Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (6 page)

The celebration turns out to be in honor of Chinese New Year, and we slip in between dancers, dragon puppets, and white-powdered dancers who wink at me from atop neon-lit floats. The streets are hot, humid, and utterly alive. I hop on the back of a truck full of Malaysian children and join the procession. Gupta scans the crowds as we go, trying to keep pace from the sidewalk. Carter bobs and weaves with the camera, documenting the frenetic crowd.

The night ends at a strange little bar down by the docks. We throw back more than a few drinks and reminisce about our misadventure into the jungle. I spin around on my stool to catch sight of one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes on. She’s alone at a corner table. I may be in love. Gupta sidles up beside me at the bar and leans into my ear. “Josh. That’s a man.”

My introduction into the pervasive “ladyboy” culture is a harsh one. Incidentally, here’s a bit of rock-solid travel advice: when getting hammered in a bar in Southeast Asia, make sure to kick the tires a little before you drive off the lot. As we spill out of the bar, I’m still in disbelief about the transvestite, but at least Gupta has finally earned his paycheck. Back at the hotel I head to my room and collapse. I smell like Chinese incense and American cigarettes and drift off to fitful dreams about spiders and cross-dressers.

The next morning we decide to enlist the help of a few local investigative groups that have a head start on researching the recent Bigfoot sightings. Eric has called and arranged for them to meet us at our hotel. I emerge from the elevator bleary-eyed and take in our eclectic recruits. Perched on a couch are three very attractive young women dressed all in black. They sit silently alongside an older man named “Uncle” who sports a mesh tank top and bright camo pants. Together the four of them make up a paranormal group called The Seekers and boast a Malaysian television show by the same name. Uncle jumps up and comes at me fast, vigorously shaking my hand and excitedly launching into news of another recent Bigfoot sighting. His authority is mitigated slightly by the fact that I can see his nipples. The Seekers girls don’t appear to speak English and seem a little glazed over. As best I can tell, the premise of
The Seekers
show is that Uncle cavorts around in the dark with three submissive Malaysian girls twenty years his junior, looking for ghosts. I have no idea how he pulled off this arrangement, but the man is clearly a genius. Despite the sideshow quality of their group, Uncle has great local connections and will be a huge asset with logistics.

Nearby, a rather serious-looking collection of people mill about the front door. They’re clearly identifiable as a group since they’re all sporting matching shirts that read “SPI.” “SPI” stands for “Singapore Paranormal Investigators,” and while they may lack some of The Seekers’ presentational flash, they seem infinitely more scientific. Rounding out this circus is Jan McGirk, a Californian reporter writing for the UK newspaper the
Independent
. This haphazard consortium is starting to feel like the cast of a Michael Crichton novel, and I’m hoping to get through the afternoon without being party to an act of international espionage or a dinosaur rampage.

After exchanging hellos and comparing notes, we all pile into our respective cars and motor out of Johor Bahru in convoy. Our destination is the rain forest of Kota Tinggi, a few hours from the city. Here, several large footprints were recently discovered and have been attributed to Bigfoot by the local press. A few hours of driving and we arrive on the outskirts of Kota Tinggi, where we park our cars just beyond a haphazard cluster of tin shacks and lean-tos. As we open our doors, a troop of monkeys scampers into the dense foliage along the side of the road.

Our first priority is to examine prints that were reported upriver, and for this we need a boat. A ragged collection of skiffs sits along a half-submerged dock, and we begin a lengthy haggling session with a few local fishermen. The Seekers girls, Uncle, and the SPI gang prove useless at negotiation, even though they’re the ones who speak the language. We manage to talk the fisherman down from an astronomical starting price to something more appropriate, considering half of the boats are missing engines and most are visibly sinking. It takes another half hour of mechanical repairs before any of the motors will turn over. We bide our time in the shade, keeping a close eye on a young boy smoking a cigarette three inches from an open container of fuel. The last thing I need is for this kid to blow up the dock and take the entire Southeast Asian paranormal community with him.

