Before embarking on the narrative of the second CFZ expedition to Sumatra it is necessary to bring the reader up to date with the developments that have occurred in the last year. As you will doubtless recall we failed to meet the witness at Sungi-Rumput. Debbie Martyr contacted us shortly after our return. She had managed to talk to the man in question.
The man had been a poacher, hence his reticence to talk to us. He snared deer in the jungle. About three months prior to our visit he was checking his snares. He found that one had caught a strange ape like creature. It was about a meter in height (Debbie thinks this is an underestimation), black-furred, and powerfully built. Panicking, he tried to jab at it with his spear. The ape snatched the weapon and snapped it in two like a matchstick. It then let out a deafening bellow that scared the man so much he passed out. Upon waking he saw that the beast had feed itself and was walking off through the jungle. Unsurprisingly he gave up poaching.
Several weeks later Debbie e-mailed me to say that a honey coloured orang-pendek had been recently reported from Renah Permatk. It had supposedly killed three dogs. The locals set out to catch it and Gunung Tuju was crawling with people armed with cameras. Needless to say nothing came of the hunt.
On describing the cigau to Darren Naish he told me how struck he was with its resemblance to a group of fossil cats known as Homotheres. These were also known as scimitar cats and were related to the more familiar saber toothed cats. They had large canines, short tails and sloping backs. Fossil remains of them have been uncovered on neighbouring Java. They are believed to have died out 10,000 years ago. Could a relic population be hanging on in Sumatra?
Dr Lars Thomas had kindly agreed to examine the hair samples we brought back with us. The smaller grey hairs turned out to be, much as I expected, from the Malayan tapir. The longer brown ones were feline. Lars compared them to the known species of cat found in Sumatra. He eliminated them all except for the golden cat. For a while we hoped we had found some samples of cigau hair, but it was not to be. When Lars final got hold of golden cat hair samples it turned out that they matched the samples we had brought back with us.
This year’s expedition was to concentrate on the “lost valley”. Debbie had told us of this mysterious place on our previous visit. Situated beyond Gunung Tuju, it had never been penetrated by explorers.
We flew out via Bahrain in early May 2004. We caught the connecting flight from Singapore the same day and cut out the depressing island of Batam that we were forced to travel from last year.
Once in Padang we stayed at the Dippo Hotel as we did the year before. The karaoke from the bar was so loud you could not hear yourself think whilst trying to eat. The following day we booked a car and headed out to Kersik Tua. We had arranged to stay with Mr. Surbandi the man who had so kindly looked after Jon last year when he had food poisoning.
We swiftly broke down a few scant miles out of Padang and had to wait for a replacement car. The driver was a maniac. For those of you unfamiliar with Indonesia roads they look like a cross between Baghdad high street and a particularly tortuous alpine back road. Most of Sumatra is mountainous, ergo the roads are 90 per cent corners and twists. The driver took these at a knuckle whitening pace. The nature of the roads means that it takes up to three times as long to get anywhere in Sumatra as it would in Britain. It is about 100 miles from Padang to Kerici but it takes eight awful hours. I driver was trying to slice some time off the journey. All he did was make Chris feel nauseous. We had to stop on several occasions for poor Chris to have a “techni-colour yawn”. On one occasion we saw a troop of banded langurs crashing through the trees beside the road.
We arrived late at Mr. Subandi`s. It is always a pleasure to stay with him. He is a keen bird watcher and naturalist and his wife is an excellent cook. Outside of Padang Sumatran food is truly dire. Mr. Subandi`s is one of the very few places you are guaranteed a good meal.
As luck would have it Mr. Subandi knew of our quest and had uncovered some recent orang pendek witnesses less than an hour’s drive away in a village called Te Uik Air Putih. By a remarkable stroke of luck a specimen of the titan arum, the world’s largest flower, was blooming in the same area. The titan arum blossoms only once in ten years so this was an umissable opportunity.
Together with a pleasant Dutch couple who were also staying at Mr. Subandi`s we sallied forth to find these treasures.
