Byline: Phoenix Jay

Pale, disembodied faces leer out from the near-impenetrable gloom; expressionless horror masks whose hollow eyes track every move. Illuminated like ghosts by a shard of light from between floor and locked door, their contorted features mirror the growing sense of impending doom. Floorboards creak; breaths come deep and ragged. An unseen string section builds to a terrifying Psycho crescendo. Then, and only then, do you finally hear it: THE SCREAM.

Fear does peculiar things to the human body: pupils reduced to pinpricks, heart beating like a jackhammer. The amygdala – nestled behind the pituitary gland – kicks immediately into overdrive, flooding the system with hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol. ‘Fight or flight?’ it shrieks over and over, in high-pitched hysterics. ‘Fight or flight?!’

Alas, in this locked, windowless room, flight is simply not an option. With only two modest torches between the three of us, we have 45 minutes to decipher the riddle of this tiny space in which we’ve been deliberately – nay, sadistically – trapped and fight our way back to fresh air, natural light and freedom or… or… *cue strings and scream*

It’s a muggy mid-afternoon and we’re in what, from the outside, looks for all the world like your average, run-of-the-mill Asian shop house. Just a block from Sovanna Mall, it is, however, anything but. Inside is a world of make-believe made believable; a place where the impossible becomes possible, where fantasy meets reality. Inspired by a new craze sweeping the Asian continent and beyond, this is Cambodia’s first ‘real-escape room’ – in short, the ultimate video-game fantasy made flesh.

Remember the days of the Acorn Electron? Atari? The Commodore 64? Many a misspent youth was lost back then to simple black-screen-white-type escape scenarios, each challenge played out in nothing more than simple, two-way text: ‘You are in a room. The door is locked. There is a box guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. What do you want to do?’ What followed was the birth of video games; the internet; visual 2D, even 3D, feasts. Now, in what could almost be considered a full circle (sort of), these games – once based on a digital imagining of reality – have finally arrived back in actual reality.

It all began, as these things so often do, in tech-savvy Tokyo. There, in 2004, some bright young spark named Toshimitsu Takagi created the instant online hit Crimson Room, in which Takagism gamers wake up in a strange, unfamiliar virtual room with no memory of how they got there and must use the objects they find around them to solve cryptic puzzles and secure their escape.

Legend has it that the first real-life room escape (that is ‘actual’, not ‘virtual’) was the brainchild of a small group of Silicon Valley system programmers in 2006. Inspired by the works of Agatha Christie, the mysteries and challenges in their Original Piece became one of the valley’s main tourist pulls. To this day, only 23 people are believed to have escaped the room successfully.

By 2008, another bright young spark – this time in a Kyoto publishing company and called Takao Kato – had developed the Real Escape Game (200,000 participants so far and counting), along with a free magazine of the same name. And business is booming: by the end of 2009, tickets for an event at Tokyo’s Ikejiri Institute of Design were selling for $30. All 800 were snatched up within hours.

And so to Cambodia, where a crack team of puzzle fiends from Malaysia has spent the past few months creating almost impossibly cryptic challenges built into three separate rooms, each with its own fantastical flavour.

The Mask Room was our not-so-gentle introduction to real-life Takagism: cryptic markings on the masks, we eventually learned, pointed the way to the combination of a lock on a drawer – but not in any of the manically complicated ways we’d tried (all of them failing). To the stifling darkness, add hidden speakers pumping out classic horror-movie sound effects. Then there’s the flickering of torchlight, which grows more erratic with every check of the clock. Infrared security cameras. Vocal chords tense, increasingly shrill as excitement evolves into near-hysteria. At one point, I actually find myself more or less running in ever-decreasing circles.

When the alarm finally pierces our frenzy, in strides our host. He beams. “You were so close!” We really weren’t. Three senior executives, with a combined age of almost 120 and IQs considerably higher (or so we thought), have been beaten by two locked drawers, several masks and a weird light-up box thing whose inner mysteries we didn’t even get close to contemplating.

