Thailand for farang

Spiders in Thailand

Don’t let your fear of spiders stop you from visiting or moving to Thailand. I’m so scared of spiders, that it was one of my first consears when we talked about moving to Thailand.

When I was younger the spiders at my grandmother’s house were as big as my hands and they were everywhere! Nowadays I don’t see that many spiders anymore. And the spiders that I see have gotten smaller or my hands have gotten huge.

I used to be ok with spiders. My fear of spiders started here in Thailand when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Besides for the fact that the spiders were enormous and it was really creepy to wake up next to one of those huge hairy monsters, I remember 2 situations that scared the crap out of me. Those 2 situations probably were the things that leaded to my araknafobia.

One day when I went to take a shower in the very old-school Thai bathroom at my grandmothers house. I walked in and closed the door behind me. As I turned around I saw a huge spider on the back of the door. My first reaction was walking backwards, walking away from the door. But then I realised I slammed the door too hard as there was a spider on de roof that was as big as the one on the door. It was falling down like a leaf falling from a tree in autumn. I didn’t know what to do. I was stuck , cause the one on the door was sitting besides the doorknob and the other one was taking forever to decide where it was going to land. It was whirling around like it was trying to make me go lunatic. And it succeeded in its mission. I think I started screaming and crying and somebody of the family must have pushed the door open from the outside as I didn’t lock it because the spider was sitting on the doorknob. It’s a little bit blurry how I got out of the situation as I got a little lightheaded of fear.

banana-spider-banner

One morning I was walking hungry and half awake into the kitchen. There was a cluster of bananas. My grandmother had banana plants in the garden. I picked a banana. But before I knew it a completely white spider was pointing his 2 front legs at me. It was like it was pointing at me and telling me “I’m coming for you!”. And so it did, it jumped out of the cluster. I ran into to the living room with the white spider running after me. I jumped on the wooden bench screaming and crying. The spider jumped, but luckily it didn’t get on the bench. My grandfather was laughing so hard it was really confusing me. He caught the spider in a plastic tub and release it outside.

Since those 2 things happened I’ve been extremely scared of spiders. I can’t even look at pictures of spiders. That’s why there will be no pictures in this post. Seeing spiders or pictures of them makes me nauseous, my palm get sweaty and I feel an inexplicable fear. I can’t look at them. If I can’t run away I’ll cover my eyes as if it would magically disappear. Not only have I been scared of spiders since then, I’ve also been scared of banana plants and going into a humid room (like a bathroom or toilet) in Thailand.

Ever since I moved to Thailand it seems to get a little bit better. I’ve been living here for a year and a half now and I haven’t seen any big spider yet. It even seems like there are less spiders here than there were in Belgium. It’s been years since I’ve seen a hairy monster inside a house. Of course there are still spiders in the jungle. By jungle I don’t mean those jungles tours foreigner pay to take, because those paths are walked daily. I mean the real jungle.

jungle-Thailand

I went on a jungle tour with my husband and a friend of ours. I really didn’t want to go because I was terrified of running into spiders. I used all the courage I had and went with them as I didn’t want to be the party pooper. The facilities in the jungle were less old-school as my grandmother’s house. The bedroom and shower were old fashioned, but they were adapted to foreigners. They were clean and comfortable enough. There even was a normal toilet in the jungle! Read about the jungle tour.

jungle-bedroom The bedroom in the jungle which was spider free.

In my normal daily life settings I don’t have to deal with spiders too often. Even though I live in a rural part of Thailand I feel more at ease than I often did in Belgium. I avoid walking paths nobody ever walks through (but you kind of have to do that to avoid snakes anyway). I stay away from banana plants and freshly cut banana clusters. And I’m doing just fine.

So if anybody is doubting about taking a trip here or moving here because they are afraid of spiders, I would say don’t be ridiculous. It’s easy to avoid spiders in Thailand if you want to.

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