Big Foot, Alive and Well in Southeast AsiaPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Call it what you will--Big Foot, Abdominal Snow Man, Yeti, Orang Dalam, Interior Man, Squatch Giant, Yeren, or for the more scientific name shared by some scientists, the Gigantopithecus—but regardless of what name I use, whenever I mention any of them, people immediately say, “You don’t believe that, do you?” It’s not an easy topic to defend, and I usually end up changing the subject.
But the subject isn’t something that goes away. Last fall I was visiting the redwoods in northern California when a ranger reported seeing a “big foot” crossing the highway in front of his pickup one morning. He refused to make further comments. In summer last year, news reports from China tell of another sighting.
Now Big Foot is in the news again in Southeast Asia. The headline in The New Straits Times newspaper read: MALAYSIA TO INVESTIGATE "BIGFOOT" SIGHTINGS. The report went on to say: “Malaysia's wildlife department said it would investigate claims that "Bigfoot" man-like beasts are roaming the jungles of southern Johor state. The director of the wildlife department's Conservation Division, Siti Hawa Yatim, said they would examine the prints, which reportedly measure up to 45 centimetres (17 1/2 inches).
Workers reported seeing two huge creatures and a youngster. The Wild Life Department is setting up cameras in jungle areas to try to capture images of any such beasts.
I don’t want to confirm or deny that I believe in Big Foot. But what I would like to do is to report what I have uncovered and what happened to me in the jungle on the Malay Peninsula number of years ago.
In 1974 I was invited by Tungku Bakar, a Malay prince from Johor State, to join him on a fishing trip on the Endau River in Malaysia. I accepted. But the monsoons came early and instead of fishing a fast-rising river forced us to seek shelter in an Orang Asli village. For three uncomfortable days we sat in a bamboo hut on stilts, listening to Orang Asli tales of the jungles—how the white-handed gibbon’s hands became white, why the tongue of a certain lizard is red, and other such unhelpful bits of information. Then casually the headman said: “We saw the footprints again.”
“What footprints?”
“The giant people, Orang Dalam.”
I asked where he saw them, and he explained far upriver, above the twelfth rapid beyond the Kimchin River.
More jungle folklore! But when I mentioned it to a Chinese businessman in Singapore later, he grew silent. “It’s not lore,” he said, and then told me his story how he was driving his car in Johor one night when all traffic stopped. Three hairy creatures blocked the road. My friend said the story appeared in The Straits Times .
I began my homework at the National Library reading through rolls of microfilm of The Straits Times. I was about to give up when I reached the fall of 1953. Christmas Day. A Chinese woman, Wong Yee Moi, was tapping rubber on an estate in south Perak, when she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to be “confronted by the most revolting female” one could imagine. This she-thing was covered with hair, had white Caucasoid-type skin and long black hair. She wore a loin cloth of bark and stank like an animal.”
The female grinned, revealing long nasty fangs. Yee Moi fled in panic, but not before sighting two similar types, standing in the shade of trees by the river.
The estate manager, a Scot named Browne, immediately called the National Security Forces which responded immediately with a posse of security guards. On searching the estate, the guards spotted three hairy types on the riverbank—such as described by Yee Moi. The creatures dived underwater, emerged on the far bank and vanished into the jungle.
The following day, a Hindu worker was squatting to tap a flow of rubber latex when a pair of hairy arms encircled him. In a rage of fear, he broke loose only to fall into a faint on his way back to the compound. He revived to find the same trio standing over him.
Newspapers and Radio Malaya reported the sightings and brought forth official statements from the Department of Museums and Aboriginal Research. Authorities believed that this could be “one of the most valuable anthropological discoveries since Darwin.”
I had to dig deeper,. Two British anthropologists, Skeat and Blagden, encountered such jungle types, which they called Orang Dalam, or translated—‘interior people.’ These people lived in high remote cloud forests, and were large and hairy. They were sometimes referred to as ‘the stinking ones.’ It was more than just a coincidence that the headman on the Endau had also spoken of them as ‘interior people.’
In 1871, an Englishman, A.D. Frederickson, wrote: “A curious specimen of a hairy humanity was at the time of my visit being conveyed to the coast for shipment to some society in Calcutta.” A sketch of the creature was included with the report, which is now the property of the American Museum of Natural History.
