by Stieve Adams
Scottish sandals. They disappeared from my field while I heard they approached the tree I was in.
My attention was somewhat broken because my next neighbor worm slid around in the vicinity and with the worm head one meter from my head, I wondered if I'd even chase down the tree to my pursuers. You never know, they might be more friendly than the snake. I had nothing to defend myself with, no knife and no firearm. The monkeys brought a terrible noise around us. They also seemed to be worried when the snake was moving. Mosquitoes and flies and other nasty insects flew and crept around. Even though the monkeys were thrown, I did not feel very touched.
The worm that seemed to be several meters long fixes me with his eyes. I struggle between a number of different possibilities. First, I was paralyzed by the snake's eyes so I was hard to move at all. Partly, I should get back from the snake as soon as possible without him, or if she were, worried. Partly, I should keep calm so that the perpetrators would not find me.
Suddenly the worm chops but misses me. I drop the roof but fall only a meter, but with some noise. The worm missed, I think I'm relieved. But it had not missed, it was aiming and meeting a strange bird who had sat on the branch beneath me. I thought such worms hugged their prey, but it took the bird in the mouth and began to swallow it all. The bird sprang but for no use, it quickly disappeared in the stomach of the hungry worm.
The watch under me had heard me and gathered under the tree. Now I sat still and hoped for better times. Someone starts climbing upwards and I climb my way up in a wide arc around the snake. These trees are really tall and I rose ten meters before the branches began to shine and became weaker. I would have appreciated a lian so that I could swing to the next tree. But I was not Tarzan and the lianes shone with their absence.
Meanwhile, my persecutor became attacked by my new friend's worm. What I heard became a struggle for life and death, but because the worm's new byte had firearms, a wild shot took ten meters below me. The sequel screamed and shot several shots, a couple of bullets came alarmingly near me. Something fell down in the tree crown under wild cry and something that sounded like horrible swearing.
From the village was the noise and trumpet heard. It seemed as if wild elephants invaded the village. My persecutors became apparently worried and hurried to the helicopter. I climb down to my titular hole and really look a couple of elephants like trumpets and worry about walking in the village. The villagers were most afraid of their vegetable crops and attempted to dodge the elephants as the maneuver came dangerously close to the helicopter.
The helicopter pilot shot off his way but wild elephants usually do not take into account any other object or animal so the helicopter could get a thorn if it would be bad. The pilot sat quickly in the helicopter and lifted even faster to 20 meters. My pursuers ran to the helicopter who quickly took them aboard and then headed for the ocean.I breathed out and pulled me out of the tree past a dead worm. The shots had almost divided it into two parts, but still there were death threats there. Luckily, I could climb a good bit alongside the jerky worm. Well down the field there was now a well-trampled trail as I followed back to the village. There were a number of happy individuals who complained about the elephants who now seemed more tame than wild.
"Elephant Training Center," said one of them a few times. I then understood that the elephants were undergoing training and that maybe there were some of the villagers who trained them.
Wild elephants at Sumatra resorted to the cultivation of rice and vegetables, so that the villagers in the various villages had long been trying to eradicate the elephants. The authorities then started elephant training and made the elephants tame. Which, in turn, meant that tame elephants did not grow up. A problem that was not quite easy to solve.
One of the newly born natives was able to speak English and explained that tomorrow we should go elephant and find out Jens. It made confidence so after an evening meal that consisted mostly of rice it was time to dump my simple bed. Luckily, as a stranger, I had a virtual mosquito net. It could be necessary, here you could easily get both malaria and yellow fever.
Early in the morning I had to climb an elephant. We were going somewhere to meet Jens. Elephant is a very excellent means of procurement in these areas. A jeep would have been stuck and did not reach more than 500 meters. It was found that the elephant training center was located within an hour's elephant walk. The ride was quite enjoyable, you had to watch out for low branches and it was not the luxurious chair that you can watch old movies. Here I rode on some kind of simple saddle with a sturdy handle to help stay on the elephant back.
