Last January I was walking in a fairly remote botanical garden in Sri Lanka. I was just minding my own business, walking slowly, admiring the plants and waterfalls, stopping occasionally for tea and slowly unwinding into a state of meditation. I was becoming so calm and relaxed that I distinctly remember thinking to myself 'This must be heaven'
Anyway, about 5 seconds later I heard a crackling sound circling above me. A normal fly or bee has a high-pitched buzzing whereas this sound was like a deep electric clicking sound. Something flew past my ear at which point my first reflex was to try and swipe it away. As I swiped it I felt the size of it and realised I had just really pissed it off. Another one stung me on the arm and another one attempted to sting my torso but got his stinger trapped in my t-shirt. While it was trapped I could see this abomination flailing around like crazy trying to escape. I threw my t-shirt off which in hindsight was a really bad idea. I then while running away realised there was an entire swarm chasing me, I tried to use my t-shirt as a whip to fight them off which just made them angrier and now didn't even have the t-shirt to protect my torso.
This botanical garden was pretty much empty apart from a handful of elderly Sri Lankan couples. It makes me laugh to imagine them suddenly watching a topless man running around swinging a t-shirt in the air hahaha.
I ended up with about 20+ stings by the time I managed to escape, at first I started freaking out because I had no idea if this insect was poisonous or not. I found an old lady and tried to explain to her through hand gestures what had happened. She gestured for me to lie down and wait while she went off somewhere. She came back with a small hard yellow nut or fruit. She chopped it in half and then scrubbed all the wounds with it. I was grateful for her help but was worried as I was still uncertain if she knew whether the insect was poisonous or not and the idea of having a random fruit rubbed into my bloodstream was also making me nervous. She gave me a pat on the back and gestured that ill be fine.
After 30 minutes the pain and the swelling was much better and I went back to my guesthouse to sleep. When I woke up I was fine. I did some googling and found out it was a swarm of Asian Hornets.
I sometimes think back at this ironic situation of experiencing heaven and hell simultaneously as being a little spiritual message. I'm still undecided about what the moral is but I'm glad it happened for some reason.
Submitted November 28, 2022 at 03:19AM by AdventurousDare8 https://ift.tt/bLZMQr0
Comments
Post a Comment