Maps of the Malay jungles are restricted, but I was able to get a copy of the Endau region at British Army Headquarters. I located the village where we stayed and followed the river up to the rapids. I counted them—twelve. The headman said there were twelve rapids that led to the Kimchin. But beyond that the area was marked ‘relief data incomplete.’ Being a high region, clouds hindered aerial photographs. The headman said there were twelve rapids and a plateau. Also, Skeat and Blagden made mention of ‘cloud forests.’ Other things began to fall into place.
I had gone as far as I could with the research. There was only one way left to see if there was any truth in what I had read and heard, and that was to organize an expedition and go into the jungle.
The jungle I wanted to visit was unexplored, and without outside help I had to make arrangements on my own. To succeed, the expedition would have to be well planned and well equipped. The river could be treacherous, with uncertain rapids, snakes and crocodiles. For certain, the jungle teamed with elephants and tigers. Nor could we expect help once we passed beyond the first rapids. There were no more aboriginal settlements, and what lay at the headwaters of the Endau, even the Orang Asli didn’t know.
Kurt Rolfes, an ex-combat photographer from Vietnam, was also interested in Big Foot and want to join. We solicited the help of an experienced jungle hand who knew the Malay jungle well, an Eurasian, Kenny Nelson. He knew two Orang Asli, Bojung and Achin, who lived at a settlement and who would be willing to serve as porters.
Our 16-foot-long boat, when fully loaded, was but inches above water. We had a six-horsepower outboard to take us part of the way up the river to shallow water. After that we would have to paddle. Five of us—the two Orang Asli porters, Kenny Nelson, Kurt and I—set out. No more than two kilometres upriver we came to our first set of rapids. The fun part of the trip was over. Everything had to be unloaded and carried over slippery rocks to the river above. Then came the grueling task of pushing and pulling the boat up the swirling falls, inch by inch.
The lower Endau is wide and muddy, and swampy along the banks. Here crocodiles lurk among the reeds. Above the rapids there are fewer mud banks and very few crocodiles. Often we pushed the boat along using it only to carry our supplies. At best, we could do ten kilometres a day.
Kurt and I walked the banks whenever possible, checking tracks. The jungle was dark and uncertain, and in many places so dense that we could hardly pass without chopping through. Leeches fell upon us like raindrops. The banks became a maze of tracks—deer, pig, turtle, monitor lizard, elephant, tiger, leopard, tapir. Tiger tracks were the most frequent.
We passed beyond the tributary of the Kimchin and continued up the Endau. A few days later we reached the twelfth rapid above the Kimchin. Just before dark we found a wide sand bank and set up camp. While Bojung and Achin were busy with the lean-to, Kurt and I crossed the river to the other bank to look for tracks. All along the sand bank were elephant tracks with fresh droppings, and numerous tiger tracks.
Kurt was in the lead, stopping often to check each track carefully. Suddenly he stopped. He spread out his arms, a signal for me to stop. He stood motionless, staring down at the crusted sand. For a long time he didn’t move, mesmerized by something he saw. I thought it might be a snake, but then I remembered snakes didn’t come out into the hot sun. It had to be something else. I cautiously moved up to where Kurt stood. Still he did not say anything, nor did he turn to face me. But he knew I was there, and he pointed down to the sand for me to see. There in front of us were footprints, human footprints, but not ordinary ones. They were enormous, 19 inches long and 10 inches wide. The creature that had made them had come down from the jungle and entered the water and here the tracks disappeared.
We called the others. They came half running and half swimming across the river. They stopped dead. Bojung shook his head. “Orang Dalam,” he said. They insisted we go back to camp with them, but not before Kurt photographed the tracks.
It was a tense evening. The river where we were camped was the junction of a game trail: elephant, tiger and the questionable human tracks. Human tracks? Achin refused to talk about it, and when we finally cajoled Bojung to loosen up and speak, he withdrew to the far end of the lean-to and covered his head.
Because we were skeptical, Bojung became positive. We knew Orang Asli are superstitious but they don’t deliberately tell lies. What Bojung had to tell us, he swore, on the head of his newborn son, was true.
The year before, he had been with the headman when they saw the tracks of the man-beast. Neither of them actually saw the creature, but others from their village did, including the headman’s father. What was so amazing about the story that Bojung had to tell was that it confirmed things I had heard and read about in my research about the giants.