The thrill is palpable. My teammates, ordinarily measured men, are visibly flustered – possibly even slightly annoyed with themselves (as I am) – but grinning like maniacs. And pacing. Everyone talks at mach 2. “Did you see that coming? I didn’t see that coming…” “I knew it was a red herring.” And perhaps most tellingly of all: “It bloody beat us! I don’t believe it!”

Our second challenge, which I could tell you about but then I’d have to kill you (can’t mention the Laser Room, either), involved a maze, art, ancient cartography and upside-down flowers. Oh, and string. Lots of string. We thought it involved long division, too. We were wrong. Again (you, of course, will have to find out for yourself). And there’s the rub: it isn’t as easy as you might think it is. Not in the least, in fact. Think an enigma wrapped up in a puzzle, rolled in a riddle, and you’re getting close. Almost.

Explaining the creation of his now widely emulated Real Escape Game, Kato, a fan of novels and manga since childhood, in 2009 told the Japanese Times: “I wondered why interesting things didn’t happen in my life, like they did in books. I thought I could create my own adventure, a story, and then invite people to be part of it.”

And that’s perhaps the main distinction between the behind-closed-doors world of traditional one-man gaming, and the bring-an-entire-team ethos of these ‘real-life’ escapes. They may be inspired by computer games, but ‘real-life’ escape rooms are no realm for geeks. Crucial to success are the abilities to function as part of a team and use lateral thinking in a time-pressured environment. It’s half brainteaser, half corporate teambuilding.

“You can hear everyone discussing it on the streets in Asia, be it how to escape from an entrapped room or what to do to decode a locked box,” says Kenny, CEO of Xscape Room Cambodia. “You will always see expressions of excitement and enthusiasm on their faces. This is how I got to know about it. My friends and I are excited about new stuff, so we tried our very first escape-room game in our homeland, Malaysia, but we didn’t even manage to solve the first puzzle. Because of our curiosity and unwillingness to admit defeat, we got together again to challenge the game. We now had previous experience, so everyone was cooperative and focused, which helped us discover the knack of solving puzzles smoothly. Although we weren’t victorious in our second attempt (the time had passed before we opened the last box), the joy of completing this challenge at that moment was beyond words.”

But what of those brain-wracking riddles? Is Japan pumping them out on a for-hire basis? “All the rooms and puzzles were invented by us,” says Kenny. “We get some of our ideas from past experiences and some inspiration from detective novels and movies. It took us almost two weeks to design and complete the work for each room. Language is the utmost barrier, so it took us quite some time to think of puzzles which involved minimal use of it. We also spent a lot of time finding suitable materials and devices to decorate the rooms in order for the puzzles to work.”

How successful have they been so far? Teammate number one (30-something sales director, father of two, made in Australia): “There are so many different things to draw your attention, it’s really hard to stay focused and it becomes frustrating because there are hundreds of clues and you can’t decipher anything. Then, when you finally get it, it’s so simple you want to crawl under a rock!”

Teammate number two (40-something art director, father of one, made in Texas): “It was much more difficult than I thought. The puzzles are really cryptic and very well thought out. In the first game, there are three locked boxes that you have 45 minutes to open. Inside each box is the key for cracking the next puzzle, but the keys are far from easy to decipher. The first one was pretty easy, and we got it in just a few minutes. We were all, like: ‘We’re gonna kill this game!’ It was all downhill from there. To make things harder, it’s dark and you have to use a flashlight to really see anything. We had three people on our team but only two flashlights, so teamwork is essential. Then there’s the creepy music, with screams and footsteps and heavy breathing. You’re waiting for Freddy Krueger to jump out from behind the curtain at any moment. But it’s super cool. One of the best things I’ve ever experienced in Phnom Penh. It reminded me of a John Le Carre novel, all spy and espionage code-breaking types of coded messages. The difficulty is off the scale. It’s a really great brain challenge.”