The village backed onto an area called “the garden” cultivated land that is used for growing crops. The garden merges with the jungle seamlessly and in some areas is very overgrown. Due to its more open nature one usually encounters more wildlife in the garden than the jungle proper. The titan arum is truly the Godzilla of flowers and looks like some strange surrealist sculpture or something made by the BBC special effects department. It stood seven feet tall. The elephant’s foot of a stem widens into a barrel sized green bowl. This in turn flares out into the petal which looks like nothing so much as a Spanish Flamenco dancer’s red dress. Finally a phallic stamen of bright yellow rises from within the petal’s folds.
The scent of the titan arum is said to be like rotting flesh. It is pollinated by flies attracted to what they think is a cadaver. We could detect no such smell around our flower but, close by, the fresh carcass of a bearded pig was stealing its thunder.
You may recall from my notes on last year’s expedition that Sumatra is a land of giant insects. On our way through the garden Mr. Subandi discovered a giant ant. Whilst not quite as large as those beloved of 1950s B movies it was the biggest ant I had ever seen. At two inches long it was as large in relation to the common formica ant as a whale is to a human. Camponotus gigas, to give it its scientific name, is a truly spectacular sight. It feeds on smaller insects, bird droppings, and honeydew. It's a damn good job it is not aggressive like the driver, soldier, or fire ants. The prospect of 100,000 flesh eating two-inch ants is unnerving.
We found the house of the witness and interviewed him via Mr. Subandi. His name was Seman. He was a middle-aged man with a young child. Seman had seen the creature in an area of land adjacent to a river at mid-day in February 2004. Back then the area was overgrown. The creature was only visible from the waist upward. He estimated it to be 80cm tall but when we looked at the area ourselves it seemed that the animal must have been over a meter tall. The height he indicated with his hand looked like one meter as well.
The animal had short black hair, a broad chest with pink skin visible on it, and a pointed head possibly indicating a sagittal crest. The ears were long. The creature vanished and Seman said that he had the feeling it had fled to the river and swam across it, though he did not see this. The river was a torrent when we were there but in February it was much lower. It had been in view for three minutes.
On visiting the area we worked out that the creature had been 22 meters away from the witness. Seman produced a sketch showing a powerfully built, ape like creature with broad shoulders, long arms, and a conical head. At no time did it raise up its arms, as gibbons are wont to do on the rare occasions they move about on the ground.
We returned to the same general area the next day to interview another witness. On the way through the garden we saw a couple of flying dragons. These agamid lizards glide by using extended ribs covered with skin. Their “wings” were a canary yellow and made a breath-taking spectacle. At least we could say that we had encounter flying reptiles on our quest for the lost valley.
Another fascinating sight was a hunting wasp. The wasp had stung and paralysed a large grasshopper and was in the act of dragging it into its burrow. The wasp lays an egg on the still living prey and it hatches into a grub that eats the victim alive.
Ata was in his twenties and had seen his creature about three weeks after Seman. He heard a strange cry coming from the same are of the garden were Seman had his encounter. The noises began at 10 am. They were a loud OOOOHA! OOOOHA! sound. Upon investigation Ata found himself only five meters away from a strange beast. It was one meter tall and had short black hair. Its prominent chest made him think it was female. Its lower half was hidden by vegetation.
He noticed that it had large owl like eyes, a flat nose, and a large mouth. It seemed aggressive and Ata said he felt the hairs on the back of his hands rise up in fear.
Ata produced a drawing of a muscular, upright creature, with large round eyes. It lacked the pointed head of Seman`s description.
Back at Mr. Subandie`s another man said that a friend of his had found what he believed to be orang-pendek footprints in his cornfields on three occasions. He promised to send more details to Mr. Subandi.
The next day our guide Sahar turned up. We were all very happy to see him again. He casually told us that he had seen a giant snake captured by a jungle dwelling tribe called the Kubu. We instantly recognized this as the story that had reached the British press of a 49-foot long, 985 lb python called “Fragrant Flower”. The giant reptile had reputedly been looked on as an elder by the tribe. Imam Darmanto the owner of a zoo in Java had reputedly persuaded the Kubu to part with the giant. It allegedly took 65 men and the blessing of a tribal leader to capture it. The snake was transported to Java were it was put on display and fed a diet of dogs. Unfortunately, when the Guardian newspaper sent a reporter over with a tape measure Fragrant Flower had shrunk to 23 feet. It seemed that the whole story was a scam by Mr. Darmanto to promote his tawdry zoo.
