by Stieve Adams
too. In any case, he politely opened the door to the taxi so I gave the taxi driver the address of the hotel and let me be pushed there.
When the evening came we went to have dinner at the Japanese restaurant. Something similar to the restaurant route, I have not seen before. I had expected to order a regular sokoyaki in a moral manner. But here we had to sit on some kind of high chairs on some kind of plate. The chef came to us and it turned out that the front of the counter was a hob so when we ordered the food, it was fried in front of our nose. But it was good. At least the appetizer.
In the middle of the main course, a Chinese came in and went straight to me. It was the same Chinese who took the envelope to Björn Andersson. He had a message that in short, if we wanted to meet Björn, we would soon go to the Singapore Crocodilarium, a crocodile farm outside the city. Five to ten the same night we would be there, the crocodile would close at ten o'clock.
The polite waiter and the chefs at the restaurant were crushed for us to leave soon. We assured that the food was fine but we had to go out in a hurry. I got the bill and wrote a lot of drinks. It was the Mexican state that paid the overheads.
With the taxi we went out to the crocodile farm and were there in good time. Here, you raised the crocodiles and turned them into bags and shoes. The living crocodiles to the left, the dead crocodile skin in the shoe to the right. With the attitude that existed in Europe when it came to extinction-threatened crocodiles, I suspected that the market for genuine crocodile skin spikes should be limited. Maybe it was different here in Asia.
We arrived in the middle of an appearance. A person who looked quite clenched was wrestled with one of the smaller crocodiles. He managed to make it stand on two legs. The main issue was that with his hands he opened his jaws on one of the larger crocodiles and put his head in his own head into the gap on the crocodile. The fact that it was not harmless to hang out with crocodiles proved a powerful bandage around one thigh on the crocodile dam.
Next to Valerie there was suddenly a powerful person with dark full beard with gray elements. With the same hair and dark glasses you did not see much of the face.
"Hello, honey," he says to Valerie.
Valerie, in turn, leads to a foul and throws himself in the arms of the new member. In his description, he is similar to Björn Andersson, and with the conduct of Valerie's behavior, it is certainly Bjorn Andersson. I look at them, enviously and perhaps jealousy. And I might imagine that it was only me who got a part of Valerie's round hugs.
"Why did not you come to the restaurant?" Asks Valerie, "we had begun such a good dinner."
Björn pulled us further into the crocodiles. There were low cement walls in the chest height, a few meters further down there were water and artificial islands and plenty of crocodiles. We leaned against such a cement wall and Valerie babbled about the weather in St. Kitts as if there were anything to talk about. It was also the same with the exception that the rain showers sometimes lasted ten minutes, sometimes a quarter. Now, most of the lights are out, the clock is ten and visitors leave the area. Here in which there is apparently a breeding of crocodiles, it is now almost completely dark.
I tried to cancel but it was not easy. Suddenly I feel that something raises me over the barrier and I end up splashing in the water among the crocodiles. I hear a scream, Valerie's scream, and another splash next to me.
"Are you there Valerie?" I say to the shadow next to me.
"Usch yes," she says.
It splashes around us and we are among the crocodiles. On their own, they should have been quite saturated by now, they just had the evening meal when we arrived. I'm not dared to touch a fiddle, I thought it would be good not to draw my attention to me. My knowledge of crocodiles is limited, I have not even seen Nessie, the beast in Loch Ness.
It actually seems as if our splash in the water scared the crocodiles, unbelievably, they seem to turn away from the other side. The light is not good, but I can appreciate the silhouettes of both crocodiles and Valerie. The water reaches our knees and it is two and a half meters up to the edge of the pit, a steep cement wall.
"Shit too," says Valerie, "they've taken Björn." She continues and spices the meaning of a number of words that I only partially recognize. I was apparently not familiar with all shades of the West Indian power language.
"We must think about getting up from here," I suggest nervously, while the leader crocodile begins to approach. He has certainly picked up from the shock as we splashed into his pool. "More food", he seems to think.