Still waiting, I wander aimlessly along the road looking for the monkeys and spy a concrete structure obscured by clinging vines. I take one step into the jungle for a better look and am immediately surrounded by another world. The sound of banging wrenches and coughing engines has been replaced by the muffled sibilation of rain forest. Insects buzz, birds chirp, and with the sun diffused I feel eerily alone under the shady canopy. Upon closer inspection, the cement structure reveals itself to be a pillbox from World War II. These British-built bunkers are scattered all along the river and are part of what was once the Kota Tinggi defense line. Brigades were stationed in these remote bunkers to detect and beat back a potential Japanese assault. I crawl over the bunker and drop down to the narrow entrance in the back. The interior is badly flooded and crumbling, and I catch sight of a thick green snake slithering into the dark water. Based on my one eventful night in Endau Rompin Park, I can only imagine the forgotten exploits of soldiers stationed in this wilderness for months. However, stories in remote jungles like this are consumed like the bunker itself and eventually become hidden from the light forever. The whine of a running boat engine penetrates the forest, and I turn away from my imaginings and back to the road.

With the boat finally up and running, we speed upstream, cutting the glassy surface of the broad river like a blade. I lie down along the bow of the boat, pull a hat down over my face, and drift off to sleep in the breeze. I sit up when I hear the motor idle down and see that we’re edging up along the bank of the river. Jumping out onto the shore, we trek up into the jungle, which is every bit as thick and lush as Endau Rompin. We machete up a trail and emerge into a sandy clearing. “This is the place that footprints were found,” the translator whispers nervously.

We divide up, scouring the soil for any signs of tracks, droppings, or other evidence that a large primate has been in the area. Nothing. The search goes on for hours, and late in the day we’re advised to return to the boats, since tigers are known to inhabit the area. The guides cannot guarantee our safety after dark. As we push off the banks, rain arrives in sheets, dumping down on us. We spend the boat ride home ripping leeches off our legs and watching rivulets of blood trickle down the fiberglass hull of the boat.

Back at the dock, we find that the monkeys have shit on our car. More accurately, it appears as though they’ve shit on the car and then thoroughly rubbed it over every square inch of the entire vehicle like some sort of fecal hand wax. It’s almost impressive in its disgustingness. Neil grumbles and swears, his relationship with Malaysia’s animal kingdom already tenuous at best. Sensing that we’re eventually going to get caught in the spider-infested darkness, he bows out of the final leg of the day to head back to Johor Bahru and begin his own investigation for the elusive filet mignon.

Back in the cars, we make our last stop at a swath of jungle to the north where additional prints were recently claimed. The convoy stops along a seemingly anonymous section of road. As I climb out of the vehicle, I hold up a newspaper photograph in front of me, dropping it down to reveal that I’m standing at the exact spot where it was taken. We’re led into the jungle by our guides and scout around for prints. The search takes hours, and the day eventually grows long; the relentless humidity is exhausting. As we finally double back toward the road, I throw a few last glances along the ground and happen to notice a distinct marking in the nearby mud. I do a double take, see what appear to be toe prints, and quickly swat through the brush to get a better look. I call over the reporter, who happens to be standing closest to me. We both crouch down in disbelief at what is now unmistakably a footprint-shaped cavity. “Carter!” I scream out. “Get a camera over here!”

Before I know it, I’m surrounded by people staring down at a seventeen-inch-long mystery print. We scour for more, but the patch of mud is surrounded by hard earth and a few indistinct depressions. A Seekers girl pipes up and says, “Now what?” Good question. It never occurred to me that anything like this would actually happen, so I’m at an absolute loss as to what to do next. With cameras rolling, people crowding around me (and my career as a televised explorer possibly hanging in the balance), I’m hoping for a miracle. My salvation appears in the form of a slight-statured Singaporean girl from SPI who quietly says, “Should we cast it?”

I crane up from the dirt. “Hold on. Do you have casting powder?”

“Yes,” she says enthusiastically, adding, “but I’m not really sure how to use it.”

She hands me a box of powder marked “State Crime Lab.” Even though I don’t have a clue how to use this stuff, it’s starting to get dark here in tiger town, and nobody else is taking the reins. I’m not all that keen on being eaten alive, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen enough episodes of
CSI
to pull this off. I make quick work of mixing the powder with bottled water, and once the mix reaches the consistency of pancake batter, I start filling in the depression. It seems as though it’s going to take some time to harden, so I quickly wash off my hands and grab the satellite phone out of Eric’s bag.

