by Sue Perkins
ME: What are you doing? What are you doing? No, don’t do that! DON’T!
A match was tossed into the gully, and the whole lot erupted into blue flames. I stood there, over a mass grave, on fire. Acrid smoke curled around the houses and crept in through the windows.
‘It’s a message,’ said one of the guards.
‘It is the law,’ said another.
Claire motioned to Matt. I knew she wanted me to talk about how I felt. Trust me, you don’t want to know how I feel, I thought. How I feel isn’t going to wash at 9 p.m. on BBC2. I kicked a wall. Then I kicked it again, harder. Then one more time, so I could really feel the pain in my toes. Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
‘Speed,’ said Matt.
‘Sound speed,’ said Olly.
It’s Pavlovian, with me. When I hear those words I start talking. I can’t help myself.
It’s the end of a long day, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing. We’re just choking in the smoke of a funeral pyre. What a waste. No one benefits from this. All this struggle and death and no one benefits. The animals aren’t running free in the forest. The children don’t have full bellies. There are only victims here. The animals died for nothing. The hunters killed them for nothing. All that fear and endeavour and loss – and it ends up here, in a smoking pile of ash and bone and the stink of gasoline.
It’s impossibly hard for the human brain to comprehend the lack of a solution state. We are not wired to accept grey. We want the hard and fast absolutes of black and white. But this, this is all grey.
All I want to do is help. But there’s no help to give. That’s the truth of it. There’s no remedy here. There’s nothing I can do, or put my name to, there’s no one I can agitate on behalf of, or donate to. This is fucked, pure and simple. This is all fucked.
There was a silence, bar the crackle and spit of burning fat.
‘Do you have anything positive to say?’ asked Claire.
I had forgotten I was being filmed.
‘No,’ I said. I was aware I was being petulant and difficult. ‘No, I don’t.’
And I turned and kicked the wall again, just so I could feel the pain in my body.
We wandered back to the car. I noticed that in one of the jeeps, to the rear of the convoy, there were three large wooden crates, partially covered by tarpaulin. An armed officer leant against the door, guarding its contents.
We set off.
ME: Where are we going, Dean?
DEAN: You’ll see. Best that no one knows too much.
An hour later, we pulled up next to yet more jeeps.
DEAN: Come on, let’s move.
We all transferred to the new vehicles. I noticed in my rear-view mirror that the crates were being moved too.
We set off again. The roads were getting narrower, the villages smaller. As we entered one, I noticed a man making a call on a mobile phone.
DEAN: That’s right, you little shit, you ring it in.
ME: What do you mean? What’s he doing?
DEAN: He’s spotted us. He’s an informer. He’ll be paid by the traffickers to keep an eye out for us and let them know where we are.
ME: Really?
DEAN: Really. That’s why we change cars. To try and stay one step ahead.
This was as close to The Bourne Identity as I’d ever got, and I’d be lying if I said it was anything other than thrilling. I didn’t know what was in those crates – but they were getting more precious by the second.
Finally, we took a left turn and the track faded into grass. At the end was a river and a small jetty with a boat waiting for us.
The guards looked around, checking we’d not been followed. The coast was clear. We got on.
As we puttered down the river, I started chatting to Dean. It turns out he’d previously worked in child-protection services, identifying and rescuing trafficked kids. You’d think, after years’ working with the very worst examples of humanity, that Dean’s next job would have been something gentle and easy – working in an ice-cream parlour in Hobart, or a dog-grooming salon in Cairns. But, no, Dean went straight from abused children into threatened wildlife.
He looked away as he talked about his previous life. It must have taken chunks out of him. That’s the mark of the man: that he could have seen the lowest mankind could stoop to and was still carrying on, trying to make a difference, day after painful day.
ME: So, are we going to release soon? Somewhere round here?
I was desperate to get back onto dry land. I’d eaten something fried and grey back at the restaurant and it was starting to clamour in my colon.
