It was getting late and we had to decide whether to leave immediately in order to return to Ruteng that night or stay.
I was prepared to stay – I had some energy bars, my hammock and a nearly-full water bottle, and argued that we had come all this way, and that these were the only Hobbits we were ever going to meet in our lifetime so what’s the rush.
But for reasons that were logical but ultimately unsatisfying, we left Arkel late that afternoon. Boedhihartono argued that the village people were poor and would be embarrassed because they couldn’t feed us, there was no water, no toilet. And he speculated that they were getting bored by us, and we had already asked all our questions and wouldn’t get any more information. The unspoken sub-text was that Boedhihartono was tired and had a cough and wanted to sleep in a bed in town.
On the walk down I asked Boedhihartono whether they were Hobbits based on their cranial measurements. “Well, they’re short people,” he answered, a touch too enigmatically.
Mike Morwood thinks that Homo floresiensis might have been in existence as recently as 2,000 years ago, which would easily put it into the cultural memory of any people who had an unbroken presence in the region since then.
The bay at Labuan Bajo, on the far western corner of Flores, is one of the most beautiful in Indonesia, dotted with islands and rock outcroppings. Local businessmen have built a number of small hotels and guest houses along the main drag, to provide accommodation to thousands of tourists who use Labuan Bajo as a starting point for a visit to Komodo National Park, which lies to the west, home of the famous dragons and world-class scuba diving.
Emanuel Wahyu Saptomo, of the Indonesian archeological service, and his colleagues were staying at the Hotel Bajo, convenient, but hardly romantic or luxurious – they had no view of the harbor and the bamboo-walled rooms did little to stop the vroom of motorcycles zapping past every few minutes.
Wahyu was cautiously excited. The head man of Rangko village, on the north coast of Flores, had visited them telling of an exciting discovery. Two young men had found a human skull in a cave. The head man was no doubt hoping that this was an anthropological discovery that would rank alongside the Liang Bua dig, and would therefore bring fame and not a little fortune to their small coastal community of 700 fishermen.
We quizzed Wahyu about the possible importance of the discovery, but the discussion broke down into furtive whispering every few minutes while Wahyu periodically excused himself to make phone calls. Later he explained that he hadn’t been sure about whether I, having the odd distinction of being a journalist and a foreigner, could go with them to the village the next day, but his superiors gave him the go ahead with the request that if it turned out to be a big discovery I wouldn’t write about it until after scientific tests had been completed.
The next morning we took a bemo to a neighboring village, and boarded a boat for a pleasant half-hour trip along the northern coast to Kampong Rangko.
We climbed an hour up a steep hill to Goa Intan, “Diamond Cave”, so-called because when the walls are wet the silica in the stone reflects like jewels. The cave had graffiti scratched on the wall, in English, “wel/com to/ gua intan”.
And the discovery? We found shards of earthenware pottery, shards of green glazed pottery, which Rokos identified as Yuan Dynasty, bones from a large rodent, some remnant human humerus bones, and the pièce de résistance, a large chunk of a human skull, which had been previously excavated by villagers.
It took Wahyu about thirty seconds to burst the headman’s bubble. The skull was indeed human, perhaps 600 years old, and distinctly not of significant evolutionary value. But, being Indonesian and inherently polite, Wahyu promised to discuss the matter with his colleagues and report back to the eager villagers. I don’t know whether they were too poor, or too disheartened, but the fishing folk in the village didn’t offer us lunch.
In 1938 the western scientific world was startled to find, off the coast of east Africa, a coelacanth, a large fish that had been thought to have gone extinct some 65 million years ago. That was about the time the dinosaurs also bit the bullet. In 2005 a long-whiskered rat, thought to have been extinct for 11 million years, was found in Laos. These ‘living fossils’ are part of a surprisingly long list of new species which have been discovered in recent years – a partial list includes a new cat from an island between Japan and Taiwan, two new monkeys in Brazil and one from India, two new lemurs in Madagascar, three new deer in Vietnam, numerous birds and more insects and amphibians than you can shake a stick at. There are obviously creatures out there which we have yet to discover. The 19th century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace described the thrill of discovery when he found a new bird-winged butterfly in the Moluccas, writing: “On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death.”