I rush out to the middle of the empty road looking for a signal. I breathlessly punch in Neil’s cell phone number and listen impatiently as the other end rings. “Hello?”

“Neil. It’s Josh. We found something!”

I explain the situation, and I can hear him grabbing car keys and running out of his hotel room. There are a lot of considerations to be made, and both of us are talking them through as we think of them. At the forefront of our minds is the problem of dominion. For foreigners in Malaysia, it isn’t easy to just stroll off with a Bigfoot print, especially considering the current media attention this story is getting. Neither of us wants to lose control of our find, but with a reporter, two other teams of investigators, and Malaysian nationals all over the scene, it’s all but guaranteed that we’re leaving these jungles empty-handed. We agree to at least photograph the casting extensively and make a duplicate print, if possible.

After hanging up, I return to the woods, where the plaster is now as hard as rock. Flicking open a Spyderco knife, I set to work on digging the impression out of the earth, working around the digits and loosening the surrounding dirt. By flashlight I extract the print, hoping not to break it in half in front of an audience. To my amazement the footprint pops out of the earth in one piece, and we quickly but carefully carry it out to the road. Uncle suggests that he bring the print to The Seekers’ headquarters in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, where we can all reconvene the next day. The sudden ownership exerted over the casting doesn’t come as a surprise. I manage to carve my name and the date into the back of the plaster for posterity, and we photograph the print from every angle.

The cast is wrapped rather unceremoniously in T-shirts and loaded into the back of Uncle’s truck. We head out and eventually meet Neil at the intersection of the main highway. He’s absolutely beaming at the discovery. We all are. It’s surreal. We head back to our hotel in high spirits, stopping to eat questionable but delicious chicken burgers from a street vendor outside a gas station. I sit on the curb and devour the food with a huge smile. Somewhere, a footprint with my name on it is speeding through the darkness toward Kuala Lumpur.

In the morning we check out of our hotel, and I choke on my coffee at the front desk when I notice a picture of me on the front page of the Malaysian
New Straits Times
. Similar pictures and accompanying articles appear in every newspaper in the city. We’re overnight celebrities in Malaysia. I snatch a copy of each paper at a newsstand and have Gupta translate them in the car as we head to Uncle’s house. They’re all very complimentary and highlight that this find is going to be a boon for the country’s tourism sector. We’re delighted to learn that we’re repeatedly referred to as “the American Expedition.”

Exploding up through the canopy of the verdant jungles, Kuala Lumpur, or KL as it’s universally called, is nothing short of an architectural mirage. No other metropolis on earth even comes close to managing such an intense marriage between untamed nature and modernity. Originally a malaria-infested mining town, the city has punched up through the rain forest to become one of the shining beacons of Southeast Asia. The shimmering tent poles of this unlikely metropolis are the mighty twin Petronas Towers. Like an
Arabian Nights
tale dreamed by a futuristic Scheherazade, the gleaming steel of these star-shaped spires rises to a dizzying 1,500 feet. Though they’ve now been eclipsed as the tallest buildings in the world, they are still arguably the most beautiful skyscrapers ever constructed. Beneath them, Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures blend in a complex but seemingly balanced cultural soup that has been simmering for more than ten thousand years. One can hear the Islamic call to prayer from a Chinese market while the smell of Indian curry hangs in the air; a trip through KL is simply a joyous and confusing cultural mash-up.

Uncle’s house lies in the suburbs of the city, and as we arrive I can’t help but notice that there are a lot of cars in his driveway. I also can’t help but notice that every single second-and third-floor window of the house is blocked entirely by sandals. Thousands of flip-flops press against the glass, giving the very real appearance that the whole house might actually explode and release a tidal wave of footwear across the city.

Inside, I’m amazed to see at least twenty reporters with cameras, microphones, and portable lights. The Seekers girls are milling about in their trademark black ensembles, which I’m starting to wonder if they sleep in. Uncle, on the other hand, has changed into a leopard-print velour top, which I guess is his press conference attire. He offers me a bowl of hot mutton soup, just what I need in this 105-degree heat. I see a staircase leading to the upper floors with loose sandals along the steps. “Uncle, I don’t mean to pry, but what’s the deal with the sandals?”