Taking Photos of Gnarly Bugs in Cambodia

It’s no secret that South East Asia is home to some pretty freaky creatures. For someone like me, who came to Cambodia from Canada, this instant exposure to leagues of tropical insects felt overwhelmingly exciting. Seeing cockroaches three times the size of those from back home made me realize that random encounters with oversized, gnarly bugs will be a daily reality from now on. And so it was.

This Beetle Was Walking Down The Sidewalk in Siem Reap in Cambodia
This Beetle Was Walking Down The Sidewalk in Siem Reap in Cambodia

Even though I was the only one around who got excited and pulled out the camera each time I spotted a gnarly bug, it bugged (no pun intended) me not. Because of extreme heat, I could not carry all of my photography gear with me all the time as it would require carrying heavy bag on my back. One sweats excessively even without extra weight. Nevermind the fact that excessive heat wears you out like you wouldn’t believe. Heavy bags would make this struggle far more challenging.

Looking Big Gnarly Bug in the Face with Wide Angle Lens
Looking Big Gnarly Bug in the Face with Wide Angle Lens

And as Murphy’s Law would have it, I have never had my fast telephoto lens on me when an interesting bug crossed my path. That’s always a bummer. It’s near impossible to take pictures of bugs with a wide angle lens. You can only do it if the bug end fly within your vicinity and doesn’t take off again when you show your camera right in its face, literally just inches from its antennae.

This Beetle Was About 2 Inches in Size - Huge
This Beetle Was About 2 Inches in Size - Huge

Some occasional opportunities do arise though. The beetle in these pictures was over 2 inches long and was pacing its way alongside the pathway lining the east bank of the Siem Reap River in Cambodian Siem Reap. Because it didn’t seem to heed my presence and because I really didn’t care about the locals standing nearby thinking I must be weird for taking pictures of what’s to them a pretty average beetle, I did shove my wide angle lens in its face and snapped a few. My initiation to taking photos of gnarly bugs in Cambodia has been successfully concluded. Ability to handle the heat was much tougher to handle.

Photo of Gnarly Bug Just Walking the Streets of Siem Reap
Photo of Gnarly Bug Just Walking the Streets of Siem Reap

Irene from the Philippines

As I have mentioned, I love the atmosphere at the airports. When you’re at the airport, the change is imminent. I got off the Air Canada plane and followed the International Flights signs at the Vancouver International. I had a few hours to kill, so there was no need to rush, however I still needed to get boarding passes for my Korean Air flights so I wanted to get that off my hands as soon as possible in case it was necessary to go at the opposite side of the airport.

Vast Hallways of Vancouver International Airport
Vast Hallways of Vancouver International Airport

It took me good 20 minutes to get from one end of the airport to the other where international flights depart from. Information panel suggested that my flight takes off form gate 58, which I found, but there was nobody there yet. I simply got there too early. I had no other option but to wait until someone shows up as they would either issue my boarding pass, or tell me where to go to get it.

I have decided to kill the time getting on my laptop and checking emails. I have noticed signs all over Vancouver airport stating that YVR has free WiFi internet. They were advertising it big time everywhere so I found nearest power outlet, plugged my laptop in there and logged on. However after 20 minutes of desperate attempts to get connected to their unsecured network I had no luck at all. It was really frustrating.

Large Flat Screen TV Advertising Free WiFi at YVR
Large Flat Screen TV Advertising Free WiFi at YVR

I have eventually given up, packed up my laptop and started walking towards where I came from to track someone who looks like they might know what’s going on and ask them why they advertise free WiFi when it’s impossible to connect as system rejects all connection attempts.

And as I’m walking back, I see that cute girl sitting there on her pink Sony Vaio laptop, chattering to someone on a webcam. Since she was obviously on line, I stopped by her and asked if she had any troubles connecting. She said she had no troubles whatsoever so I sat opposite of her, plugged myself into the wall and made an attempt from this location. However, same lack of luck as before. I made no sense.

