Jungle survival plants – bamboo
In this video I face a few problems – a cobra that came into the back garden, a tick bite that itched to the point that I wanted to cut my own skin off and the search for bamboo shoots that didn’t go at all as planned.
The spitting cobra I managed to snag with my homemade snake removal device (a broom handle with a coat hanger hook on the end) – I pulled him out of the tree and onto the ground and almost immediately lost sight of him in the grass (and I beat a quick retreat!). Normally, of course, you would simply leave snakes alone and they will, generally, leave you alone – but I was worried that this one might go down into the car park and bite the dogs.
After three days the itch from the tick bite finally subsided – but they are really very unpleasant and worth avoiding if you can (they carry disease as well).
…and then there was the bamboo. I was very confident of quickly finding some bamboo shoots for this video as I come across them all the time. Turns out I was over confident and, for whatever reason, the bamboo shoots I was finding were all rotten. However, this was a useful lesson to relearn as, in the jungle, it is foolish to rely on finding the specific plant you need and much better if you have a repertoire of plants that you can fall back on.
When I was eleven or so, I was given a copy of the excellent SAS Survival Guide and, with the impatience of youth, flicked idly through it (glancing only at the
pictures) and closed the book convinced that I could survive anything (even a nuclear war!)….but of course I couldn’t; there is a huge difference between watching someone doing something and being able to do it ourselves…on top of which, nature likes to throw you a curve ball every now and again as well!
There are many survival TV programs that have done the rounds and, in some of them, it seem to me that the ease with which the expert finds food, or lights a fire, or builds a raft (!) can be misleading.
Ray Mears, of whom I’m a fan by-the-way, makes a lot of quite difficult skills look remarkably easy – I imagine this is because a) he clearly is very skilled at these techniques and b) the process is edited to speed it up (as many viewers won’t be interested in the fine details behind the techniques). This is fair enough as, at the end of the day, he is making a TV program (rather than teaching a course) and therefore has to take out some of the more mundane (but often very important) points.
Les Stroud is someone who manages to realistically convey the difficulties of surviving in the wilderness. For this he receives a certain amount of flak from arm chair survivalists who mock the fact that he can’t find food (which he generally doesn’t) or for the fact that he complains about the weight of camera equipment he has to lug around and rarely gets a good nights sleep. To me this picture he paints is a realistic one, generally things don’t go exactly according to plan in the wilderness. Far from being a moaner, he strikes me as someone who has a very positive attitude and the flexibility to deal with the inevitable set backs. Also, very importantly, he is on his own out there: there is no camera crew. This is a very psychologically important point indeed as it is much harder to face any difficulties if you are truly on your own in the middle of nowhere.
…and then there’s Bear Grylls. I watched the video clip of his (unorthodox) bow drill technique (which was surprisingly, very surprisingly) effective and then watched no more. Enough said.
So, for me, I would only fully trust in the junglecraft techniques and jungle foods that I have experience of already – that’s not to say i don’t enjoy watching how other people do things, rather that I like to try it for myself before I rely on it.
Back to bamboo – it is the king of survival resources in the jungle but requires practice before it really unveils all it has to offer. For example, the bamboo fire saw is a technique that I wouldn’t suggest someone attempts (if they were in a survival situation) unless they have successful experience of using the technique already. Why? Because they might simply end up spending far too much time trying (and probably failing) to get a fire going with this tricky technique which would be better spent doing something else (e.g. searching for wood to use in a bow drill).
Similarly, looking (only) for bamboo shoots for two mornings (which was what I did) would not be a good survival strategy. Whereas searching the immediate area for all plants and food that can be eaten would be….flexibility, a good plan and knowledge are key.
The technique of getting water from bent bamboo proved more effective than I had thought – again, this demonstrates why it is worth trying these things beforehand. Before I tried this technique I was uncertain how well it would work (and therefore might not have tried using it in a survival situation) whereas now I know it works I would definitely use it, particularly as it is so easy to set up.
Excellent video. Thanks Paul. I will be looking for those bamboo shoots on my next hike in Chamang near Bentong. I was told that they needed to be boiled for 20 minutes to get rid of those cyanogenic glycosides you mentioned. Apparently, the type of glycoside in bamboo shoots is quite unique in that it decomposes quickly in boiling water.
HI Jaya,
Thanks for the comment and glad you liked the video – I guess the bamboo needs to well cooked through… I’ve eaten small quantities raw without side effects but probably best to cook thoroughly to be on the safe side.
Cheers!
Paul
This indeed is a very interesting site Paul.I would like to start somewhere as im a newbie,even though i trek in the jungle most of my free time but living off the land totally stumps me.Any idea what or how i should begin with?Thanks …Rudolph
Hi Rudolph.
Thanks for the comment and it’s an interesting question you raise. Truly living off the land is extremely hard and not something I would try unless there was no alternative!
