Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [28]
I found a narrow, barely formed track and followed it, moving deeper into the bush. Eventually I came to a house sitting in what had once been a clearing before the jungle started to reclaim it. The building was falling down. The windows were gone and the door had collapsed onto the porch that ran across the face of the structure. Abandoned rubber estates, the guidebook said. This was obviously one of them. Curious, I went inside.
It was as if the former residents had truly abandoned the place, leaving behind much of what they owned in the process. Perhaps this had been an alien invasion? There was furniture, crockery, cooking utensils, a wrecked bicycle, even an old television in a wooden console. Mouldering clothes were strewn everywhere. Beds had collapsed and bedding was rotting on the rusting springs.
What had caused the people to leave so suddenly without even taking their damn clothes? I’d seen similar in other places in other jungles. In many of those instances a rotting, bullet-ridden corpse or a pile of bleached bones indicated what had happened. Gang warfare, bandit raids, bad luck, they all caused chaos and death, particularly in places where the only law was the gun, and drugs were the local currency. But here in peaceful Singapore?
Whatever the reason for the sudden exodus of the people from the house, I moved on. I came across several others in an equally deserted and dilapidated state as I followed the pathway deeper into the jungle. I didn’t bother going inside to examine any of the other former homes. My curiosity is finite and the house I had already gone through reminded me of other times and other ruins. Those memories weren’t any I wanted to dredge back up or dwell on.
I pushed on into the jungle and the track began to climb up what I guessed was a hill in these parts. I was focussing better now as I slowly came back into jungle mode. Bird spiders as big as my hand hung on their webs strung between trees, patiently awaiting their prey. Most of these magnificent spiders are beautifully coloured. I’m not sure if that is to attract the birds or scare off predators. There are birds aplenty, so no doubt the arachnids live well.
I disturbed a wild pig feeding on a fallen coconut. The little porker scurried off into the undergrowth with a scolding squeal. Or perhaps it was a squeal of fright, I’m not sure which, not being an expert on pig talk.
I was sweating heavily. The excesses from several months were trying to find a way out of my body through my pores. I stopped and drank one of my bottles of water without taking it from my lips and then I set off again. I was really hammering my body. Okay, I know one day of exercise does not a fitness regime make, but a decent effort will do me some good. Won’t it?
I arrived back at the village late in the afternoon, and I was completely knackered, a total sweatball. I’d covered a lot of kilometres, mostly in the bush. I’d seen just about all the wildlife the island had to offer, including a whole family group of little porkers. If I’d wanted to, I probably could have engineered a snare or even rugby tackled one. However, I suspected the local rangers would not take kindly to me slaughtering their wildlife. So even if I had vaguely contemplated a feed of wild pork, I now settled on the domesticated variety.
The restaurant on the waterfront served up a good pork curry that I accompanied with some deliciously cold beers before catching a bumboat back to Changi Jetty. There was a cursory bag check on arrival, which surprised me somewhat. I found a cab to take me back to the city. When I dropped into my seat, I promptly closed my eyes and teetered on the edge of an exhausted