But I kept trying as that girl kept chatting and eventually I got to some window that was telling me that the host wants me to confirm something on their website and was asked if I wished to visit that website. I agreed and was taken to Vancouver International Airport site where I was asked to click on Agree button to agree with some of their TOS (quite likely confirming that I won’t be using this internet connection to download viruses or porn or what not).

The moment I got on, that girl asked me if I had any luck connecting. I said it just started to work for me and got down to doing my on line business. Being used to cold people from Edmonton, I ignored the girl believing she will be the same as regular Edmontonian, but was surprised after she repeatedly kept talking to me. She was cute and barefoot, so it was awesome. It was just something I am not used to, coming from the city where when you talk to a stranger, you get weird looks. Here I was a stranger to her and she talks to me.

Eventually, I put my work on hold and engaged in conversation with her. She told me her name was Irene and that she was from the Philippines. She lived in Calgary for 5 months but her contract didn’t get renewed or something like that so she had to return back home to the Philippines. I told her about my photography and it immediately increased her interest in my even more and asked me if I was on yahoo messenger, cause she wanted to add me. Seriously, I could already feel big time the difference it makes leaving Edmonton. There was no point for me to linger in the city that turns you into a chunk of stone.

Paid Internet Station at the YVR
Passengers Without a Laptop Computer Can Access Internet at YVR Via One of Numerous Paid Internet Stations

Sadly, I don’t use Yahoo messenger. I once installed it, many years ago and it came with so much bloat ware and spyware and pop ups that it went off my computer before I first used it. Perhaps Yahoo got their act together in the meantime, but this initial experience was good enough for me to keep away. I have always used friendly and safe MSN messenger and have never had issues with it.

I explained that to Irene, but told her that I do have a yahoo email address and gave it to her. She made note of that and also took my Hotmail address in order to add me to her MSN messenger when she gets it installed so we can chat in the future. That’s how awesome people are outside of the corporate lifestyle world. I have just left Edmonton and I was back at living the life, instead of spending it.

Irene then came to sit next to me with her laptop and showed me some of the pictures her brother, who’s a photo enthusiast took. We talked about photography as she was actually well familiar with many aspects of it. I asked her to send me an email to the yahoo address I gave her so I could respond with links to my sites. I did not want to just give her the URL to my personal site which has a lot of nude photography, so I sent a link in an email with appropriate warning.

Right after that, I took a glance at the clock on my laptop and realized it was already 1.40pm and my flight departure was scheduled for 2.20pm. I didn’t have a breakfast so I wanted to go get something before boarding and I also wanted to pick up a bottle of mineral water so I don’t die thirsty on a plane. It was going to be a long, long flight so I had better taken care of myself or else I’d be looking at 10+ hours of pain.

I liked hanging out with Irene form the Philippines, but I really had to go. I still needed the boarding pass. So I said my Good Byes, Irene insisted that I visit Philippines on my travels and let her know so we can hang out in her country and then I took off. I quickly picked up a sandwich from Subway, went to just grab it and go to the place where they sell bottled water so I can dart off back towards my gate, when I noticed on the board that it was only 12.40 – my computer clock was still on Canadian Mountain Time so being in Vancouver put me back one hour.

Pretty Fishtank at Vancouver International Airport
This Oversized Fish Tank Greets Tourists at International Departures Section of Vancouver International Airport (YVR)

This gave me an extra hour so I ate my sub in peace, picked up a bottle of water which is BTW extremely expensive within secure area of the airport (grrrr, cause you can’t take any liquids with you as security precautions don’t allow that, so you are forced to buy overpriced water or stay thirsty on the plane) and went back to gate 58 to get a boarding pass.

Korean Air Boarding Passes
Boarding Passes for my Entire Journey from Vancouver, Canada to Siem Reap, Cambodia via Seoul, South Korea

It was a pleasure to be served by absolutely gorgeous Korean girls. Beautiful, slender and tall, these girls are jaw dropping. I got my boarding pass and was told boarding would begin at 1.50, which gave me a bit over 5 minutes to spend on a computer again.