Sahar confirmed that it had only been about seven meters long. He promised to take us to talk to the very tribe who captured it when we returned from the lost valley.
Together with his brother John, another man also called John (making three Johns on the expedition) and another porter called Pak Nadur we began our trek towards the lost valley. From the village of Kutang Gajha (which the Indonesian dictionary insists means elephant’s bra!) we started our journey.
Tough the terrain was not as steep as on last year’s trip it was very muddy. The track had been turned into a quagmire by cattle and rain. The going was slow and tiring. We watched a troop of pig-tailed macaques through binoculars as they snooped around some farm building in search of any food they could pilfer. The garden is extensive and many farmers build huts that they sleep in as temporary homes whilst they are tending their crops of tea, coffee, or cinnamon.
We finally came upon an abandoned hut. It was obvious that no one had inhabited it for years. It stood on wooden stilts and was festooned in cobwebs and fading graffiti. We slept overnight in this malodorous shanty. Sahar`s brother John had not brought a sleeping bag and had to fashion a crude equivalent out of plastic sacking. During the night he was beset by ants. Another unwelcome visitor was a gigantic spider four inches across that Sahar discovered scuttling around the floor. It was, he told us, venomous. Not fatal, but painful. We ejected it from the hut but next morning I discovered it in my sock!
Another troop of banded langurs was observed noisily bounding past the shack.
We sallied on. The path was dull and difficult. The muddy nature slowed our pace to that of a snail and we were beset by flies. Gradually the jungle began to replace the garden. Sahar spotted the trail of a sun bear. The spoor was less than a day old. Sahar asked a man herding buffalo if he knew the general direction we should go. The man pointed us down one of the many paths. We walked for hours becoming more fatigued until night approached and we stumbled across a small and familiar looking stream. Behind the stream was the shanty. We had come full circle and wasted a whole day. We climbed the ladder into the hut and when to bed in poor spirits.
At least we were eating better than last year. After a week of enduring rice, noodles, and bitter fish we had brought some food parcels over from England. Protein bars, soup, dried fruit, and biscuits made all the difference.
Next day we set out along a different path. Once again we became lost. Sahar was not au-fait with this area. By pure chance we stopped by a farmhouse. The people there said that one of their relatives, a man called Pak Suri knew the way to the lost valley. Pak Suri was away that day and would not be back until the morning. The family kindly put us up for the night.
The family had a young boy named Ragui. He had deformed feet that were twisted in such a way as to be literally pointing backward. This was strange as in Islamic law djinn, shape-shifting spirits, can be recognised by this trait. When in human form their feet point backwards. This odd piece of folklore is repeated in other cultures as far apart as South America and the Himalayas. I wondered if the poor child would face a life of being feared and treated as an outcast. He seemed to be able to walk quite well and his family loved him.
It transpired that Pak Suri would not be returning the next day as at first thought but another man Pak En, who knew the way, was contacted. Pak En was a sprightly old man who had ventured into the valley years ago on a fishing trip. He agreed to be our guide for the next few days.
Jon got a craving for coke and wanted to walk back to Kutang Gajha to see if they had any in the shop. He and Sahar headed back. They reappeared over four hours later in the pitch black. The only beverage the shop sold was a locally brewed pop called “Frambosen”. This delightful drink was sold in old Fanta bottles and tasted like flat, old, vimto with soap powder in it. It seemed that the creators of Frambosen had not quite got the knack of making drinks fizzy. Their efforts just made Frambosen foamy.
The stars, or bentang as they are called in Indonesia, were truly spectacular and unaffected by light pollution. The constellations not visible in England were of great interest.
