“OK! We will buy a pig and kill it, you can cook it and everyone can have a big, like, feast!” said a glassy-eyed Robbie, clearly getting a feel for life in the jungle on the Thai-Burmese border.
“You want pig?” asked our guide Tony, with a theatrically raised eyebrow.
“Yeah we do! Can you get us one?” I half yelled, entirely incapable of concealing my enthusiasm for the coming endeavor.
“No probrem. Tomorrow Mick take you, can find pig for sale,” replied Tony with a grin.
At with that, we settled down underneath the mosquito nets for a turbulent attempt at sleep owing to a combination of alcohol and an odd brand of Malaria medication which had skin rashes, dizziness, insomnia and hallucinations listed as potential side-effects. The horrible thing about the un-Godly pills was that they would allow you to get right to the brink of unconsciousness – to the point where thoughts are turning to dreams. Then, just as you were about to slip away, your heart would suddenly race and you'd sit bolt upright, gasping for breath as if you'd just been water boarded in Guantanamo. So, I'd jolt awake with a roar and in doing so frighten the shite out of Robbie, who a few minutes later, when I was about to drift away, would return the favour.
Our suffering was finally brought to an end when village leader Mick and tour guide Tony arrived to wake us at 6 am. It was decided, by mutual agreement, that the New Zealander girls who had set out on the trip with us would be walked back down the mountain and bused back to Chaing Mai city by Tony, while Mick, a member of the oft persecuted Karen tribe without a word of English, would take us off in search of a suitable pig to kill. Before bidding farewell, Tony informed me that while we were not the only foreigners to suggest killing a pig for a barbecue, we were most certainly the first to volunteer to do the dirty deed ourselves. It was a commitment I had no memory of making, but the holy grail of all travellers – to be the first to do something – was there for the taking. Needless to say, it wasn't much of a moral dilemma. Squeamishness got an unmerciful beating at the hands of potential immortality.
For the next two days, we walked. We watched, through the rain-splatter foliage, as far off mountains came close, were traversed, and finally disappeared behind us. We didn't talk much, mainly because we were too spaced out on malaria meds to hold anything resembling a normal conversation. We clamboured after our single-minded guide, who trudged up and down the border hills without a backward glance, vaguely aware of the risks involved in letting him out of our sight. We had murder on our mind, and images of the doomed pig – maybe sporting a look of concern as it caught the scent of its impending doom through the damp monsoon air – floated through our consciousness.
We wandered in and out of half a dozen villages in our fruitless search for pig ripe for slaughter before coming to a hillside clearing decked out with a dozen bamboo huts around 6pm on our third day in the jungle. Mick got chatting with a fellow Karen whose affirmative nodding told us he was our man. We were directed to a small creak where we could wash and a hut in which we could get our heads down. However, when a young Karen guy of about 10-years-old came running towards me with a football, I decided to postpone my nap in favour of a game.
“So where do we play?” I asked, hoping he might have somehow picked up a word of English on this most isolated of mountainsides.
“We have stadium,” he answered with a grin.
I looked at Robbie, whose furrowed brow assured me that, counter-top malaria pill-induced hallucinations aside, I had, in fact, heard what I thought I'd heard.
“A stadium?”
“Yes. For football. Is football stadium.”
A bemused Robbie decided to hang back while I headed off down a dirt track towards the valley at the bottom of the hill on which the village we had just found was perched. After walking for 10 minutes the shouts of the players and thud of the ball became clearly audible, although there was no structure that could be described as a stadium in sight. However, we then came to the outer ring of immense, straight trunked trees and once we slipped inside we found ourselves standing on a perfectly flat, roughly regulation size clay turf football pitch. It was no stadium, but the tight circle of ancient trees that surrounded it certainly gave it the feel of one.
The gathered youngsters were happy to show off their skills in front of the wayward stranger but after less than an hour of staggering around in the dust I was worn out and headed back up the mountain. Ominously, when I got there, my travelling companion was looking grim. When I asked him what was the matter, he silently nodded over his shoulder at a wriggling sack.
“I can't do it,” he said solemnly. “I've been sitting here for the past hour listening to it wriggling around and a squealing and stuff. The poor thing like! You're going to have to kill it.”
I hadn't given much thought to the actual process. I imagined it would be a case of cutting the unfortunate creature's throat, or something along those lines. However, the brutality of the method I would have to deploy announced itself when Mick handed me a small club around the size of a rolling pin. So, with Mick holding the pig still and Robbie struggling to watch, I decided to go for it. I was gonna beat that pig like a red-headed step-child.
To be continued....