Here I might meet Jens, but I did not. Jens was on a 29 day safari with a larger tour group from Japan. He helped the guides with cooking and various jobs. Here there was a road, or at least wheel tracks, so I could go by car or preferably jeep to repossess him somewhere along the way. If I could get a vehicle of course.
Strange what Jens was suddenly wanted, you said here. Full of evil ideas, I was told that a couple of Thai people had just the same information I had just received a few hours ago. They had got there in a rental car, a small Toyota Jeep, a black four-wheel RAV-4. No real jeep but convenient for these roads, as sometimes there were some extra driving wheels needed to get out.
The training center consisted of elephants and some people who took care of the elephants. For the administration there was an office without walls. On the other hand, there was a heavy roof, the rain was sometimes violent. The moisture made all paper wrinkled, the ink pen did not seem to be a good printer here. At the office there were some nice people who took care of tourists and managed the contact with the outside world.
I suddenly came to mind that my profession was selling computers and computer programs. A couple of computers and a smaller network would probably be a helpful booking program for the administration here. But on closer reflection, I decided to instead try to interest the people in the office for my problem finding Jens.
There was phone here so I called Valerie at the hotel in Singapore but without success. With the help of my English pound, I tried to rent a jeep. But there was no one to rent why I continued to discuss different possibilities for further travel. Elephant transport was not to be considered because the ones here would be used by a tourist group that was in the process of being involved.
Here good advice was expensive. So expensive that I was very generous to show my money notes. A young man came to the office to say hello and mother, he would be available for a few days. I could walk with him to the nearest city, they liked the friendly office people. Sure, it went very well.
We sat in an old DAF, a relic from the 60's. It was actually one of the old belt-driven models that was manufactured in Holland at the time. There was no gearbox but instead an automatic gear shift. Pretty smart in its way, but technology fell short of forgetfulness and replaced by standard gearbox on later models.
The belt drive had some peculiarities that meant that the gearbox was not always the one you would have chosen with a standard gearbox. At the slightest throttle came a chute from the engine. The noise attenuator was also not quite full, because we sounded like a small jet plane when we reached the odd road with 30 kilometers per hour.
The positive was that Andi, that's the name of the driver and owner of the Daf, had maps and could tell me where the tourist caravan with Jens was on his way. The terrain there was accessible by minibuses so a regular car would work if you followed the regular road.
But Andi advised me that I could take a shortcut through the jungle and could take a ferry over the next river to reach the main road between Pakanbaru and Dumai. It would be great if I could get a real jeep. And Andi actually had a relative who had one.
Andi did business and I was not worse than I thought it was a good suggestion. When we got to the village a discussion of the local language sprang out where Andi eventually convinced his relative that I would rent the jeep. It was a little Suzuki, quite modern with V6 engine, four-wheel drive and low gear. Spring and comfor
t were not in luxury class but this Suzuki suited me perfectly. A well-made rent and an even more deposited deposit meant that I got rid of a lot of pounds. But I had a well-expended expense account.
Then I tried to hire Andi to accompany the trip. I was not entirely satisfied with the thought of going through one of the world's worst jungles, even though Andi did his best to convince me that it was not very dangerous. The Sumatra was rare, the elephants did not attack people very often, most were actually tama. The variety of rhinoceros found on the island was rare, but it could trample anything if it was retarded. The gibbons were nice, but it was safest not to let them steal loose stuff.
But Andi was busy waking up his girlfriend, they had more eager things to do than to be a guide to me. But he gave me encouragement, a map and a firearm. A long-lasting rifle from the last century. But he claimed it was fully functional and very accurate, even though it was not equipped with such modernities as telescopic sight. Aside from shooting elephants and rhinoceros, this gun would be very useful.
23. With Suzuki through the jungle
I thought of some jeep dunks, loaded a Coca-Cola back, a pair of loaves, fruit, mosquito nets and some