But for the final word, we shall return once more to the wisdom of Kato: “The fact is that stories have the power to make the real world a better place. By creating a game, an ordinary desk can suddenly become the hiding place of secret treasure. I think that sort of thing is fun.”

WHO: You and a few fellow adventurers
WHAT: Cambodia’s first ‘real-escape’ room game ($5 per person, per room)
WHERE: Xscape Cambodia, #55 Silver Street (near Sovanna Mall); 098 895858 / 086 867373
WHEN: Now!
WHY: “The fact is that stories have the power to make the real world a better place.” – Kato

 

Continuing our series on the region’s rarest weird and wonderful species, a tribute to the conservation work of British author Douglas Adams, meet a jungle VIP plus a very peculiar reptile, who one conservationist believes could hold the key to evolutionary history

The missing link:
pig-nosed turtle

Unique among its freshwater brethren, the pig-nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta) is a rare creature indeed. As embryos, whether they become male or female is determined by the temperature of the ground in which their eggs are laid, and fully developed embryos have the extraordinary ability to delay their own hatching.

This conservation icon also occupies a unique position in the turtle family tree: it’s the sole survivor of a once widespread family called the Carettochelyidae and is today found only in Papua New Guinea and northern Australia. For how much longer is a matter of growing concern: over the past 30 years, scientists have recorded a steep decline in their numbers.

This turtle, which scientists hope might explain how turtles gradually evolved from land-lubbers into seafarers, is on the cusp of being eaten into oblivion. Demand for its meat and eggs mean it’s being hunted in ever larger numbers by indigenous people. Recent research by the University of Canberra in Australia found that villagers were harvesting more than 95% of all monitored nests.

Thus it came as no surprise when wildlife police discovered more than 2,000 ‘crammed like sardines’ into suitcases at an airport in Indonesia a few years ago. The turtles were concealed in plastic containers en route to Jakarta, a major hub for the illicit wildlife trade, many of them destined for the dinner table.

“Authorities in Indonesia have all the legal tools at hand to put an end to this trade, yet it appears that protection for the pig-nosed turtle is often on paper only,” says Chris Shepherd, deputy regional director of Traffic. “A few significant seizures have been made in Marauke recently, yet no arrests leading to convictions. Why not? The people involved know full well that what they are doing is illegal. They are criminals, robbing Indonesia and the rest of the world of our wildlife, and need to be punished. Little by little, species by species, they’re dismantling and destroying our ecosystems. Imagine losing a species like the pig-nosed turtle. What an amazing animal.”

Embrace the downpours and work your way through our second Interesting Things To Do During Rainy Season list.

Get inked:

Yantra tattooing, also called sak yant, dates back to before the glory days of Angkor, when King Jayavarman VII famously claimed they made the enemy’s arrows bounce clean off his chest. Traditionally administered by hermit sages, witch doctors and Buddhist monks via a sharp metal or bamboo stick, they’re believed by many to ward off evil, but The Advisor makes no guarantees. Or you could go the modern route and opt for simple Khmer script (Just make sure you know what it says – The Ed.). Among the most reputable tattoo parlours in Phnom Penh are Black Star, #5a Street 90 (070 200900) and RSD, #30 Sihanouk Blvd (016 787816). Recently opened is Maroo, #93 Sisowath Quay (066 412151).

Build your own bike: 

In 1953, the sight of a young, leather-clad Marlon Brando astride a motorcycle in The Wild One sent most decent folk into a self-righteous tailspin: the movie was immediately outlawed in the UK, where it stayed on the black list for the next 14 years. Too late! Biker-gang leader Johnny Strabler, the ultimate-for-the-time icon of restlessness and rebellion, had burned deep into the collective subconscious. Replicating the kind of stripped-down cafe racers he and other greased-up rockers rode is what Moto Cambodge, an expat custom motorcycle outfitter, does best. Drop ‘em a line: info@nullmotocambodge.com.