On our last day in Flores, an even more intriguing story emerged, again originating from the isolated northern coast of the island.
Hearing of our interest in strange creatures, we met a gentleman named Pak Nico, who said that in his isolated coastal village one night he heard a screeching cry. It “sounded like something out of that dinosaur movie”, he said, referring to Jurassic Park, which apparently had made it’s way to the TV broadcasts of this distant corner of Indonesia. He did not see anything, but his fellow villagers swore they had viewed a frightening T-Rex-like creature which climbed trees and ate pigs and goats. It’s called marengket in the local Mangarai language, Pak Nico said. Boedhi and I were still skeptical, since tales of orang pendek and their ilk are frequent, but until you capture one you ain’t got nothin. But Pak Nico added that several years ago a villager had killed one of the animals but had neglected to keep the bones. Imagine, a relict dinosaur which lives on the north coast of Flores. And I know where it is – a long day’s journey in a four-wheel vehicle, then a couple of hours walk. Not far at all.
Chapter 9
UZI FEVER
Letting the macho urges go out with a bang in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
In this uncertain world of drive-by killings, high school massacres and gonzo postal workers, is there nowhere a guy can go to blast an Uzi for fun without being labeled a politically-incorrect barbarian?
Well, there’s always Cambodia, where Taiwanese entrepreneur Victor Chao has set up one of the country’s two public shooting ranges a few minutes from Phnom Penh airport and around the corner from a new golf course. Since 1996 he’s invested some US$ 900,000 in the 45-bay, five-hectare facility which he has named the Marksmen Club-Eagle Force Headquarters.
Mr. Chao, 48, showed me the weapons I could shoot. He has Uzis and M16s, Smith and Wesson pistols and Al Capone-like machine guns.
You rent the gun of your choice and pay for ammo. If you’re heavy on the trigger things can get expensive.
“Let’s start with this baby,” I said, hefting a Dragonov, a Russian sniper rifle. My voice took on a Sylvester Stallone-like quality.
“That’s not a good shirt, is it?”
“Powder marks?”
Mr. Chao nodded. “Tough to get out.”
“Okay Victor, show me how this thing works.”
Zap, bam, wham. Getting into the groove, I reached for a London Scorpion, a cold war-era, British designed .32 pistol with a folding stock, later manufactured by the Czechs for special forces worldwide. I felt mildly James Bondish.
So, what’s the attraction?
Modern social analyst Dave Barry put it like this:
“Women often ask, ‘what do men REALLY want, deep in their souls?’”
“The best answer – based on in-depth analysis of the complex and subtle interplay of thought, instinct and emotion that constitutes the male psyche – is that deep in their souls, men want to watch stuff go ‘bang.’”
Mr. Barry was talking about Car Bowling, in which low-flying pilots drop bowling balls on cars parked
on the runways of (hopefully) little-used private airstrips.
Now I’ve never had the pleasure of playing Car Bowling but I’ve always had a hankering to play Rambo. Not for real, you understand. Just enough to smell the gunpowder and ruin my hearing for a day.
“It is true that when you rent the grenade launcher you get a cow to shoot at?” I asked.
“Ah, I’ve heard that story as well,” Mr. Chao replied. “But I don’t do that. If you want to shoot a grenade into a cow you’ll have to go to Phnom Penh’s other shooting range. It’s run by the military.”
“Then let me try the Glock.”
Is this joy at making loud noises at all Freudian? Maybe.
Does this have a redeeming social value? Come on, this is guy talk.
Is it fun? Sure is.
And shooting ranges are popular around the world. Mr. Chao got the idea for his facility after visiting popular legal shooting ranges in Hawaii.
Did it make me want to commit public mayhem?
