My Life in the Tropics - An Initiation Ten Months Late

There are lots of day to day things that happen to me that I often think I should have written about but never actually do and then the moment's gone so to speak.  I do think I need to get better at doing that and therefore this is my attempt at starting to do so!

So I've been here since last July (with a two and a bit month break earlier this year) and this is the first time and certainly, I hope, a long time before it happens again.  I came across a cockroach in the flat, admittedly a dead one but a cockroach nonetheless that must have been alive when it got in to the flat!  Back in the UK I was, and still am very very frightened of spiders, particularly the big hunting spiders that run at breakneck speed across the living room carpet.  In fact when I lived on my own my biggest fear was discovering one of these and how I'd deal with it without someone else there to eject the thing for me.  So when moving to Singapore first became a reality I did wonder if I'd have to contend with any huge spiders.  Fortunately though the few I've seen have all been tiny and I've been able to cope with them.  Doubtless there are probably some big ones in the jungle areas of the island but frankly as long as they stay there I'm not worried.  Moving here though I've decided I'm not a cockroach fan either.

Before I came here I think my only experiences of cockroaches had been in Spain, Italy etc. when you'd see the odd one marching along the road.  My worst encounter was in a hotel I was staying in with friends in Spain.  As we were going to bed we discovered the cockroaches wanted to come and play and we had three or four come in through the patio doors (we were on the ground floor) and proceed to run around our room.  Needless to say we demanded the hotel find us another place to stay and in the early hours of the morning could be seen dragging our suitcases along the road to our new hotel.  We then spent much of the next day reporting the incident and when I got home I remember giving everything a good shake as I unpacked just in case anything had sneaked into my case.

I had not really thought about cockroaches but I soon realised they were far more visible here than in the UK and that it was a part of life in a hot, humid climate.  I've even seen one running around on the veranda at Raffles hotel so nowhere is completely immune from them.  I think though I perhaps naively assumed we'd be fine as we are on the 15th floor of our condo and stories I've heard have all been from people living in landed properties (houses) where I guess it is far easier for the odd cockroach to slip into the house as well.  This being despite the fact that they can climb and fly (yuck) so nowhere is safe in reality.

I did have a previous roach experience on one of our balconies (so perhaps I should not have been so naive), however that one made its own escape (thank goodness) whilst I just observed from indoors.  Now we've had an indoor invader and my reaction has been like I am after a spider encounter.  Everywhere I go in the flat I'm looking just in case ..... and it will take me a few days to stop doing that I'm sure.  I guess the fact we've gone all this time with nothing and, unless he hasn't told me, my fiance had nothing in the six months he was here before I came means this is a fairly rare occurrence.  I'd still be interested to hear what others do though to discourage things such as that from coming inside.  I've picked up a few tips along the way but I'm always interested to hear more.