The Thailand diaries continue! To read past posts in this series, click here.
We bought snacks to eat on the plane. Who wouldn’t? Among these snacks was a sizeable bag of honey-roasted mixed nuts from Bulk Barn that the youngest splurged on but never got around to eating.
One morning, like every morning so far on this trip, we were by the pool. We’d established a bit of a routine in terms of poolside lounging which included someone bringing supplies such as sunscreen, water bottles, books, towels etc.
The youngest daughter reached into her purse to grab something and instantly recoiled. Hundreds of tiny red ants were milling around inside her bag and were streaming in and out, as ants do. They were so small they were barely visible.
The bag had been lying on the ground next to her pool chair.
“Do you have any food in there,” I asked.
“No!”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
Sure enough, that bag of honey-roasted nuts had fallen down into the deep recesses of her bag and just stayed there, forgotten.
She pulled it out with the tips of two fingers and held it up, disgust written clear across her face. She tossed the bag into the garbage and tried shaking the ant colony out of her purse. Some ants instantly fell upon a stray almond that had rolled under the chair (how do they survive a fall from such great heights??) while others held on for their dear lives.
The purse was left on our balcony overnight in hopes they’d abandon it. (There was no way we were keeping that infested thing in our room.) The next day there was bidirectional trail of ants leading from the purse to an unknown destination down the side of the building. These guys were relentless but clearly some crumbs remained and were keeping them tethered to the area.
I had the idea of giving the interior of the purse a light spritz with bug spray, which did the trick. After a bit of airing out it was as if it never happened, but our uncomfortable brush with bugs never truly left us.
