We are impressed by big things. Dinosaurs, whales, rhinos, skyscrapers. Mention mystery apes to the man in the street and he will imagine bipedal hairy giants, ten feet tall. Indeed most reports of such things speak of massive animals; the yeti, the yeren, the Sasquatch, and the yowie. But for every bigfoot there is a little-foot. Stories of little hairy men are widespread - but none are as famous as Sumatra’s orang-pendek.

The name in Indonesian means short man. This small, stocky, upright ape has been reported ever since the days of the Dutch colonists. A couple of years back I wrote up my top ten cryptids most likely to actually exist for Animals & Men. Orang-pendek was second on the list after the thylacine. Why? Well, for a start there was the list of consistent sightings running back well over a century. There was also the fact that a scientist - Debbie Martyr, had seen the animal more than once. And lastly the remoteness of the area. If we were going to look for a cryptid in a specific area that we had a fighting chance of glimpsing then orang-pendek was it.

Orang-pendek is not the only cryptid to stalk the shadows of the Sumatran jungle. The cigau (pronounced chi-gow) is an undiscovered big cat. It is generally described as smaller but more stocky than a tiger. It has a lion like mane, golden fur, a short tail, and forelegs longer than its hind legs - much like a hyena. We decided to enquire after this animal as well.

The great CFZ expedition to Sumatra was not my idea. CFZ Member Dr Chris Clark, an engineer by way of solar astronomy, concocted the whole thing. Chris had wanted to investigate this animal for years and decided last year to organise a trip in 2003. He graciously asked me along as a zoologist. Whilst discussing this at the 2003 Unconvention we discovered our third expedition member Jon Hare. Cambridge graduate, martial artist, and science writer he was the Mallone to Chris`s Challenger and my Sumerlee.

We contacted Debbie Martyr who was very helpful, suggesting were to look and what guides to employ.

The night before my flight I was put up by one of London’s finest Forteans - the ever hospitable and fascinating Rachel Carthy - the only person I know who is a bigger bibliophile than me! My odyssey began on 22nd of June 2003. The next 24 hours were a farrago of cancelled trains, slothful buses, missed flights, and general confusion and misery. I will not bore the reader with the interminable details.

But suffice to say that Chris and I finally stumbled into Singapore airport (less half of my luggage and equipment that the airline had left in Dubai). I was promised that it would be sent on to Padang in Sumatra.

Singapore - lion city - is a shining metropolis. A beautiful city filled with beautiful people. It puts Britain to shame. Not so much as a crumpled train ticket sullies the pavement. We had scant time to appreciate Singapore however as we were catching the ferry to Batam island, the gateway to Indonesia after breakfast.

At the ferry port, Chris was stopped as his luggage was passed through the x-ray machine. One of the attendants asked him if he were carrying a knife. Chris replied he only had a little penknife used for camping. Behind him one of the other attendants was gesticulating wildly and making signs like the angler’s “the one that got away”. As it turned out Chris had an 18-inch parang in his luggage that he had totally forgotten about!

The beauty of Singapore and the pleasant ferry ride paled when we reached Batam. The island resembles nothing so much as a giant building site. Raped and bastardized, the depressing air of the island is made more acute by the tiny patches of rainforest left in a few areas. Batam must have been a paradise once, before this cancer we call “civilization” reached it.

I was glad to see the back of Batam, to shack off the leaden pall of its awful genius loci. A one-hour flight brought us to Padang the largest city in Western Sumatra. Padang airport consists of two rooms and looks like a rather shabby bus station in a small town. The city itself was as ugly as a welder’s bench. Gaping holes in the pavement lead straight down into the sewers. The majority of the buildings seemed to be grubby garages and spare part dealers interspersed with malodorous shanties. We checked into the Dippo International, a surprisingly good hotel. The night’s entertainment was fittingly Fortean, an Indonesian Elvis impersonator!

