[Anon Mouse]

I'm currently on holiday in China with the Wife and I had a horrible experience with a Cockroach. My wife thinks im acting like a girl but I screamed while having a poop on one of those horrible squat toilets a huge one was trying to climb out. I managed to flush the chain to send the critter away and im now terrified to use the toilet! Has anyone else had a similar scary experience?

The odd thing is, we are almost finished our holiday and until yesterday the Cockroach count was very low, but since then ive seen loads...and those horrible big brown things that make a racket in the trees and during a banquet tonight a plate of Bamboo Beetles were placed in front of me on which my Wife and all her family feasted on cruching away while I was squirming in the corner.

[WestCoast]

I had an 'interesting' encounter in a small town in Morocco a few years ago. I arrived at my room in the small guest house where I was staying and everything appeared fine so I started to unpack. A few minutes later, I popped to the bathroom. There, I found the sink and the bath chock-a-block full of large (flying) cockroaches.

Needless to say, the door was swiftly shut and I managed to find somewhere else to stay...

I told my friend this story and he replied that when he was working as a contractor in Nigeria, some sort of insect managed to get inside his skin and lay eggs, causing massive boils which had to be painfully lanced....

[Tracked]

On holiday in France some years ago, went to the toilet in the middle of the night and there was a large snail just under the rim

[Peter Mugridge]

I got bitten by a False Widow in our garden two years ago; it took three months for the swellings and itching to go down.

[DaveNewcastle]

For the most part, I just disregard insects, but I must agree that (while I generally enjoy watching wildlife in all its shapes and forms), insects in unexpectedly close proximity is more likely to alarm me and even prompt me to react unexpectedly than just about anything else.

I remember waking up once to find something crawling over my face - I still remember it with a shiver, and that was probably 15 years ago. And uncovering a massive beetle in a pile of sand (about 150mms long) and ready to fly; a bat wouldn't have bothered me, but that did - I still remember that from about 10 years ago. Some friends have a neighbour who keeps snakes and other large reptiles - that often leads to excitable stories (yes, they do escape!). It doesn't bother me, but I don't know if I would be as calm knowing that they were always there, just next door. On another occassion, an imported hand drum was opened to find the cause of the noise - there was a spider inside about 120mm across - that was more than 35years ago and still makes me shiver.

But when it comes to food, then I guess I'm more tolerant than most to what goes into a meal; I'll cook nettle soup from wild nettles; I'll eat berries from the roadside; I'll accept that green veg might also be home to small residents; I can see what the hens are eating before they lay; there's rats and water-rats where I work, but if it came to this . . .

Originally Posted by Anon Mouse

. . . during a banquet tonight a plate of Bamboo Beetles were placed in front of me on which my Wife and all her family feasted on cruching away while I was squirming in the corner.

. . . then I'd want to join you in that corner, as far as poss from those beetles!

I draw the line at eating beetles.

[WestCoast]

Sleep tight....http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...FIVE-days.html

Originally Posted by Daily Mail Reporter

Doctors find spider that had been living in Chinese woman's ear for FIVE days... after it crawled in while she slept

• Woman went to doctor complaining of an 'itchy ear'
• Doctors feared the spider would bite her at any time

We've all heard the one about people eating a spider while they sleep or creepy-crawlies going somewhere they shouldn't while we snooze - but for one poor woman the urban legend has come true.

She arrived at China's Changsha Central Hospital with an itchy ear, only to learn the cause was a spider that had crawled into the ear canal.

To make things worse, doctors believe the arachnid had been in there for five days....

[ATWalex101]

In the Philippines where I come from there are shedloads of cockroaches and they are annoying little buggers! Whenever me and my family visit we buy lots of repellent and we sleep under mosquito nets. It does seem strange, our house over there isn't dirty, it's just cockroaches getting in where they can!

[Nym]

Used to live with the little buggers when I was on the Canary Islands, but it was only when I moved to one of the older houses further down the hill that they became a real problem, some very effective traps kept them down to an acceptable level of one or two per day. Funnily though, when at the bottom of the hill at work we didn't have any of them.

Maybe it's because at work I was eating donner meat and chips or sausage and bacon sandwiches, and at home I'd be having fried san jacob sandwiches or pasta based products...

[Anon Mouse]

Originally Posted by ATWalex101

In the Philippines where I come from there are shedloads of cockroaches and they are annoying little buggers! Whenever me and my family visit we buy lots of repellent and we sleep under mosquito nets. It does seem strange, our house over there isn't dirty, it's just cockroaches getting in where they can!

