Richard Lloyd Parry: Asian diary

By RICHARD LLOYD PARRY

BORNEO - Man's closest genetic relative and I had our coming together in a small village on the westernmost edge of Malaysian Borneo. It was a very poor village.

The nearest road was three hour's walk away, along steep jungle tracks slippery with mud and leeches. The nearest town was two day's journey, and there was no running water and no electricity. When the sun set, the only illumination was from small oil lamps and from the lights of the cooking fires that burned in each of the wooden long houses.

The people here were Dayaks, former nomads who had settled here under pressure from the Malaysian government. They had nothing, apart from their hunting knives and blowpipes, and the delicate baskets which they wove out of rattan.

They certainly had no food to spare. But I was very tired and hungry when I limped into the village, and the people shared all they had.

They served rice, which was becoming a luxury these days, and sago, which was pounded into a firm goo. Everything tasted of smoke in the dark interior of the hut but, in my ravenous state, everything was delicious.

After the rice, they brought chopped pieces of sweet pineapple, freshly gathered from the jungle. Afterwards, I felt full and sleepy. I wanted to lie down.

"We should say goodnight to the headman," said the young Dayak man who was my guide and interpreter.

We walked through the wet grass to the headman's house, a hundred yards away. The longhouses were on stilts; notched logs served as ladders.

At the top, a naked child was playing with the family's pet, a small grey monkey which leaped and snickered at the end of a chain. The two of them fell silent as I clambered off the ladder. Child and ape stared up at the sweating, lurching giant, with dark eyes.

The headman and his family stirred when we entered, as if they had been waiting for us. More plates were suddenly produced, piled with fish, meat and vegetables. My guide and I looked at one another and realised our mistake. The food at the last hut, where we had gorged ourselves so greedily, had been intended merely as an appetiser. Our host for the evening was the headman - and a feast had been prepared.

There were more bowls of rice and sago, plates of crunchy tubers and roots, boney river fish, and dark, rich-looking meat. I thought about what the headman had been telling me a few hours ago, about how hard it was to find food, and how depleted the jungle had become since the logging companies had moved in, stripping out the trees with their chainsaws and bulldozers, driving out the wild animals, and polluting the rivers. Once, there had been rich hunting here. Now they were lucky if they tasted meat once a week - wild boar, sun bear, snake, armadillo or ...

"The headman asks if you have eaten this before," my guide said, handing me a bowl of the dark, gravy-soaked stew.

"What is it?"

"Monkey."

I looked hard at the plate in my hands. "It's the first time," I said.

I expected something paler and saltier, but the meat was tough, chewy, and tasty - a strong gamey flavour, like venison. I had eaten dog before now, and countless of the strange sea creatures eaten in China and Japan. Why should I hesitate over a monkey? The dark monkey gravy oozed thickly over the plastic plate, and I soaked it up with the rice.

"You told me that monkeys are difficult to find these days," I said, through my guide. "They are," the headman smiled.

"When did you catch this one?"

"Just now. We caught him for you."

Truthfully, I said: "It tastes very good."

He smiled again and took a little for himself. His wife, his grown up son and daughter-in-law, and the younger children and grandchildren just watched as my guide and I ate their dinner, their breakfast, tomorrow's lunch, tomorrow's dinner ...

"What about ..." I hesitated. "Will you eat that monkey outside?"

Everyone laughed when this was translated. "Oh no! That is a pet. For the children."

After the stew came the monkey's ribs. You ate them like spare ribs, gnawing off the meat with greasy fingers. Later, by the cooking fire, I spotted a relic of the meal: a simian right arm, hand, and portions of a rib cage. The skin was charred, but patches of fine grey fur were still visible and the hand had ten delicate finger nails, like the nails of a new born baby.

Now I was very full, and very sleepy. My guide stayed to talk to the headman, but I said goodnight and made my way back to the empty hut where we were to spend the night. Outside it was raining and the breeze was cool, but the pet monkey was still there on the end of its chain. It was crouching down, protecting itself from the rain with hands folded across its head, a pose so human that I stopped with a gasp.

The creature dropped its hands and stared up at me again with reproachful eyes. The raindrops glittered on the its fur. The monkey looked cold, and it looked hungry.

- INDEPENDENT