DEAN: Here? You must be joking. Anything we release here will get captured again immediately by the villagers. We need to go deep into the forest.
ME: How deep?
DEAN: You’ll see.
Eventually, the river narrowed, and I saw signs ahead. We were entering a protected area. An armed sentry, stationed on a jetty, nodded as we came through. Onwards we went, as the water wound through the cool calm of the primary forest.
Then, finally, the engine cut out and we drifted to the bank. We were here. After five and a half hours of travelling, it was time to unwrap our cargo.
DEAN: OK, you ready? We’ve got some belters for you.
Dean cracked open the first crate. Inside was a large wet bag – like an outsized mail sack.
DEAN: Right. Let’s start with these.
What can it be? I thought. Silver langur? Yellow-cheeked gibbons? A fishing cat?
DEAN: Check these out!
And with that he pulled out the LARGEST SNAKE I HAVE EVER SEEN.
I am a little frightened of snakes. It wasn’t always thus. Back in the old days, I’d have been more than happy to hold a corn, or grass snake – but that was before I’d met Jake the Snake.
Mel and I used to host a weekend show on BBC London. Those who tuned in will remember that the programme mainly consisted of three sounds:
The entire back catalogue of Dutch prog-rock band, Focus.
Us wheezing with laughter as we played the entire back catalogue of Dutch prog-rock band, Focus.
The sound of Mel scoffing endless blocks of cheese. She was pregnant at the time, and had a craving for all things dairy. Barely a minute would go by without another Babybel, Dairylea or family pack of Cathedral City getting popped into her mush.
We enjoyed a wide variety of guests, but the most memorable, perhaps, was the professional wrestler, Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts.
He arrived with an enormous US mail sack, which he deposited on the studio floor.
‘Guess what’s in that?’ he asked.
I figured if he wanted to be more enigmatic, he shouldn’t have added ‘the Snake’ to his showbiz moniker.
JAKE: You scared of snakes?
‘I am,’ said Mel, mainlining a large cube of Red Leicester – thus shutting down any possibility she might be the one to handle the reptile.
That left me. Before I had a chance to reply, Jake had opened the sack, reached inside and plonked the huge snake around my neck, where it hung like a fifty-kilo dry scarf. My legs buckled under the weight.
JAKE: There you go, that’s Damian.
ME: Damian? You called your snake Damian?
As if recognizing its name, the snake’s head came round to face mine, its tongue flicking against my glasses. I could feel beads of sweat pricking my forehead.
MEL: (starting on a mini Gouda) Looks good on you.
ME: Is it OK?
JAKE: Sure.
ME: Will you tell me if it’s not OK. If it’s going to …
JAKE: Oh, you’ll know if he’s annoyed.
ME: (tremulously) How’s that?
JAKE: He’ll get you.
Gulp.
ME: Get me?
JAKE: Yep. Little squeeze to the neck. Here. (He points to his own jugular.) Knock you clean out. Fucker did that to me once. Was showing him in the ring, got a little cocky and, boy, did I get payback. Next thing I know, I put
him round my neck and BOOM – I wake up twenty minutes later. Anyhow, we gonna do this goddamn interview or what?
Dean drew from the bag a water python, approximately two metres in length, and handed it to me. I had a matter of seconds to overcome my fear, as the last thing I wanted was for Dean to think I was a wuss. I extended my hands and received the snake, gripping onto it for dear life. Instantly I realized this was a mistake. Suddenly, this powerful length of muscle was thrashing and splashing in my arms – a creature who had come from God knows where and suffered God knows what – fighting with every ounce of her strength to get back to the river. With one final push she wrestled free from my grip and hurled herself into the water. She did it. She was finally home.
The others were easier. I didn’t try to hold them. I merely acted as a conduit, letting them slide over me and into the deep.
We moored the boat and headed into the forest. Just two boxes left. I walked across the forest floor, the crunch of pine under my feet. I looked up and felt awed by the towering verticals of trees and shrubs. My ears retuned. No more white noise, no hiss – no technological backdrop. The natural world began to fill my senses, like a balm. I felt truly at peace.