I knew I wouldn’t want to be the first one to board a plane, so I sat back, plugged myself in and started the laptop for the thirst time in Vancouver. Low and behold, after 15 minutes of trying, no luck getting connected. I was messing around hoping to click on a button that would open a message which prompts me to visit the website but it never happened. I don’t remember how I got there the first time. I tried everything but to no avail. Frustrated, I have eventually turned the computer off and boarded the plane. And it was a nice plane. Korean Air rules in more ways than just by having the most stunning flight attendants in the world.

RELATED PHOTO GALLERY:
Vancouver International Airport

My Whole Life Was in Boxes

After I had abandoned my photography business unable to compete against Walmart, I went to work for the government and since my former business was located over 100 km away from the government job, I decided to move. Not only is commuting 200 km a day costly, it also costs a lot in time spent. Hence it was not an option at all.

During my years as a business owner I have accumulated a great deal of possessions. Those included merchandise related to operation of said photography business, actual items that were for sale, lots of decoration for different seasons of the year, and crap loads of other useless junk I somehow felt appealed to buy when I saw it (corporate lifestyle ruled).

When time to move came along after I’ve been offered a job with the government, I packed it all up in boxes and moved to the new location I was going to call home. That however took place in the beginning of 2007. Edmonton underwent massive boom and rental prices went through the roof due to growing demand. Thousands of people from all over Canada flocked to Edmonton where economy was stronger than anywhere else in the country. There was more work available in Edmonton than there were workers.

With situation like that, there were no places for rent. Thousands of people looking, but everyone full up. Homeowners responded by hiking prices up ad nauseum. Since I have already left the notice with my old apartment, I had to leave, but I found myself in a deadlock. After two months of looking, I had no leads as everyone was simply full. It almost looked as though I was gonna end up on the street with dozens of boxes full of possessions and then I found a nice place the day before it would have been too late.

The place was nice, it only had a few catches. It was extremely expensive and was nowhere near conveniently located in relation to my workplace. I had to take it as that was the only available housing at the time. I asked my friend who has a van to help me move all of my boxes. We filled the van twice and moved most of the boxes that way, the rest I moved with my car. There was a lot of stuff in play, but it was all money.

Few months later, the housing situation in Edmonton has stabilized. Prices did not drop, but there was more availability. I took the opportunity and moved to a nice house with live in owner. He was a nice guy, the place was nice and it was close to work. I was happy. The owner let me use the garage where I have stored most of the boxes. The rest I filled up my room with. Life was pretty steady back then. I had little to complain about, other than the fact that there was no excitement in my life. I continued acquiring possessions as that is what you do when you live a corporate lifestyle. I bought myself a new, larger screen for the computer and 5.1 speaker system with awesome subwoofer that would bring any audio to life.

I stayed at that place for over a year and was surprised when the owner asked me to leave. I was happy there. It was close to work and no excessive noise to drive me insane when I’m at home. The reason why I was asked to leave, was that the owner, who had originally immigrated to Canada from Iran was able to get immigration papers for the rest of his family and needed his whole house so his parents and brother and sisters have a place. He recommended his friend and told her about me too. He was happy with me as a tenant, but the situation has developed in such a way that he needed his whole house for his family. I was unhappy about it, but had no other option. I still had my life in boxes and had to move all of them for the third time in a bit over a year.

