Ants!

Pakse, Laos

Today I'm upset. Really upset. Even though it's probably my own fault. My own stupidity. I've just arrived here. Got myself a hotel room and went out to have a look around, eat something, get myself some wheels.
Now I've just come back from my great ride. I can't even remember what I wanted to get from my small backpack. I just noticed it looked like its surface was moving. It was ants. All over my backpack. There must have been thousands! They had formed a regular road to a tiny hole somewhere in the wall. Even the floor all around my bag was crawling with them. Then I remembered I had left half a pomelo in the bag. They had smelt it and were swarming in to get some. I checked inside and rummaged. And was promptly bitten. Painfully so! They had got inside, too! The first thing on top was the necklace that Iris had bought for me at the Dai Minority Park the first time we went out together. The plastic bag I had put it in was covered in ants, too. I ran downstairs and got one of the staff to come up with some insect killer. Fortunately, they had a can left. He sprayed everything that moved for a long time. It seemed like he was almost emptying the can. I watched them die. "Don't leave fruit around", he advised helpfully. Thanks but I was not in the mood for advice. I was in the mood to complain about them having an insect problem in their damn hotel.
I started cleaning my backpack - one item at a time - cursing all the while. How could I have been so stupid? And still I kept getting bitten by more ants. They were far from dead. The worst thing was still come: They had not only eaten holes into the pomelo, they had found a way into the plastic bag and had chewed on Iris's gift. It was made of nuts but I had thought they were empty shells. Obviously they weren't. I took it out of its bag and it fell apart in my hands. The ants had eaten into the nuts and chewed through the string, as well. My only physical memory of Iris was ruined. I remembered the day she gave it to me. It said 西双版纳 on one of the shells. I could have cried. I couldn't even find all of the little plastic beads that were space holders between the nuts.
I went on brushing off every item that had been in my bag. I would still find more and more ants that had survived the poison. So, I killed them myself. In the end, when I had taken everything out, I rinsed the bag in the shower - only to find out that the damn little bastards could swim. I could see them paddle around on the floor of the shower! At least, I managed to flush all of them out of my bag this way. Then, when most ants had either died of the poison, me squashing them or had gone away I started putting together the pieces of Iris's souvenir. I'm still so upset. In the end, I managed to clean it, too, of ants. They kept coming crawling out of the nuts and disappearing into them again. The only way will be to keep it and take it home. Since I still have the beads and the nut shells are mostly intact I should be able to thread them on a new string. I hope it works. At least there's that hope to comfort me. I'll take a photo to document what it looks like.
When I finished cleaning and hung up my bag to dry (at least that shouldn't take long as hot as it is here) I realised I had spent almost three hours with this. It was dark outside. So, it's time for dinner. At least, that should lift my spirits a bit.