If you look at the indigenous tribes here in Malaysia they either plant their own crops in the jungle (to supplement any wild food they can forage), or, if they are true hunter-gatherers, tend to be nomadic (i.e. they have to move on once they’ve depleted the resources in a one area).
Saying that, it is good to know a few of the most basic food types available in the jungle and I’ll try to cover these. Fishing (for protein) and plants/fruits (e.g. palms, ferns, bananas etc) can keep you going for a bit at least!
Cheers!
Paul
I really like all your videos. Great stuff. Thanx for showing your viewers just how hard it is to see a cobra amongst the vegetation. I think that’s very important. Watching nature programs on TV, I think a lot of people may get the impression that snakes and insects are easy to see. Quite the opposite! You and your friends spend a lot of time in the jungle. So you know what to look out for. If ever the opportunity arises, please post more videos of your cobras, coral snakes, kraits, and vipers moving through vegetation.
Hi Ron,
Many thanks for the comment and kind words and you are very right that snakes can often be very hard to see. Funnily enough I’ve just cleared another snake from our garden who wandered in this morning – not a cobra this time but a rat snake instead. I was planning to post a video on Malaysian snakes this week but it’s been delayed for a while unfortunately as the snake handler wasn’t available, but hopefully I’ll get it filmed soon.
Cheers!
Paul
I find Bear Grylls man versus wild series entertaining to watch but not very helpful for practical survival. He takes so many unnecessary risks and seems more of a stuntman. Like instead of carefully climbing down a mountainside he must dash down sliding on scree slopes and risk breaking a leg or twisting an ankle. In a survival situation you want to avoid such risks as far as possible because you probably won’t be able to go to hospital if you have an accident.
On edible plants, if you have Orang Asli friends, they will know a lot of edible things.
On getting water, those thick woody liana vines that you find hanging from trees in the forest are full of drinkable water. In an emergency you can just chop out a section with your parang and hold it over your mouth and the water will trickle out. Cut the bottom then cut the top and the water will start flowing.
Another trick is to slice a banana stem in half horizontally and carve out a cup shaped depression in the stump. It will fill with clean water in seconds. The top part of the banana trunk that you just cut down is also full of water – get it from the centre of the stem, chop the stem into sections to drain the water out but cut off the outer layers first as they may have dirt and worms in them from where the leaves meet the trunk. You can also boil and eat the tender leaf shoots in the middle of the banana stem (but only young banana stem, the middle becomes too fibrous once it flowers or fruits).
Plants can also be dangerous – people new to the jungle often get injured by thorns. Once a student on a school trip was going up a slope and grabbed a palm for support and got a handful of thorns.
Certain trees are also poisonous and the sap of some plants is an irritant. The Ipoh tree is used for dart poison, and the rengas trees are really bad – don’t go near them, even rain falling off rengas can blister your skin. Don’t burn rengas either, the smoke can be like mustard gas.
Then there is the danger from falling branches and falling trees. Always check around and look up before setting up camp. If there are dead trees or branches nearby, you may want to camp elsewhere where they won’t fall on you. Trees and big branches tend to fall especially during rain or windy weather.
Hi Beng Tang,
Thanks for all the great advice – all good points. I agree with you about Bear Grylls – his TV series seems more geared towards entertainment than actually teaching real survival skills but I guess that’s fair enough. Although I don’t think his primitive skills are as good as some of the other outdoor experts out there, he does come over as a genuinely modest and nice guy whereas some of these other experts in that field can be a little arrogant and pompous.
Good points about edibles – I keep meaning to do more videos on food but get side tracked. It’s on the to-do list!
Also, good points about being wary of tree defence systems – grabbing onto trees trunks when descending is, as you say, a common way to get a fistful of thorns. I cam across a Rengas tree for the first time last year – it has this weird bark that, when you remove a piece has a red colouring underneath…very strange. I didn’t suffer any side effects but then, as you say, it may be more of a problem if it’s raining.
Your final point about trees falling is one of the most important risks that jungle trekkers need to be aware of….trees/branches fall all the time and even a relatively small one could kill you if it falls from a height. It’s something to bear in mind for the hammock campers as it is always worth checking above first for dead branches before slinging the hammock.
Anyway, thanks again.
Cheers!
Paul
Very interesting about the bamboo shoots. I wouldn’t have thought so many would have been rotten so that is some great information to know. Has anyone died from cyanide poisoning from eating too much raw bamboo shoots that you know of? The monkeys must be immune to it by now.
Have a good one,
John
Hi John,
Thanks for the comment and I was surprised by how hard it was to find the roots – usually it’s easier! There are other plants that have nasty chemicals in them (I think taro is the same) and can’t be eaten raw, but ok if cooked properly. I’ve never heard of anyone dying from bamboo shoots but I’m guessing it’s going to make you feel pretty ill if you try it. Lots of supermarkets now sell tinned bamboo shoots and they are a great addition to stews if you want to try them for yourself.
Cheers!
Paul