Dean gestured to the guards who brought forward one of the boxes.
DEAN: Right, let’s do this. Do you want the honour?
ME: Yes, I’d love to.
DEAN: OK. Now you gotta be quick to see these fellas. They are going to sprint up those trees.
I positioned myself to the side of the crate, and gently lifted the sliding wooden door at its front. For a second, just for a second, I saw them. Two macaques, cowed and frightened, blinking into the sudden sunlight. I saw their pupils adjust, recalibrate, saw them recognize their surroundings and then, with one giant bound, spring forward at lightning pace towards freedom. Out they ran, and straight up a tree. They were lost from sight in a heartbeat. We smiled, applauded and hugged one another.
The final crate remained. In the canopy above we could hear the monkeys, calling to each other.
DEAN: This one’s for you, Sue. This one’s special. And it’s nearly dusk, so this is the perfect time for release.
I wondered what it could be.
The wooden door slid open and, for a second, I didn’t know what I was looking at. At first glance it looked like a Mogwai – and I worried that in the low evening light it might go full gremlin on us.
We backed away. One of the guards started videoing the scene. Slowly it emerged. So very slowly. In fact, there would have been a trade description issue if this gorgeous creature was anything other than slow – for this was none other than a slow loris.
It began to climb the tree, stopping and turning its head every minute to check all was OK. It finally reached head height, and only then, when it felt out of our reach, did it get into second gear and climb higher and faster. I could feel my heart beating fast with the exhilaration. We did it. We saved them. We did it.
Five and a half hours. Six cars. Several dummy turns. A dozen guards as escorts. For three water pythons, two macaques and a slow loris.
And guess what – they’re worth it.
Today, just as I’m finishing writing this chapter, I flick to the news. The lead story is that the last ever Northern White Rhino has died in Kenya. Another species eradicated, in what is the most troubling mass-extinction event the planet has ever seen. The Holocene Extinction, as it’s known. The cause? Humans. This is why the macaques matter, and the loris, and even those scary pythons. Someone has to be the custodian – amid the consumption and the carelessness. Someone needs to take account of what we are doing. How poor we have become in seeking riches. How denuded and monochrome our world will be if nothing is done.
I went to bed that night cheered by the release of those beautiful animals. A good deed in a shitty world. And just as I drifted off to sleep, as the electrical activity in my brain slowed and my breathing steadied, I thought of that poor duck, upside down, panting, on that motorbike.
I told you: I’m a magnet.
10. Holy Moly
The drive to Kampong Cham is an easy two hours, once you’ve navigated your way through the hell of Phnom Penh traffic.
The roads here are pocked with holes, some so large they almost earn the title of craters: giant scoops in the gravel created by collapsed soil and badly patch-worked aggregate. Worst still is the dust, the endless toxic dust, clouds of thick red particles that tumble in the air, covering everything in their wake. It’s like a dystopian Tatooine in the early days of capitalism.
Tides of traffic fight to be the first through the narrow arterial roads, sleek Lexus SUVs jostling side by side with tuk-tuks and pushbikes. There are scooters whose passengers, often kids, are coming home from hospital, holding saline drip bags attached to bamboo poles. Dazed pedestrians weave in and out of the oncoming traffic, coated in filth, staggering like terracotta zombies. Beggars and amputees line the streets, choking in the gloom.
Your eyes can’t take it all in. It’s too much. You’re tired just witnessing it all, let alone trying to think and feel about the place. It’s a version of Hell quite unlike any other I’ve seen, and I was very, very glad to be leaving it behind.
From Kampong Cham we took a boat to Hermit Hill (the second cousin twice removed of Henman Hill). The river was dark and acidic, leaching its stink in the heat. For miles, all I could see was the soul-deadening order of rubber plants. Finally some twenty kilometres upstream, Mother Nature reclaimed the landscape and a haphazard explosion of greenery filled the horizon. We had reached the forest.