Valerie gets hold of a tree trunk that is in the pit. It seems like the crocodiles should have something to sharpen their teeth on. The crocodile is located three meters away and cleverly cleans. Valerie throws the wood piece in the middle of the gap on the crocodile and the crocodile closes the jaws with a bang.
"Fort, help me up", Valerie hoops and jumps on my shoulders, and I shoot and she's over the cement edge.
"Hurry up, this is not so deep." She seems quite calm while I'm standing at my knees in water with a crocodile two feet away, the crocodile is doing the best to spit out the woodpiece and directs the next bite to me. She does not have to say it twice, despite rattling knees and hacking teeth, I rush away, I reach Valerie's hands and, with the help of some unevenness in the wall, I manage to get up so that I can grab the edge of the wall. Underneath me I hear how the crocodiles approach, it sounds like freshly caught crayfish in a plate tank, but higher and more dangerous.
19. The jungle of Singapore
I hurry to pull my feet up because I hear how the crocodile jaws hit again just inches under my feet. I kick and hit one of the odors on the nose and then wake up above the wall and in safety. Unbelievable what an adrenaline shock can give unnecessary powers.
At the end, we hear Björn protest and fight against the two who drag him out. At last they get worried and drop something in his head, he sacks and gets stuck in a black Mercedes.
Valerie pushes me in my hand and we run towards the exit. I try to get a taxi, but here in the suburb there is no taxi in sight. I try to take a car but all parked cars are locked. But a Vespa stands unlocked, the owner is probably shopping in the kiosk next door. This is a real Vespa, a scooter that was so popular in the sixties. Small wheels and the engine, a two-stroke tachometer, were mounted on one side of the rear wheel. As a counterweight on the other side of the rear wheel there was only one tool box. Otherwise, it acted like a motorcycle, that is, you shifted your left foot and brake right. I kick the scooter up, it starts nicely, Valerie jumps heavily on the bench and I'm driving after the fleeting Mercedes.
It does not seem as if they see that we are following because they are moving quietly and do not violate speed limits. My knowledge of Singapore is unimportant, but it is clear that we leave the city center, the road is getting worse and the street lights stop. The black tropical night is really black, only small stars are visible if we look straight up. The wild-wood seems to come all the way closer and I'm having trouble driving the scooter.
The light on the scooter was not turned on and I neither could or would turn on the headlight, so soon the missed car would notice that it was being pursued. Vespan's small wheels and bad balance were not at all suitable for this hilly and wet road. We bounced and jumped, every now and then the water spat as we drove through the waterbushes. As long as we had the rear lights from Mercedes to follow, it went pretty well, I could see where the road was heading and I also saw the car having trouble with the pitfalls in the road.
The road seemed to be all narrower and the car in front of us also drove more slowly. Suddenly there was something in front of us, and the tail lights disappeared behind a curve. When we got around the curve we were dangerously close to the car, which had stayed. I tweeted that I dropped into the ditch and got a car break. Good luck, otherwise we would have been discovered.
We were at a river, where someone was waiting for a motorboat. The car was parked and Björn was dragged down to a long open boat and the boat disappeared at
good speed upstream. Valerie and I lay shattered, torn by branches but quiet in the ditch and saw what happened. The Mercedes turned and drove back, dangerously close to where we lay. But the bushes around the road were dense and we were not discovered.
Now good advice expensive, would we follow the car back or would we try to follow the boat. The answer gave itself, Vespan refused to start so that it was impossible to follow the car. I rolled the scooter back into the ditch again and we went down to the little bridge, where there were also some huts where there were some families. We kindly knocked on and asked to rent a boat. There were some more long-tailed boats at the bridge, so we could try to pursue Björn and his company.
We had some money on us and we showed some genuine US dollar bills. In English they could not, only a few words. They could count the words and dollars and pounds so it was possible to do business. Finally, an older person with striped white beard followed us to the harbor. Renting the boat was not talkable, but he could drive us with his boat.
We tried to make him understand that we would follow the boat that just left the bridge. But it was more difficult to explain "follow that boat" than to say to the taxi driver "follow that bus". In any case, we got into the boat, uncle Wu