In the morning we set out for the lost valley with Pak En leading the way. We trekked upward into the jungle. As we progressed the leech problem got worse. Dozens of the micro-vampires silently attached themselves to our legs. Jon has a particular dread of leeches and found it quite distressing. Sahar had a novel way of thwarting the tiny horror. He daubed our boots with damp tobacco. It seems that leeches abhor the stuff.
Leeches were not the only irritation. I was set upon by a swarm of biting ants. Thankfully they were not the titanic species Mr. Subandi had shown us previously.
Towering mesas loomed out of the jungle. Behind them a fat daytime moon was fully visible giving the views an alien feel. Sahar came across the droppings of a sun bear. Though the smallest of the bears (about the size of a big saint Bernard dog) they are second only to the polar bear in terms of ferocity. They sport outsized claws used for ripping into rotten logs in search of insects or honey. They can just as easily rip flesh.
Finally we came to the valley. There was a damn good reason why it was lost. Sheer cliffs fell one thousand feet into rapids. The sides of the valley were swathed in savagely thorned rattan. We had no rope. If we wanted to see the bottom of the valley we would have to risk scrambling down by hand.
Pak En found a part of the valley wall that was slightly less than perpendicular and we gingerly began our decent. What looked like solid ground would often be no more than loose topsoil of leaves and would cascade from underfoot. Sturdy looking branches would be rotten to the core and snap whilst being used for support. Half sliding, half walking we made our way towards the bottom.
Walking out into the sunshine of the valley it was astounding to think that I was the first Westerner ever to set foot in the place. It was more of a river carved gorge than a valley. The fast-flowing river dominated the area. Tough not deep or very wide it was fast and its bed was a mass of slippery rocks. The only place large enough to build our camp was in a small area of jungle close to where we had descended. The river looked as if it could flood violently and quickly.
At camp that night Pak En told us that he had seen an orang-pendek in the jungle just above the valley three years ago. He was walking along a jungle trail when he saw it approaching. It was one meter tall, upright, and powerfully built. It had black hair with red tips and a broad mouth. Its prominent breasts made Pak En think it was a female. He noticed that it grasped the vegetation as it moved. It let out an OOOOHA! OOOOHA! sound. He watched it move down the trail for two minutes before it saw him. On seeing Pak En it quickly turned about and walked back the way it hade come.
That night the camp was eerily lit up by thousands of green fireflies.
After breakfast Sahar, Jon, Chris, Pak En, John and myself set out to explore the valley. The nature of the valley compelled us to keep crossing the rapids on foot. The banks would peter out into sheer cliffs on one side forcing us to cross to the other. Some areas of the cliff faces were striped clean by landslides. Hundreds of tons of earth, rocks, and trees had fallen into the valley blocking whole areas and making the journey more arduous.
We had to scramble across slick boulders and walk across fallen trees. Such was the environment of the valley that it took hours to walk a distance one could have done in thirty minutes in England.
We saw many small animals. I regretted not having sample tubes with me, as some were undoubtedly unknown to science. But weight was a big concern in the jungle and we found the scan equipment we did bring along quite heavy enough. Tiny fast moving fish, a gigantic toad with tiger like stripes on its hindquarters, oddly flattened tadpoles that stuck to the rocks like sucking loaches. Above us black eagles whirled.
The progress was so slow that we realized that we would not make it to the end of the valley and back to camp before nightfall. We had to turn back about three quarters of the way along the valley. Darkness falls with alarming rapidity in the tropics. The river was treacherous enough by day; in the dark it would be deadly. A broken leg in such a remote area could mean death. Sadly we turned and headed back to camp.
We decided that from were we were camped it would be impossible to reach the end of the valley in a day. The small area was the only part of the valley suitable for camping. We had no choice but to climb up the cliffs to the top again. The valley did not look like suitable orang-pendek habitat. It was too narrow and there was nothing in it worth expending all the energy of climbing down for. I think orang-pendek would have more common sense than to climb down into the gorge.
The climb back up was easier than that going down. We could crouch on all fours making ourselves more stable. Once we had reached the top we found a new place to make a fresh camp and Pak En took us off to where he had seen the orang-pendek. It was a long climb up through harsh jungle. Along the way we say scrape marks left in the earth by a tiger. It was odd to think that we were sharing the forest with such large predators. It is a feeling one seldom gets in Britain. Some people we spoke to had lived their whole lives in the jungle and had never seen a tiger. Sahar had only ever seen one. Mr. Subandi had seen a total of three.
