One big bamboocha

There are all kinds of insects crawling/flying/leaping about down here. The cicadas are pretty good size, about as big as my thumb, and fly around with reckless abandon most of the time. One night, I was walking the grounds of the hotel, when one flew into my chest. It felt like a pretty good thump and scared the snot out of me. This bugger here is twice as big as the green ones. For some reason, they end up on their backs, especially in the evenings and mornings, and if you give them a little shove or prod them a bit, they take off flying like a drunken WWI flying ace, just bouncing off of everything in their path. You can see that this one is nearly as long as my index finger, and it's pretty beefy as well. I definitely would not like to have one of those smack into me at some point. Would probably leave a good-sized bruise.

The other night, we were lying in bed watching TV. No lights were on, just the flickering light of the set. I looked over on the wall, and a shadow that was about 3 feet tall was inching along the wall, caught in the light of the TV. I flicked on the light and saw that it was a grasshopper/cricket that was crawling up the side of the TV. This was bigger than the praying mantis (see attack of the greenie entry for a picture of that) as it was longer and thicker. Managed to trap it in a cup with a towel over it and let it loose into the night.