Not at all, but that’s a fear of Cambodia’s officials who threaten to close the Marksmen Club-Eagle Force Headquarters, which hosts some 6,000 customers annually. Writing in the Cambodia Daily, Mr. Chao defended his operation. “Kidnappers are not among our customers;” he wrote. “Our customers are tourists, businessmen, fairly wealthy people who are actually victims of crime.”
I invited my friend Monique to have a go. Mr. Chao nodded approval. “Women shoot better than men,” he said. “Men are too busy pretending they’re John Wayne and Clint Eastwood to shoot straight. Women just focus on the task.”
I offered Monique the AK-47.
“Not interested,” she said.
“Come on,” I urged. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
To please me (or shut me up) she gingerly hoisted the weapon. She fired one shot and carefully put down the automatic.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“One’s enough,” she answered. “Can we have lunch now?”
Chapter 10
VIEW WITH A ROOM
Dirt floor, share toilet with yaks, a pricey view to die for
CHELE, Upper Mustang, Nepal
Among several things I believe: Ridding the world of demons is a noble goal. And the attainment of that goal is enhanced when you are exhausted, breathing with difficulty, and striding in a landscape that resembles the moon more than earth.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Several days earlier, on a bluff at the entrance to the Kingdom of Mustang, a sign warns wanderlustful trekkers: “Stop. You are now entering the restricted area of Upper Mustang.”
Savoring the attraction of the forbidden, we gaze up the wide, graveled riverbed towards distant villages where patches of green barley offer reassuring evidence of civilization in this otherwise arid landscape, all ochres and browns and lunar. We can just make out the ancient salt route that winds along the river’s banks. The track, accessible only by foot, pony or yak, connects the lowlands of India and Nepal with the isolated mountain plateaux of Tibet and Central Asia. We have walked through the Nepalese Himalaya and now stand with the great peaks at our backs. We are headed north towards Lo Manthang. This fabled walled-city is the capital of Upper Mustang and site of the seldom-seen Tiji festival, a three day masked dance performed by monks which aims to rid the world of devils.
A day’s walk brings our little group to the Hotel Deuralee, a simple oasis set in a village of stucco houses perched a hundred meters above the river valley. The altitude is 3,300 meters. We are breathing hard in the rarefied air.
I turn right at the rock with the painted ad “You are always remember, Hotel Deuralee”, turn left at the red, yellow and white chorten and enter the hotel through a corral. I traipse through the kitchen, climb a ladder to the roof, and tread carefully across a double plank bridge to an unnumbered door.
My simple room, one of six, overlooks the Kali Gandaki River valley. Towards the south I see the Annapurna range that forms a rain shadow, ensuring that Mustang remains free from the monsoon rains. In the late afternoon a dusty wind whips through the darkened valley while snowcapped Nilgiri Mountain catches the last sun.
The attraction of the Hotel Deuralee (“top of the pass” in Nepali) partly lies in what it doesn’t have. No web-site, no postcards, no health club, no carpets (pressed dirt floor), no balcony (you can meditate on the roof while Tibetan prayer flags accelerate your good thoughts to distant horizons). The only decoration is a poster of a crying Indian child with the admonition “Don’t worry, be happy”, and a pineapple-motif sheet tacked to the ceiling to prevent dust from filtering on to the beds, which are covered with brightly colored Tibetan blankets.
While the Deuralee is cheap, US$1.60 per person, the cost of getting there makes the classic resorts seem a bargain. On top of the normal expense of hiring a trekking team of sherpas, porters and cooks, visitors to the ‘forbidden kingdom’ of Mustang, which has only been open to foreigners since 1992, need a special trekking permit, which costs US$700 for ten days. Additionally, we have to pay US$400 for the services of a government liaison officer who’s there to make sure we don’t walk into Tibet.
We are nevertheless pleased to have made this investment – we are heading for Lo Manthang and the annual Tiji festival, a spectacular casting-out of goblins and evil spirits, a cleansing of the spirit. Just being present during the event will make us better people, we are told.
But Tiji is still days away. Deuralee owner Dil Bamadur Gurung, 59, and his daughter Nima Gurung, 18, whip up a Nepalese dinner of rice and lentils for about thirty cents, washed down with local barley brew.