When we reached the area of the sighting Pak En mimed the strange way it was walking, gripping at the plants as it went. He told us that its outsized muscles reminded him of Mike Tyson. Jon filmed his performance for the website.
That night around the campfire Chris, Jon, and I picked 100 leeches off our legs. The camp was alive with cicadas. All over the world the 17-year cicada cycle had reached its apex and they were pupating in their thousands. Our socks and mosquito nets were festooned with their old cast-off exoskeletons, like yellow ghosts.
In the morning Sahar found a long black hair in the camp. It looked human but was far longer than the hair of anyone in the camp. It could have been from the mane of an orang-pendek. We may have brushed past a hair sticking to bush in the jungle and not noticed. Sahar told us of legends of beautiful longhaired women who lived in the jungle. I had secretly been wishing we could have stumbled upon a tribe of oriental amazons whose men folk had died out (perhaps of exhaustion) but no such look. I placed the hair in a sample bag.
Then we trekked down through the garden into what passes as civilization in Sumatra. We took a ride in the back of a lorry to Kersik Tua. Back at Mr. Subandi`s, we made plans to visit the Kubu and enquire after giant snakes. The Kubu live in the lowland jungles of Jambi Province so we would need to travel back to Sungei Penuh, thence to the town of Bangko, and from there into the jungle.
We had an extra day of rest at Mr. Subandi`s. In the evening he took us out bird watching in the forested foothills of Mount Kerinci. The area of woodland we visited was a short car ride away and lay beyond cultivated fields. It was home to a ghostly little bird known as the Short Tailed Frogmouth. One of Mr. Subandi`s friends could emulate the strange, eerie, drawn out cry of the bird. He called out and began to get answers from the darkness. After a couple of false starts he managed to draw down one of the birds. It was a small, fat, grey, fowl about the size of a little owl. It was strange that such a small bird could make so disturbing a sound. It tarried a while on a branch but flew away before we could get a close look at it. Soon, however, we came upon a larger, tawny coloured specimen, squatting motionless in a tree. We observed it through binoculars. It seemed all mouth and eyes, like a feathered Pac-man. When the great yellow eyes opened it was a shock. Eyes as large as human eyes in a small bird lend it a Hyronymous Bosch quality.
The trip from Mr. Subandi`s to Sungei Penuh was dull. The trip from Sungei Penuh to Bangko was a mind bending eight hours. The tedium was only broken by the appearance at dusk of gigantic flying foxes with five-foot wingspans that flew alongside the car. They roosted in huge groups like masses of giant umbrellas in the trees.
Bangko itself is unremittingly dull and awful, the Indonesian equivalent of Nuneaton. It has little to recommend it to the tourist. We checked into a hotel and had a look at the ugly town. A nearby super market was selling bird’s nest soup flavoured pop! The soup is made from the nests of cave dwelling swifts that inhabit, Indo-China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They create their nests from a special quick-drying saliva. So when you are eating bird’s nest soup, you are eating swift’s spit. The bird’s nest flavoured pop tasted just like you would expect it to. Like bird’s spit. I brought half a dozen to take back home as presents.
Sahar found out that one of the men working at the hotel knew the Kubu and could speak their language (quite distinct from Indonesian). He agreed to take us to see the Kubu the day after next.
In the mean time we tried to find something to do in Bangko. We were told that there was a spectacular tower in the local park. It turned out that the twenty-foot tower was part of a local radio transmission mast. It once had coloured plaster attached to it to cheaply emulate stained glass but all except a hand full of panes had fallen out. A collection of goats grazed around it. That evening we managed to find a restaurant shaped like a steam locomotive. It served quite passable food by Indonesian standards. I wondered if anyone in the whole world was doing the same thing as us. Eating in a train shaped restaurant whilst waiting to question tribesmen about giant snakes and ape-men.