I moved in with my former landlord’s friend at the beginning of spring. I was still driving at the time, but shortly after I moved to my new place, I bought myself a bicycle and started riding instead. This new place was on the 13th floor of an apartment building down town. Being downtown, it was again not close to my work at all and being on 13th floor, it made moving of all those boxes a major pain. I was pretty fed up with all that constant moving and was glad I had never unboxed cause had I done that, I would have to put it all back in the boxes in order to move. Keeping all I own in boxes had its advantages as it saved me a lot of time during moving, but it came at a price. You can’t find half of your stuff. You know you have it, you just don’t know which box it’s in. That forces you to buy what you already own. For example, you need a cork screw for your wine which I used to drink every evening (a glass of red dry each evening helped a lot with insomnia). I knew I had at least two of them, but for the heck of it I could not find them. They were in one of those boxes but each time I went through the content, I could not see any. So I ended up buying what I already had. Such is life when your life is in boxes. I also like burning scented candles and I knew I had plenty of those but rather than going through boxes, I opted for buying new ones. Corporate lifestyle which is all about acquiring possessions combined with life in boxes made for waste of money of unknown proportions.

Shortly after I had moved to the apartment on the 13th floor, I got myself a bike as my car was getting old and was becoming very costly to run and maintain. I made an attempt to lease a new car and had everything lined up, but it crashed and I ended up with none. Now I know this was one of the best things to have happened to me in a long time. But I’ll talk about it later.

I started riding bike to work. It was a 45 minute bike ride each way. I’m not a morning person so this forced me to get up earlier than normal in the morning so I could get to work in time on bike. Despite all that, commuting that way was enjoyable. Exposure to elements was making it tricky as some days it would rain like crazy, so I’d have to pack a set of extra clothes to take with me and change into them after I have arrived at work. Other days it would be so hot you sweat like crazy and stink whole day at work. Then it would get so windy you get to work exhausted as you pedal twice as hard but move twice as slowly.

But it was all good. I did it for a few months, until final element hit – cold. As soon as September came, it started getting brutally cold and biking became difficult. With each week it was getting colder and colder. Icy roads made for very unsafe biking and as you ride, you go against the air that’s freezing cold but feels twice as cold because you’re at a speed against it. I did it for as long as I could, but eventually had no other option but to move closer to work again. Driving my car was still an option, but it was the last resort. The car was completely busted, ate gas like crazy and didn’t heat up. It was still somewhat working, but it plain and simple sucked. I wanted to stick with riding a bike and it would be an option in winter as well, but not when your workplace is this far from your residence. 45 minutes of bike ride in summer equals over an hour in winter. It also becomes increasingly dangerous so it was just a question of time before something bad would happen. I had to move. Which meant I’d have to move all of my boxes with me AGAIN!

This time I found a place so close to work, I could walk to work in 10 minutes. I went through extreme pain of moving all of my boxes over to the new place all by myself (about 6 days of non stop work). The location was fantastic. I was so close to work, I was literally immune to any bad weather as I didn’t have to worry about traffic jams or cars not starting up. I could easily walk it to work in 10 minutes which was amazing.

This actually proved to be a heap of help as winter of 2009 was a tough one. It was extremely cold for extended periods of time. Whole December was below -30 Celsius. Then it gave us a bit of break and went down to beyond brutal again. Too many extremely cold days and these cold snaps also lasted for way too long. Not having to deal with any automobiles in weather like that was extremely beneficial. Sure it was beyond insane to walk for 10 minutes in such weather, but it could be done. On some days it got so brutally cold I had barely made it to work, but I’ve survived.

Unfortunately, I had really bad roommates in this new place close to work. I lived in the basement and the couple who lived above walked around like a herd of buffaloes. The noise was unbearable and never stopped. I spent Christmas suffering from severe headaches caused by non stop noise made by stomping of people above. I feared for my mental and physical health and had to leave as soon as I had a chance.

At this point I have already lost count over how many times I had to move my boxes from one place to another. I have been moving them around for so long, giving up on them was not an option anymore. In two years of working for the government I had to move 5 times and another move was imminent. Each of those times I had all of those boxes in my hand and each time the boxes were moved, they were just sitting there. Few essential items were at hand, the rest was just being moved in boxes. But the thing was – I have moved them around so many times yet never made use of any of it. I can’t give up on it now. If I were to get rid of any of it, I should have done it the first time I went to move. Subsequent moves would be so much easier. But since I haven’t done it, and actually went through eternal pain of moving each of them boxes around with me, I should continue putting up with it and wait until such time when it will pay for itself.

