite point two, your Heroine considers me to be a worrier who considers (and works to avoid) the risks of things in (too) extensive detail. 

Why is this unusual? I once packed a hypothermia tent for a day hike in Hong Kong, in the summer, just in case... 

I consider this worrying a byproduct of a professional legal training followed by running a legal practice because lawyers are fixated with risk. 

Court-room lawyers look for risks to exploit for their clients. Deal-making lawyers look for risk and give their clients a cost-benefit analysis of mitigating those risks. Your humble scribe, far more than a scrivener, has been both.

(4) I set up my first business venture when I was 12 (an animal collection, distribution, marketing, and sales regime). 

The same year I also set up an exceptionally lucrative literary rental scheme renting excerpts of books to my peers at recess--I discovered how well sex sells. (Scribe's note, I only sold the literary form.)

I learned about intellectual property much later in life as a litigator. 

(Retroactive apologies now tendered to Ken Follett, Eric van Lustbader, Robert Ludlum, et al. Again, I note that I was merely two thirds of 18.)

(5) I love food. 

All food. 

(Well, only good food--excellent ingredients and exceptional preparation techniques, be it rustic or fancy in style.) 

I am willing to eat everything, and have never met a food, fitting the prior constraints, that I did not like (although, admittedly, the spiders' soft, bulbous bodies, as opposed to their crispy legs, found here were a bit bitter...). 

Except marmalade (orange marmalade). 

For some reason I cannot abide (orange) marmalade. 

(I put orange in brackets because the Germans translate all jams and jam variants as being marmalade, and I very much enjoy compotes, confitures, jams and jellys made from fruits other than oranges, even ones made from non-fruits like wine, tea, garlic, or red pepper jelly...)

(6) I am fearful of: 

(a) making bread (it never goes right); 

(b) being attacked by large spiders (large enough that, when you swing a broom at them they blithely grab the broom and swing it back. Have you seen how fast spiders move and how much ground they can cover? Imagine a spider the size of a corgi... and whimper in terror...); and, finally, 

(c) concerted efforts by poisonous snakes to end my life. 

There. Six things, possibly unusual, about Sepiru Chris.

 

Anyone who would like to post six interesting things about yourself, do so. It would be fun to know more. Link back if you so desire.

I think you are all interesting, and I suspect that you are all far more interesting than I am.

As an aside, I am working on an internet start-up, so I will likely be dropping back on my postings rate because I have become a bit too enamoured of the instant gratification of the web and am neglecting tasks that cannot be neglected.

Tschuess,

Chris

Postscript:

Your humble scribe likes creating using various media. At the top is one of my pieces. Hover over it, with your mouse (as always with pictures) for details. This was so that I can show to the crafty and artistic denizens of Blogovia that I fit into their niche, too. Sort of. Maybe. If I dream...

Hike to (instead of Haiku) Tai O

Hello Gentle Reader,

Weekends and holidays are good days to go outdoors and explore Hong Kong away from the buildings.

Forty five minutes on three different subways takes us, in a roundabout fashion, from Kowloon on the mainland to the island of Hong Kong and then onwards to the Island of Lantau (where the airport is located).

Today we walk around Lantau Mountain, up and over and across mountain ranges, and then down to the fishing village of Tai O.

For some reason, many people do not leave Hong Kong to explore her nature. For them, in your humble scribe's opinion, is too bad. 

Why? Because leaving Hong Kong's metropolitan splendour behind us we quickly find walks like this:

The path we were on today was permanently closed. We found out why when we started coming across landslides blocking the trail, and covering it with loose debris...

Then, when we look back, from a peak...

We invariably look ahead, to see more landslides dotting the hills...

Rest, at a peak.

Look Ma, no buildings. 

This is why it is great to get out of Hong Kong and out of: the hurly burly bustle of the people; the scents; the noise; the consumer metabolism; the buying; the selling; the cheap, cheap, cheap but high, high quality; the "look beautiful sir? maam?", uncapitalized and trite; the litter of things to buy, things to have, things to throw away; and, the ever present massing of crowds of people who actually enjoy, live, and breathe that rampant consumption of knock-off, designer, plastic baubles with life-like simulcras of desire.

