9/02/10 The Long Hard Climb

View from the top of the Bashen Caves

Some of the other caves were near the top of the steep rock face so I began to climb what seemed like a never ending staircase.  The sign read “Beware of poisonous snakes and bees”, since I had no idea what poisonous snakes and bees looked like I thought it would be best to be non-discriminatory and be on high alert for anything that moved.

I was taking pictures of a spider’s web when I heard some noise in the trees above me.  Turning to look I was met by the face of a monkey, a macaque as I would later learn.  I spent a frustrating couple of minutes trying to get a decent photo but the foliage was dense and the macaques were shy, so I gave up “the hunt” and just enjoyed the view.

I eventually climbed to the highest cave.  At the end of the trail was a maintenance worker.  He kept repeating something to me and I obviously had no idea what he was saying.  I’m guessing it could have been something like “the trail ends here”, but it could have just as easily been “Hey dummy, you’re a sweaty mess, what possessed you to climb up here?  They’re not even real caves!” or maybe even “Watch out for poisonous bees”.

Now I don’t know if what I saw qualifies as a poisonous bee, but the one I saw was a big as a fucking sparrow!  And in my books anything as big as a bird, even a small one, that comes equipped with a stinger is dangerous.  I don’t know if I made a sound since there was nobody there to hear me, but if I did I probably sounded a lot like a crying 6 year-old.  I often tell my nephews to leave bees alone; the old mantra of “if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you”.  Secretly, I know they’ve been calling “bullshit” on that advice.  And now faced with the poisonous bird bee my own crept in.  I promptly got out of there