All I knew was that I’d come to the Preah Kuk to meet a holy man, a hermit, who had lived in splendid isolation for over thirty years. My knowledge of hermits was a little limited, I’ll admit, but I was fairly sure that one of the cornerstones of hermitry was an eschewing of humanity and all it represented. Not for this hermit, however. With this hermit, anyone and everyone was welcome. He was an access-all-areas hermit.
And he’d invited me for tea.
There are many words I’d associate with a hermit – loner, recluse, ascetic, solitary. Sociable, however, wouldn’t be one of them. This gentleman was a walking oxymoron – like a benign serial killer or a trustworthy estate agent.
I climbed what felt like a never-ending set of steps, which wound upwards into the forest canopy. Monkeys hung from the branches, eyeing me, calculating if I had anything worth stealing. One of them looked briefly enthralled by my nylon quick-dry shirt from Mountain Warehouse, but decided against it at the last minute and returned instead to the firm cupping of his voluminous ball-sack.
Halfway up, I paused to catch my breath. A woman passed me, making her descent. I assumed she was the hermit’s 11 a.m. tea appointment. Busy, busy, busy …
I was a wet, wheezy mess when I reached the top and turned the corner towards his house. There he was, waiting for me, straight out of Central Casting, my first ever hermit. He was gaunt, swaddled in robes and sporting an impressive, lengthy beard that waved in the breeze.
There was an awkward pause, that moment of stasis when you first meet someone: when the canvas is still blank and all’s to play for.
He walked towards me. I walked towards him. I placed my hands together in prayer, as did he. I bowed and, at the exact same moment, he did the same. Our foreheads smashed together in one mother of an intergenerational head-butt.
Two worlds colliding. Literally. My first ever holy man, and I’d given him concussion.
The hermit shows no signs of moving. So I stay there, stock still. Time passes – so much time, in fact, that I wonder whether he’s OK, or whether he has sustained some form of brain injury in the collision.
The minutes tick by, and still we are welded together.
Finally, there is movement. He reaches out and grabs my shoulders. I flinch for a second, but soon relax. He starts muttering something under his breath, which I strongly suspect is some form of Buddhist incantation. How wonderful, I think. This is how the Ancients m
ust have welcomed each other. So I ignore my embarrassment and the sound of the crew sniggering and choose to commit fully to the experience. After another minute or so, I even start to approach something close to relaxation.
His grip intensifies.
God, I am so fortunate right now, I think. I’m being blessed by a holy man – a man who has turned his back on the empty trinkets and hollow promises of this world that he might live simply, among his ancestors, in this lush tropical forest.
His grip loosens on my shoulders and I relax, imagining the blessing to be over. To my surprise, however, he re-grips – this time lower down, at my elbows.
Gosh. This is incredible! I can’t get over it! How many people get to experience this kind of intimate spiritual exchange? I imagine this is how the sangharaja greeted each other after a long rain retreat. Magical!
Come on now, Sue. Accept the blessing. You’re SO uptight. Just relax into it.
The arms move again.
This must be a local ritual. Strange, because no one mentioned it – it definitely wasn’t in the notes. It doesn’t matter: I’m just lucky to be here. For God’s sake, don’t move. The last thing you want to be right now is culturally insensitive.
His hands were on my arse.
Relax, will you? It’s just a way of saying hello, Sue. For God’s sake. Can’t you stop sexualizing everything? You are such a pervert. You are in the presence of a deeply spiritual being – you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking that.
Finally, the hermit drew himself upright. I did the same. I can’t be sure, but that’s when I think I saw him wink.
Cheeky fucker.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: that there’s a fine line between a traditional Cambodian greeting and an old geezer using the cultural barrier between us as an opportunity for a grope.
He took both my hands and led me into his home, a single-storey box built from concrete. Inside there was one small window, the rest of the space illuminated by a large candle. I could dimly make out shrines, deities, and dried floral garlands, which littered the floor around us.