The breakthrough moment came with my last move. I had to leave the basement apartment asap because noise was just too much. There wasn’t much available at the time – everything was either extremely overpriced or extremely inconveniently located. Except from one place. It was a two bedroom apartment in a nice apartment building. It was reasonably close to work for convenient bicycle commute and reasonably priced: $850 for a two bedroom apartment. I figured I was gonna take it and find myself a roommate in which case the cost per person would become fairly affordable. So I went to move all of my boxes again. I had hoped this was the last time as having one’s life in boxes is extremely difficult and I was on the fringe of flipping from constant need to move them around.

From Normal Job to Working for the Government

Given that I had master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, my first job was related. I worked as a computer analyst and the only thing that kept me there was the location. We had our offices within large textile factory where 90% of workers were young females. I hated my job, but I loved being surrounded by young girls at all times. We had some kind of arrangements with owners of the factory so we did all the electrical maintenance and repairs and since there was a lot of computerized machinery in use, things were often breaking down in which case we’d step in to make it work again. I didn’t mind fixing these machines since it involved talking to girls who were at a complete loss when these machines broke down since it kept happening often, they saw me as their savior. In spite of frequent interactions with young girls, I hated the job and was gone out of there after a year.

The artist in me eventually prevailed and I started playing with a video camera I had bough. I got so into videotaping, I started observing how pros do it and polished my own style. This has eventually lead me to my second job which I actually enjoyed to the fullest – I became a videographer. From the beginning I would do crappy video jobs including weddings and parties, but eventually stepped myself up to working on TV commercials and music video clips for bands. It was quite awesome, but I was still part of the corporate madness and felt something was missing in my life.

From videography there was only a small step towards photography. I still looked at the worked through the glass of a lens, I have only swapped moving pictures with stills. While the principal idea was the same, photography offered whole different fields to discover. I enjoyed it well enough to eventually take a big step in my life and start my own photography business (previous jobs all involved working for the man).

My photography business went all right from the beginning but times were getting tougher by the day. With introduction of digital cameras, people were able to print their own photos at home so photo development market dwindled. Furthermore, prices of quality cameras dropped to a level affordable by virtually anyone, so 90% of all people you meet on the street became your potential competition, since they all owned good enough equipment. Add to it the ever expanding big box stores with primary philosophy to eliminate small business owner and you have the situation in which it was rather impossible to remain afloat. I have abandoned the business and got employed once more.

This time I scored a job with the government. There are many things to like about working for the government – the pay is not much (unless you’re in top management), however government pays half of your medical and personal insurance installments and after you have worked for them for a year, you get your full dental paid for by them too. That’s a nice cut down on your expenses right there.

Another good thing about working for the government is that come 4pm, you get off and you’re heading home. I have not known this in any of my previous jobs. Ever since I started working for the government, I was basically done with work for the day at 4pm and had the rest of the day for myself. Not to mention that fact that I’d get whole weekends off – 2 consecutive days off work. Unheard of! But that’s not all – if it’s a long weekend, I get entire long weekend off. Wow! That’s right, working for the government has its perks. With most other jobs you get one day off a week. It matters little whether it’s long weekend or not, the employer will expect you at work. However when you get a job with the government, you’ll have yourself three days off in a row on a long weekend. Sweet.

After I have scored that government job, I felt like this was the terminal destination for me as far as jobs are involved. I was gonna sit quietly in my cubicle, perform my tasks to the best of my knowledge, write annual performance reports and do it over and over for many years until I retire. You always get paid when you work for the government and you always get paid on time. It bothered me not that the pay was nothing stellar. I had a steady and secure income with the job that left me enough spare time for myself. This job was a keeper and I intended to keep it.