Next day we ordered a bus to take us down to Sungai Penuh were Debbie Martyr lives. The day was spent wandering around a museum that included an eye watering display on the tools of circumcision! Whilst walking around a particularly pungent market in search of a traditional costume for the obscure West Sumatran martial art Jon practices, a crowed of locals appeared. They started pointing at Jon and saying “Harry Potter, Harry Potter”. Due to his uncanny resemblance to actor Daniel Radcliff, Jon now had a group of Indonesians believing he was Hogwart`s finest son. Sadly he was far too honest to make a mint selling them autographs.

Thankfully that afternoon my lost bag emerged from the either at Padang airport.

In the evening whilst Jon and I were eating and drinking at the bar we were talking to some locals. One man in his fifties (called Stephano) claimed to have seen orang-pendek. He told us that in 1971 he had accompanied an Australian explorer called John Thompson into the jungles of Kerinci-Seblat national park. He had seen small human like primates with yellow hair. In order to stop Thompson shooting them he told the Australian that a curse would descend on anyone who killed one of the creatures.

Stephano also heard of the cigau from the Kerinci locals. They told him that it had a head like a lion and a body like a horse. It ran fast through the jungle. Sadly before we could question him further the bus to Sungai Penuh arrived.

After eight uncomfortable hours journey along roads that would not look out of place in post-war Baghdad we arrived in Sungai Penuh (full river). We checked into a grotty hotel and collapsed.

The next day we met Debbie Martyr. Debbie is a charming lady who reminded me a lot of the chimp conservationist Jane Goodall. A former journalist Debbie fist came to Sumatra as a travel writer in 1993. She had heard tell of orang-pendek and assumed it was a legend. Latter a guide was telling her of the animals he had seen in the jungle and mentioned casually that he had only ever seen one orang-pendek. About six weeks later Debbie herself saw the animal. She now resides in Sumatra and is head of the tiger conservation team and spends her spare time investigating orang-pendek.

When we met Debbie she was embroiled in a case were a local felon had tried to sell two stuffed leopard cats to a woman who turned out to be the chief of police’s wife!

Debbie told us that the most recent sighting, about 3 moths previously, had taken place at in the jungle surrounding Gunung Tuju or the lake of seven peaks, a large volcanic lake in the park. She photocopied several maps for us and also spoke of a lost valley. Despite being shown on the map Debbie told us no one had ever been there. It looked like a couple of days hike from the lake. The contours showed a wickedly steep sided canyon.

“We just don’t know what’s down there,” Debbie said.

We all felt that it would be exciting to look for the valley. She had also arranged guides. Sahar was a small bespectacled man of about my own age (33), his brother John, and an older man called Anhur.

We took a bus from Sungai Penuh to Sahar`s village Ulonjourni. During the journey a perky little man called Jeoffory sat next to Chris. An English teacher, Jeoffory bombarded Chris with dozens of questions.

“Where are you from?”, “How old are you?”, “How tall are you?”, “Are you married?”, “How much do you earn?”

He wanted our addresses in order to write to us. Chris gave a bogus one, I gave my real address. I am looking forward to spreading some comic misinformation a-la Monty Python’s Anglo-Hungarian phrase book sketch.

We stopped the night at Sahar`s house. It was a tiny animal sanctuary in itself with geckos, grasshoppers, and a magnificent rhinoceros beetle. In the morning we set about buying supplies such as rice and noodles for the expedition.

A lot of my equipment was kindly loaned to me by Paul Vella. I had asked Paul if he wanted anything bringing back from Sumatra. He had asked for a stick of Sumatran rock. In the shop were we were stocking up I though I spied some! Sadly the stripy sticks in the jar turned out to be wafer sticks. Sorry, Paul.

Fully stocked, the six of us set out into the foothills of Gunung Tuju. The foothills were fine but as the gradient grew more acute I began to suffer. Gunung Tuju is 3000 meters high. Much of the way the path is at something like 75 degrees. Imagine a gargantuan winding staircase. The stairs are made of moss slick tree roots jutting at differing angles. Like the labour of Sisyphus in Greek mythology the climb seemed never ending. I collapsed with exhaustion, staggered on, collapsed again and vomited with over-exertion. The other five split my backpack between them and helped me up. Even without a weight on my back the climb was the most physically draining thing I have ever done. Chris (who despite looking about 45 is in fact knocking 60), Jon, and the guides, romped up the mountain like goats.