Go back to school: 

Want to improve your night photography? Need to polish your skills as a sommelier? Know how to use a sewing machine but can’t quite make a finished item of clothing? Have you ever tried sculpting a human head? Fancy yourself as an Apsara dancer? The evening classes and weekend workshops on offer at Phnom Penh Community College are limited only by your imagination. Brush up on everything from self defence and ‘wine and chocolate indulgence’ (must we?) to the Khmer language and drawing for beginners. Details at phnompenhcommunitycollege.com.

Travel back in time:

Forget the horrors of Cambodia’s recent history; don your Indiana Jones hat, and head straight for the most ancient artefacts in the National Museum’s rather compact collection on the corner of Street 178 & 13. Looming sculptures chiselled out of stone by the hands of Khmers from millennia past; carved wooden artworks dating to the country’s 15th-century transition from Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism to the Theravada Buddhism still practised today. Take that, Tardis.

Stock up on Surprisingly Useful Stuff in a 2500 riel shop:

Ice-cube trays that don’t shatter when you twist them; sturdy drinking bottles; funky earrings; USB fans: you’d be amazed at what you can pick up for a few thousand riel at these miniature Aladdin’s Caves, which are dotted all over the city. One of our favourites is next to the main entrance of Golden Sorya Mall on Street 154 & 51.

Have a night at the opera:

Cambodian Living Arts’ Plae Pakaa (‘Fruitful’) shows honour a time-honoured operatic form, although the themes it touches on aren’t altogether unfamiliar to modern audiences. Mak Therng, one of 20 traditional Khmer operas known collectively as yike (pronounced ‘yee-kay’), sounds at first like many a Western soap opera/Shakespearean play: girl loves boy; girl gets stolen by another boy; original boy attempts to reclaim girl; something goes horribly, horribly wrong. In fact, and particularly in CLA’s interpretation, it’s a brilliant piece of social critique examining a) how power corrupts, and b) Everyman’s oft-tricky pursuit of justice. Catch performances of this and other Cambodian dances on the stage of the National Museum, Street 13 & 178, 7pm every Friday and Saturday until the end of August.

Lose yourself in the shadows:

More than 2,000 years ago, in 121 BC, Emperor Wu of China’s Han dynasty was devastated by the untimely death of his favourite concubine. ‘The sound of her silk skirt has stopped,’ the emperor, an accomplished poet, wrote of Li Fu-ren. ‘On the marble pavement dust grows. Her empty room is cold and still. Fallen leaves are piled against the doors. How can I bring my aching heart to rest?’ Grief-stricken, the emperor implored his court officials to bring his lover back to life. Legend has it that, inspired by the lively shadows cast by children playing with dolls inside the court, one of Wu’s aides crafted a perfect replica of the concubine out of leather. Holding the figure in front of an oil lamp, he gently manipulated its limbs to make it ‘dance’. The emperor was delighted – and shadow puppetry was born. In Cambodia, a pre-Angkorian stone carving describes a kutakkta (female puppeteer) performing in a religious ceremony for Svarasvati, the god of art and eloquence. Carrier of myth, morality play and religious experience rolled into one, each performance tells traditional tales embellished with tidbits of village gossip. Known as sbaek in Khmer, the puppets are chiselled by hand out of tanned cowhide. The plays are performed as homage to Buddha, the Hindu gods, and the ancestral spirits they depict, and as a vehicle for communication with them – the point being to elevate performers and audience to ‘a higher level’. Rousing drum beats from the Pin Peat Orchestra lend each play a distinctly tribal feel, from the percussive rumana to the thunder of the giant barrel-shaped skor thom, at Sovanna Phum Theatre, #166 Street 99 & 484, where you can see shadow puppets, a pin peat orchestra and traditional Cambodian drums and dance at 7:30pm every Friday and Saturday.