Its the same at my Wife's parents home, its spotless clean inside dispite the communal staircase being minging but thats just normal Chinese blocks. I kind of shut the thoughts out for a few days and never saw any, but after we returned from a trip to Xinshunbanna we saw about 2 a day which I managed to kind of cope with, but the one coming out the toilet freaked me out big style. Alcohol kind of helps, as they never really bothered me in Thailand a few years ago during one trip I found them in my 1st class sleeping car compartment....sadly my Wife controls my alcohol intake!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Originally Posted by DaveNewcastle

For the most part, I just disregard insects, but I must agree that (while I generally enjoy watching wildlife in all its shapes and forms), insects in unexpectedly close proximity is more likely to alarm me and even prompt me to react unexpectedly than just about anything else.

I remember waking up once to find something crawling over my face - I still remember it with a shiver, and that was probably 15 years ago. And uncovering a massive beetle in a pile of sand (about 150mms long) and ready to fly; a bat wouldn't have bothered me, but that did - I still remember that from about 10 years ago. Some friends have a neighbour who keeps snakes and other large reptiles - that often leads to excitable stories (yes, they do escape!). It doesn't bother me, but I don't know if I would be as calm knowing that they were always there, just next door. On another occassion, an imported hand drum was opened to find the cause of the noise - there was a spider inside about 120mm across - that was more than 35years ago and still makes me shiver.

But when it comes to food, then I guess I'm more tolerant than most to what goes into a meal; I'll cook nettle soup from wild nettles; I'll eat berries from the roadside; I'll accept that green veg might also be home to small residents; I can see what the hens are eating before they lay; there's rats and water-rats where I work, but if it came to this . . . . . . then I'd want to join you in that corner, as far as poss from those beetles!

I draw the line at eating beetles.

I'm practically the same, in a hotel that we stayed in in Jinghong there was a lizard climbing up the wall and yet my Wife would not let me try to catch it saying it was poisionous (which I doubt) and that she screamed like a little girl when I held a pet Python and that she cannot bear snakes full stop. But she is perfectly OK with Cockroaches and thinks im a girl when I see one! I'm fine with reptiles and most other creatures but not bugs, not bugs at all!!!

Aparently those Bamboo Beetles (don't know the proper name) taste really nice, but I could not bring myself to eat one and I even asked for them to be put at the other end of the table as I could not bear to even look at them!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Sleep tight....http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...FIVE-days.html

Aaarrgghhh!

I read the headline but could not read anymore! I'm ok with spiders but not if they are living somewhere like that!

[LE Greys]

The nearest I've had to a bad cockroach encounter was in my student flat in Aberdeen. Suddenly found this enormous thing wandering around the kitchen, caught it under a glass, examined it (I am officially a marine biologist) then dumped it in the toilet, followed up with boiling water and pulled the chain. Probably should have flattened it first, but I never saw another. My room was kept cold and all food was sealed in tupperware from then on. They usually can't survive cold temperatures, and only last in Britain thanks to central heating.

Originally Posted by WestCoast

I told my friend this story and he replied that when he was working as a contractor in Nigeria, some sort of insect managed to get inside his skin and lay eggs, causing massive boils which had to be painfully lanced....

Sounds like a nasty little creature called the Chigoe Flea or Jigger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chigoe_flea

[junglejames]

Originally Posted by Anon Mouse

I'm currently on holiday in China with the Wife and I had a horrible experience with a Cockroach. My wife thinks im acting like a girl but I screamed while having a poop on one of those horrible squat toilets a huge one was trying to climb out. I managed to flush the chain to send the critter away and im now terrified to use the toilet! Has anyone else had a similar scary experience?

The odd thing is, we are almost finished our holiday and until yesterday the Cockroach count was very low, but since then ive seen loads...and those horrible big brown things that make a racket in the trees and during a banquet tonight a plate of Bamboo Beetles were placed in front of me on which my Wife and all her family feasted on cruching away while I was squirming in the corner.

Only come across them once. On a ship with Chinese crew.
Coincidence? Nah, i think not.

[bb21]

Originally Posted by Anon Mouse

during a banquet tonight a plate of Bamboo Beetles were placed in front of me on which my Wife and all her family feasted on cruching away while I was squirming in the corner.

Oh, no. You are missing out on a delicacy. Did they deep fry them?

[Anon Mouse]

Originally Posted by bb21

Oh, no. You are missing out on a delicacy. Did they deep fry them?

Yeah they were deep fried and did actually smell quite nice but I just could not do it!!!