Finally I made the summit. The land falls away dramatically to the 4 km lake. Gunung Tuju is a strange unearthly turquoise in colour. It lies in the bowl of an extinct (or maybe just dormant) volcano. Geo-thermal in nature its waters are warm. There are many legends attached to Gunung Tuju. It is said to be home to a djinn, (an Islamic daemon). Some years ago a waterspout was seen moving around the surface of the lake. Once a fisherman and his canoe were sucked down by a “whirlpool”. The man managed to escape but his canoe never surfaced. The geo-thermal nature of the lake may offer an explanation here. Perhaps a release of carbon dioxide occurred changing the waters buoyancy for a time.

The lake’s waters are biologically impoverished. Only one species of small fish and one species of freshwater crab live in the lake. Despite this the waters support several fishermen. It was believed that the fish were poisonous until a few years ago when a wandering shaman cast a spell to make them edible. He didn’t do a very good job. I can tell you from personal experience that the lake’s fish taste foul. The fishermen catch them in tiny wooden traps suspended by floats then dry them and eat them whole.

Sahar hailed the fishermen who appeared across the lake in their dugouts and paddled towards us. The men took us (and our packs) across the misty waters to their huts. A storm was brewing so instead of forging on to set up camp we spent the night with the fishermen in their huts and dined on rice, noodles, and bitter fish.

We were greeted in the morning by the whoops of siamang gibbons. A greenish tinted mountain tree shrew disported itself on a fallen tree above the fishermen’s huts. The fishermen ferried us to the point on shore were we were to make camp. Whilst John and Anhur constructed a bivouac out of branches and plastic sheeting Sahar led Chris, Jon, and I into the jungle.

The rainforest here smells very like an English wood. The towering trees are wreathed with vines, the vines are covered in moss, the moss is festooned with fungi. Life devours life. The great paradox of the rainforest is that despite being the greatest concentration of life on earth, the animals are hard to see. The vegetation and shadows hide most creatures and large animals can hear you coming from far away. The electronic buzz of cicadas and other insects fills the air mingling with the metallic screeches of exotic birds. Gaudy bracket fungi sprout from rotting tree trunks that fall across gorges and streams that run down from the surrounding mountains like ribbons of quicksilver.

Sahar`s skill as a guide is astounding. The slightest bent twig or misplaced leaf catches his eye. Things that you or I would walk straight past tell him the secrets of the jungle. He pointed out the trail of a tapir through the bushes. The bulky animal had hardly disturbed the greenery. Later we found its three-toed footprints. A blue-headed barbet flew above us as we pushed deeper.

We came upon a possible orang-pendek footprint. Sadly, it had been damaged by rain. I measured it but it was too damp for casting. It was narrower at the heel than at the front and pressed about half an inch into the ground. Further along the trail we came across seven prints crossing a large muddy puddle. Similar in size and shape to the earlier print they too had suffered rain damage. The gait was definably that of a biped. A fallen log crossed the puddle and as Sahar pointed out a human would have crossed by the log as opposed to walking through the mud.

A little further on Sahar pointed out some damaged plants. Known as pahur, the pith inside the stem is a favourite food of orang-pendek. A number of the plants seemed to have been dexterously peeled apart and the pith eaten. A flattened area of moss on a nearby tree stump may have been where the creature sat whilst eating. We hid and waited in silence, but apart from the calls of birds and insects nothing disturbed the stillness of the jungle.

The rains began in force and we headed back to camp. On the way we encountered a rufous woodcock, but saw no further evidence of our quarry.

Already I was heartily sick of rice and noodles. The foul little fish did nothing to improve our meager fare. At this altitude the nights become quite chilly but fatigue insured that I slept soundly.

END OF PART ONE…..