Still Waters Run Really Deep

Tropical Aquatic Biology Trip

i love uni for this... the trips, the great chances to see things and learn things that really matter to you. like this subject that i'm taking. i love learning about nature. i try adopting a rational and logical approach when dealing with things like conservation and protection of the environment we live in. i took a few pictures of the places we went this short trip. the trip was some 2 weeks back but then i haven't had the time to upload the pics to my laptop since my stooooooopid usb ports have decided to die on me last minute... sigh! anyways, i have them here!!! :)

this is the first place we went to. it's a old tin mine lake in kelana jaya. as you can see, the lake is really polluted with all the rubbish that people staying around here throw into the lake. it's been cleaned up so there are basically more living things and less rubbish. we managed to get quite alot of little bugs and snails. we were mainly on a quest for the creepy crawlies but then a few little fish got caught in our nets and sample jars. sadly for the cute ickle fishies, they had to be subjected to alcohol poisoning... in super huge quantities.. :S

our next stop was at a peat swamp pool beside the road. i think that's where i picked up a few bugs... anyway, we found loads of super cool bugs there! this included dragonfly larvae, mayfly and damselfly larvae, cute little flies (that i have been yet to identify...) and sadly, another ickle fishie that was hiding under the root i pulled up. sigh! and yes, this ickle fishie died an alcoholic's death... the plant that was hiding the ickle fishie is the same as the one in the picture i have below. it's not a good picture and i did not do it justice cos i couldn't wade out into the swamp... (and i don't want to le!)

luckily for any other little fishes that were at the next site we were at, there was a relatively fast flowing body of water. said body of water was a drain that was used to drain the water out of the peat swamp. there however, as beautiful the shade was, stank to high heavens. my lecturer not so subtly mentioned that there, the locals do their toilet... not the best thing to tell your student when she has to put her hands into the water to collect water samples... i was really grossed out...

anyhow, the bad thing about these trips is if you don't be careful, you end up having to pay a doctor's fee... as in my case. i think i picked up a stomach bug (bacterial infection) and ended up having diarrhoea at least twice a day. hahah! anyhow, by the time i went to the doc, i had already started to heal by myself and the doc decided that i didn't need to have such a long course of antibiotics.

the last place we went was FRIM. had to do sampling at the river.i caught a crab there!!! so super cute! and two shrimp! hahah! there were alot of other things, but alas, another ickle fishie. sigh!!! FRIMis beautiful in its own way. though i think there are waaay too many people there. i was hoping to see monkeys and a few birds but due to the high number of visitors there, most of the wildlife shy away. luckily for us, the site we sampled from was further upstream, with much less rubbish.

oh well, it goes without saying i had fun. we were all tired and really smelly at the end! we reached back at uni at around 6.30 and i had dinner with nick and his folks before nick sent me home. anyway, here's some of the pics i took of us having fun on the bus. :)