Palau Perhentian, Malaysia- Razors in the Velvet Night

Imagine lulling away one's last island night in a hammock, amid warm
soft breezes of a velvet night. Recent soft showers evoke heady herbal
aromas from the surrounding woods. Stars twinkle between gently
swaying pine trees with needles and branches so long and soft that
they resemble weeping willows. A giant bat soars in the periphery.
Imagine feeling amazed at the serenity and peace that comes with just
"being." I reveled in it, knowing that reentry back into the city life in the SF
Bay area, and the series of busses trains and planes between, would
buck my center. I would have laid there all night, if it weren't for
fear of impending rain. Thunder showers are common, if short. I
eventually crawled to the safety of my little rustic A-frame amid the
trees.

Imagine then, what a shock it was to awake in the dark to something
like a cross between a sharp x-acto blade stab and an electric shock.
"What the f _ _ k was that??!" I shouted as I grasped my burning
finger and stumbled for the light switch. It was like the burn of a
bee sting, but infinitely more painful. The yellow bed light revealed
two sizeable blobs of blood on the tip of one of my fingers.
I instinctively squeezed my finger, thinking whatever venum or bacteria
that had gotten in would best be ejected. My mind searched the
possibilities... a rat? There were plenty of screeching creatures in
the night, and things dropping and scuttling on the tin roof.
Eventually, my finger swelled to the point that the puncture wounds
sealed, showing themselves as an elongated triangle of 3 tiny holes.
I'd never seen anything like it. Leaches were out of the question,
since one doesn't feel them. My finger became hard and stiff as it
swelled further, and my hand started to ache. It seemed there was some
venom in me, and the effect was spreading and the pain NOT subsiding.
Small snakes and scorpians came to mind. What if this were something
that needed treatment right away, to stave off shock? I hurried into
the night for help.

With much effort, and trying to awake only the minimal amount of
people, I finally found the owners of the compound. The poor two women
dragged themselves out of bed, and after some discussion decided it
must have been a centipede brought out by the rains. I envisioned
venomous Thai centipedes floating in Whisky bottles (for that extra
kick). "You're lucky it was a small one!" they said, and then droley
added the phrase I wanted to hear,"You'll live."

They kindly annointed my throbbing finger with a papaya cream for the
poison, fed me a painkiller to help me sleep, and armed me with a can
of roach spray. They were concerned that the centipede was still
hiding in my bed. Rather than pollute my tiny cabin with more toxic
fumes beyond the mosquito coils I chocked on nightly... I opted to
shake out the sheets and sleep at the opposite corner in the smallest
fetal position I could manage... with the lights on. I'm sure there
were hundreds more milling in the damp earth below, so killing one
would be like spitting in the ocean.

It occurred to me, that these little painful catastrophies always seem
to happen the night or day before I disembark on a journey for which I
need my rest and functional limbs and wits about me. This time,
it was even the same finger as the blistering Bangkok mosquito
infection that won me bulletin board photo space in a Pharmacy.

Two days later, and a couple more local remedies including sea
cucumber (slug) oil, my finger is finally almost normal. I'm glad it
wasn't a "big one".

Life is slightly complicated, trying to book train or bus across the
peninsula to Kuala Lumpur in time for my flight to the USA.

I'm eating as much Indian & Malaysian food as I can stand, the last
couple days of my trip. In fact, I was yearning so much for Roti
Chanai and Murtabak, that I actually left the lovely Palau Perhenthian
islands for prosaic small city of Kota Bharu. The land that lasagna
pasta sheets forgot, to the lament of the two women that ran the beach
bungalows and treated my wounds and psyche.

I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to find price stickers on
things, now that I'm in Malaysia. The main irritation that I'd
forgotten about are the sales staff that hovers, or interrupts one's
concentration on the fine print to overstate the obvious "shampoo", or
just plain hangs out (in the way). There's often more floor staff than
customers per aisle!

All this seems like a small thing in the context of my good fortune at
being alive and having had this enriching adventure. I'm also
grateful for the friends I'll reconnect with, and the new one's that I
made during this trip.

I hope to see you all soon!