We set out the next day together with our translator for a bumpy ride along an ill maintained road into the jungle. The Kubu were once a totally nomadic tribe. Their only weapons were spears. They did not even use blowpipes or bows. These days the Kubu are semi nomadic, spending months in the jungle then returning to live for a while in houses.
We found the chief of the Kubu, a man named Nylam, in a roadside house with his family and several members of his tribe. He had been suffering from malaria and was glad when I was able to give him some medicine. He seemed happy to take us into his house and speak with us.
With us asking questions to Sahar in English, Sahar asking the translator in Indonesian, and the translator asking the Kubu in their language, we conducted an interview. Nylam confirmed that he and his tribe had indeed captured a large snake. It was a python. When asked about its length he stated that it was 23 feet (7 meters) long. This tallied with both Sahar`s estimate and the measurements of the reporter from the Guardian. The snake had been sold to a man in Java. The chief said that they had caught a 26 foot (8 meter) specimen shortly after but they had let it go back into the jungle again.
I asked if any of the Kubu had ever seen a 15-meter snake. They all said that they had never seen one so large. I asked how long the largest snake they had seen was. Nylam and several of his hunters all said they had seen several snakes of 33 feet (ten meters). One in particular had hung around close to their habitations about six months ago. Now came the strange part. All three men were adamant that these 10 meter snakes sported cow like horns. One man called Nueraha had been within 17 feet (5 meters) of one of the giant snakes and confirmed that it had horns. They also said it had a moss like growth on its back. I asked them to draw a picture for me but none of them could draw. I produced a quick sketch of a reticulated python to which I added horns. It met with enthusiastic nods of approval.
Stranger still was their beliefs about these huge snakes. Once a snake reaches a very large size it begins to get fatter and shorter. It grows four legs, each with five toes. Then it swims out to sea. I drew another picture, this time of an Indo-Pacific crocodile. The Kubu all agreed that this is what the great horned snake eventually becomes. In this form they called it a naga. They said it was larger than the common crocodile (or buaya, meaning rascal in Indonesian).
The Indo-Pacific crocodile does inhabit the region and, at its extreme may reach 10 meters. This is the record length for the reticulated python as well. It is interesting that the term naga is used for these creatures. You may recall my 2000 expedition to Thailand in search of the naga. In India and Indo China naga specifically refers to a giant crested snake, possibly an unknown species. In Indonesia naga means dragon and appears to be loosely used to describe any monster reptiles.
As far as I know this belief that pythons become crocodiles is unique to the Kubu. Quite where such a queer fancy springs from I cannot think. No one seems to have studied the Kubu or their culture and folklore.
Nylam had also seen an orang-pendek in the area only three months ago. He had been up a tree at the time. The animal was 1.25 meters tall and covered with red tinted, black hair. It had a broad mouth. It walked upright and held its arms like a man. It made a WEEEEHP! WEEEEHP! noise and looked about itself as if it could smell its observer. Nylam watched it for half an hour.
When questioned on the cigau the Kubu had all heard tell of such an animal but none had seen it.
We thanked them and went on our way. Sadly, as time was pressing, we could not venture into the jungle here. We stopped at the Black River to look for crocodiles but not were around. Even my emulation of the call of hatchling crocodiles (guaranteed to bring crocodiles towards you instinctively) drew a blank.
We ate again in the train shaped restaurant. Next day we took the tedious journey back to Padang and spent the evening with pretty girls, drinking beer.
We took several days of R&R in lovely Singapore and visited the excellent zoo and night safari before flying back home.
At the time of writing I am sending off the hair sample to Dr Lars Thomas at Copenhagen University. My conviction that orang-pendek exists has been strengthened more than ever, though I feel that the cigau may now be extinct or very, very rare.
What of the horned snakes? Perhaps, along side the reticulated python there could be a second undiscovered species. The horns would probably be modified scales as in several small types of snake such as the horned viper and rhinoceros viper. Maybe the Sumatran snakes are related to the larger nagas of Thailand. Who knows? - Sumatra has more questions than answers.
In 2005 I hope to return again, and concentrate on the Kubu, their lowland jungle, and their strange folklore.
