How to prevent leeches from getting to you.

Those who trek or climb hills or mountains have certainly come across tiny, wriggly creatures which need blood to survive. We call them leeches. I have nothing against them sucking some of my blood for God created them to survive on it. However, what i detest most is the itch that I have to suffer for more than a week each time they dig into my legs or feet for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The itch is so annoying as it prevents me from a good night's rest for so many nights. Once I even had to seek antiseptic as the bite became infected. It left a big scar which I have to bear to this day.

Of course, there are always good intentions from people who notice the leeches sticking to my feet. First, there was the suggestion of using a mosquito spray onto the shoes. I did it. Sometimes, or was it just luck, it seemed to work but time prove it not effective.

Then, the other day I went up Gunung Jerai (Jerai Mountain)and was told by my trekking partner to use soap. So I rubbed soap onto my shoes, socks and my pants. It was instantly proved useless against the hundreds, perhaps, thousands, we met all the way up the hill during our five and a half hour trek. All the way we had to stop to pull them off our socks and legs. We dared not remove our shoes to search for those which had managed to slip into our shoes to our soles as the ground was obviously full of them.

Eventually, when we reached the top of that mountain. I removed my socks and discovered not less than twenty of those big, fat, evidently full-of-blood leeches.
My sockes were red with my blood and punctures and more than fifteen tiny punctures on each foot were still bleeding. There was just no way I could stop the bleeding then. So, I merely removed them and put my sock back onto my feet.

Then, the guy who plies the tarred route up and down Gunung Jerai came over to have a look at the great number of leeches I had removed from my feet and shoes. (There are many route up this mountain. There are many jungle paths but one of them is the tarred road which allows cars, vans and jeeps to access the top of this mountain.)He told us that we should have used tobacco juice to avoid attacks by leeches. He demonstrated how we could mix some tobacco, which he had, with some water. The resultant juice was squeezed onto the leeches and after just a few seconds of struggling, they were dead. (Look at the video above.)

From him we learned that we could soak our shoes, socks and the lower part of our pants into tobacco juice before drying them the day before using them for such a trek. The smell of it would be sufficient to drive those blood thirsty breatures away. He should know for he was a soldier who had to move and stay in the jungle at times. So, there you are, the way to a leech-free trek.