The size of the man-beast varies, anywhere from six to nine feet tall. He is hairy but not furry. Their eyes are red, or at least bloodshot. All reports claim they give off a powerful odor which Bojung likened to ‘monkey urine.’
At first contact, the beast appear to be friendly. They usually make the overtures and approach slowly. Then they become frightened and flee into the jungle.
How do such creatures evade detection from man? Bojung pointed out that even a large herd of elephants can vanish unheard and undetected into the jungle. Yet their footprints are still filling with water as men approach. Why then can’t a creature—perhaps a sub-human with a higher degree of intelligence than the average animal—cunningly and cleverly keep clear of man?
Big Foot runs the risk of being shot without provocation. Anything man doesn’t understand he shoots. The security guards in Malaysia opened fire on the man-beasts when they would not respond to their shouts. In Burma before World War II, a hunter sighted down his gun barrel at what appeared to be “an ape with human traits.” He pulled the trigger and struck the beast in the chest. It let out a most pitiful scream, whereupon a much larger animal, evidently the mother, rushed from the forest, picked up the wounded child in her arms and dashed for cover.
Stories about wild men in China go back 3000 years. A chronicle of the Warring States Period (476-221 BC), relates how a captured wild man was presented as a gift to the king of the eastern Zhou dynasty. Newspaper articles published in Beijing have quoted 17th century records as saying: “In the remote mountains of Fang Xian country, there are rock caves in which live hairy men as tall as three meters.”
More than 300 sightings have been recorded there since the 1920s. A dozen scientific expeditions have searched for the wild man since 1976, mostly in the thickly forested Shen Nong Jia region of northwestern Hu Bei. In 1980, Meng Qing Bao, leader of one expedition, found more than 1000 footprints stretching for about one-and-a-half miles. The team made plaster casts of prints, some more than 20 inches long.
In Guandong, China, there is a permanent exhibition on display of the legendary “Abominable Snowman.” The Yangcheng Evening News reported that Mr. Fang Zhong Shi, head of the China Wild Man Research Association, has a standing offer of a 10,000 yuan (about US$10,000) reward for anyone bringing in one of the wild creatures.
The question still remains. Does an Asian version of Big Foot exist? There are rivers yet to be explored, and other jungles. Maybe a few years from now it won’t be so strange. For more than 300 years there was talk of an ape-like man living in darkest Africa. A hundred years ago, the first gorilla was found, and the myth ended. For those who are interested, I go into more detail in my book Return to Adventure Southeast Asia. An interesting note: Thai Airways sponsored the book and sent 5,000 copies to the Tourism Authority of Thailand at the World Trade Center in New York--a few day before 9/11.
Whatever, it’s not likely Royal Orchid Holidays will be setting up jungle tours to look for Big Foot, but it is nice to know that Southeast Asia is not all big cites and over -populated. There is a lot of adventure out there for anyone who wants to look for it.
Next week we will remain in the outdoors, but his time the subject will be elephants, both tame and wild.
Questions & Answers
Dear Mr. Stephens, I found your site about the Strand hotel in Tsingtao. My grand father’s dad was engineer and the builder of this building. I saw many pictures about this hotel, but I’ve never seen a photograph from today. I heard about, that this building is still standing, but I haven´t known it. Please, if you have the contact address of this hotel, especially the new name , please contact me, because i hope, that i can visit this place sometime. Best wishes from Stephan Buschendorff, Luebeck, Germany P.S If you have a better (Bigger) photo, please send it to me.
Questions & Answers
Q. Dear Stephens, The Strand is no longer a hotel. It has been converted into an office building. I found almost all of the original structure still there. Very beautiful. Your forefathers did some nice work. You would be proud. The only major changes were made on the outside.
A. As I wrote in Week Travel Feature in my story “When Quindao was Tsingtao,” the US Marines landed in Tsingtao at the end of World War 11 to repatriate the Japanese. A marine regiment moved into the hotel and remained for four years, until 1949. A plaque at the entrance states the building was an officers club after the war, but this is an error. It was the home of the 29th Marines. If you need more information, I wrote in detail about the Strand Hotel in my book “Take China, The Last of the China Marines.” I can e-mail you some photo of both the old and he new hotel, if you wish. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited | 