Right. Time to breathe again, look at the view, get up and wander away.

Then we commence a sharp, hard descent all the way to the sea to get to Tai O, a fishing village built on stilts.

Tai O has a great atmosphere and is a unique fishing abode. 

It is well worth its own post.

I hope you are well. Your Heroine is finally getting better (she has been sick); your humble scribe is falling ill. 

And no one gets sick like a man does...

Tschuess, 

Chris

Spiders on the Trail

Dear Gentle Reader,

"STOP" 

...commanded my wife with enough of a dry smile buried in the command to make me very uneasy.

I did.

"Look up" she suggested.

I did.

This was what I saw.

A spider.

A big 'un.

Right above our heads.  

Well, above my head.

OK, that doesn't impress you?  We were hiking on Lantau Island, just beside Hong Kong, and I was terrified.

How about a closer look...

This is a spider to be avoided, not run into.

Or loitered under.

You see those fangs in the front of that spider? ... 

Those teeth are the same length of the first digit of my pinkie/little finger.

That body is the length of my hand.

Those legs are freakishly long, as you can see.

This beast could wrap its legs around your head, grab onto your opposite ears, and slowly slurp out your brain, like an Egyptian mortuary attendant in pharonic times. 

(Well, they (the Egyptians) used a spoony hooky thing to liberate brains from skulls prior to mummification. Who is to say that no slurping or slurping noises resulted?  Hmm?  Alright then. Back to the narrative.)

Still not convinced as to the fearsome dangerousness of these brutish beasts of the bamboo wilds?

The truth is out there, or rather up there....

Now, I grant you, this shot is not the greatest, but that telephone pole is about 3 feet, or 1 meter, behind the spider in this shot.

The focusing is messed up because of the branches in the foreground.

This spider's web is not between those branches.  

Note the size of this tiny girl compared to the telephone pole behind her...

This spider's web had support lines running at least 15 feet, or 5 meters, and the main web of this killer looked like a Cassini oval with its major axis having a diameter of about 4 and half feet or 1 and a half meters and its minor axis having a diameter of about 3 feet or 1 meter.

I could not get closer because there were intervening spider webs, and accompanying spiders, all over the place. And I am not, despite popular belief, fecklessly reckless.

Here is the underside of a much smaller spider...

Those colours, fearsome yellow, blood red, pitch black, and ghost white mean "stay away" in nature.

Those are warning signs.

They warn, "Come closer, and I will convert your faith into reality".

These spiders can give you a personal introduction to Charon. 

I have it on good authority that the children of these spiders run a profitable side-business lending out the necessary coins, and dabbling in currency exchange, for those going to meet Charon.

There might have been more to this walk, but it was all burned out of me by my startled fright of these spiders.

I have had experiences with these spiders of the apocalypse before, but that story deserves its own post.

What really had me amazed though, was that we did this walk with a friend who was visiting from Switzerland.  

OK that fact that she was Swiss did not amaze me. Nationality is not that surprising.

But, this lovely Swiss belle, Fab, was utterly unconcerned by these spiders.

I mean, I knew that Swiss banks fear nothing. (Well, they used to fear nothing. Certainly not court judgments from other nations asking them to divulge funds or bank account details, but I think they now fear credit default swaps and securitized sub-prime mortgages, but who doesn't fear those beasties? See my article here on the damages those beasties can cause.)  

But that the Swiss were this unconcerned with death-dealing spiders of the apocalypse, spiders that can remove your head with one casual swipe of a forepaw, (spiders that have paws!) well, this was news to me.

Your humble scribe was humbled.  

He allowed your Heroine to walk first. 

He, generously, allowed Fab to take the lead.

And once again, we thwarted death, since this blog is reaching you, though death stalked us from above at every turn.

Tschuess,

Chris, Regina, and Pommes