Which leads in due course to a visit to the toilet, additional evidence that unexpected charm can be found in unlikely places.
After dinner I am in need of this facility. I climb the stairs and cross the rooftop where the owner grows cucumbers and dries sheepskins, turn right at the solar panels, descend a flight of narrow stone steps, wander through a medieval stone labyrinth passageway, duck through a low door and enter a stable while waving Namaste to the yaks, climb a few more stairs, squat, do my business in a slot on the ground, and follow it up by dumping a bucketful of kitchen ash down the pit. I have the good sense to look up – the Deuralee’s toilet is open to the most magnificent night sky I’m likely to ever see.
Chapter 11
MOSES DREAMS OF REVERSING JEWISH EXODUS IN BURMA
The caretaker of Rangoon’s only synagogue dares to dream. Will his children go forth and multiply?
RANGOON, Burma
“Ah, you want to see Moses Samuels,” says R., the front desk manager at a Rangoon guest house. “He’s an old school friend. He’s a Jew and I’m a Moslem, but we all got along just fine. Give him my regards.”
I locate Samuels inside Burma’s only synagogue, busy doing what Jews do well – worrying about the future.
Outside the high-ceilinged, blue-tiled Musmeah Yushua synagogue, mostly-Moslem hardware hawkers and textile merchants, some of whom rent stalls from the synagogue, trade and bargain and go about their lives. Inside the synagogue, built in 1886, caretaker Samuels calmly tries to fight the sands of time.
Like Martin Luther King, Samuels has a dream. His hope is that the Jewish community of Burma will reverse its declining population and become functional again. Currently there are just 45 Jews in the congregation. “We rarely have a minyan,” Samuels says, referring to the ten men needed for public prayer on the sabbath. The Jewish community has had no rabbi since 1969, no kosher food (but halal Muslim food is a close replacement) and, since no one in the congregation speaks or reads Hebrew, the Torah only gets chanted when officials from the Israeli Embassy in Rangoon participate in Sabbath prayers.
Facing these odds, one might accuse Samuels of being guilty of the kind of faith Boswell cynically observed was “the triumph of hope over experience.”
Sometimes even the optimistic Samuels fears that his beloved synagogue and Jewish community might become nothing more than a cultural c
uriosity, as has become the case with the Jewish community in Cochin in neighboring India.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, Sephardic Jewish Iraqis, who traded in teak, rice, coffee, jade and gold, were encouraged by British colonial authorities to settle in Burma.
The Jewish community grew and at its peak numbered some 2,500 people.
But most of the Burmese Jews fled at the outset of World War II, while those few who remained sought greener pastures when Burma’s military government took over in 1962.
Samuels, who was born and bred in Burma, hopes that his children will be part of the solution. The only single Jews for these young people to marry are relatives, Samuels explains, so he plans to send his daughter Diana, 21, and later his other daughter Kazna, 19, and his son Sammy, 16, to live with relatives in Israel, UK, or the States. There he hopes they will wed and procreate. And then, he hopes, they and their families will return.
Help might also come if the country continues to open up to foreign investment. The logic is that with a more open business environment some of the émigré Jews might be willing to come back. Although human rights activists urge against foreign investment in Burma, development continues at an aggressive pace, as witnessed by the 18 foreign hotels under construction in the capital.
But for the moment, Samuels, thin and serious and dressed in a Burmese longyi sarong and a short-sleeved batik shirt, relies on the kindness of strangers. Empathetic visitors drop a few dollars into the collection box, and richer philanthropists have helped to refurbish the white-tiled sanctuary where the torahs are kept.
Of more immediate concern to Samuels, who inherited the role of caretaker from his father Isaac, who died in 1978, is the possibility that the government will raze the Jewish cemetery, where some 700 people are buried. Like neighboring Chinese, Bahai’i, Moslem, Parsi, and Armenian cemeteries, the palm-tree lined Jewish graveyard lies on prime commercial land in the center of rapidly expanding Rangoon. The government owns the cemetery land, as it does the land on which the synagogue stands.
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