Revamp your wardrobe on a shoestring: 

It pains us to share this information and thus risk diminishing the gene pool of cut-price steals, but if you haven’t yet ransacked Japanese thrift stores Sakura on Street 488 & 107 (097 4586536) and Toto, #21 Street 47 (020 990087), your wardrobe is missing out. Even a monogrammed tailcoat isn’t out of the question. Just don’t tell anyone.

Take a crash course in Khmer culture: 

Phnom Penh Community College offers precisely that in its five-week Learn Basic/Intermediate Khmer Language & Culture courses, schooling you not only in simple Khmer words and phrases but also in some key local customs (phnompenhcommunitycollege.com). Because when in Rome…

Absolve yourself of sins past: 

Not an invitation to step into the confessional, but rather a nudge in the direction of raw foodies ARTillery, on Street 240&½, who know more than a thing or two about top-notch nutrition. In the event you’ve been on one too many binges, have Your People hold all your calls and book yourself into the Vine Retreat, on Pepper Road in Kep’s Chamcar Bai Village (078 928966), where you can gorge on organic raw food workshops, yoga and massage, and even go picking peppers.

Get a Buddhist water blessing: 

A water blessing is an ancient Cambodian ritual believed to bring cleansing and good luck and is offered at many pagodas. The timid can opt for a light sprinkling while monks chant, wishing you safe travel and a long life; the more adventurous might try the longer ritual when vessels of blessed water are poured over your head. After all, it’s rainy season. You’re going to get wet anyway.

Experience the unbridled glory that is KTV:

You know you want to. We all do.

Talk in tongues:

On the first and third Wednesdays of every month, the Institut francais du Cambodge hosts its charmingly named ‘Cafe Polyglotte’, where cunning linguists – including but not limited to those who parlez francais – gather in the institute’s bistro, #218 Street 184, to practice the language of their choice (078 883268). The next events are at 6:30pm August 6 and 20.

Live out your fantasies:

The term ‘cosplay’ – an abbreviation of ‘costume play’, or kosupure in Japanese – has something of the geek about it. This Japan-centric comic world, one of giant-eyed heroes and junk worship, was sired by the sci-fi/fantasy universe once synonymous with Star Trek conventions, but seems to be overtaking it at warp speed. Sporting face paint, liquid latex, neon wigs, contact lenses, body modification and outrageous cyber-fashion, the truly committed make their way to the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Centre every few months to worship at the altar of the weirdly dressed. Keep an eye on our listings: we’ll let you know when the next one’s coming up.

Watch a Cambodian horror flick: 

If there’s one ‘other’ thing Cambodia is famous for, it’s the flesh-shredding gore-fest that is its native movie industry. Horror has long been the national genre of choice, best screamed at loudly from a seat at Khmer-centric cinemas such as Lux, #44 Norodom Boulevard (012 343498). And never mind the script; check out those special effects…

Party like it’s 19:59: 

Cambodian teens can party with the best of them, provided it’s not past bedtime, hence daytime ‘nightclubs’ which recreate the after-dark ambience of regular nightclubs by simply not bothering with windows. Expect to find them in places like the basement car park at City Mall on Monireth Boulevard, next to Olympic Stadium, and opposite the Cambodiana Hotel on Sisowath Quay. Pumping. At 2pm. Yes, PM.

Become a prima ballerina:

Strap on your tutu and point your toes: enlist in classical ballet or modern dance classes at the Central School of Ballet Phnom Penh, #10 Street 182 (info@nullcentralschoolofballet.com), and Dance World Cambodia, in the Cambodiana Hotel, #330 Sisowath Quay (012 634008).

See something – anything – at Chaktomuk Hall:

Designed by the doyen of Cambodian architecture and completed in the still-peaceful Phnom Penh of 1961, Chaktomuk Hall is one of Vann Molyvan’s finest works. Inspired by a folding fan and perched elegantly on the banks of the Tonle Sap, it’s the sort of venue that makes any evening unforgettable.

Unite and conquer:

Test your skills as a champion connector at Raffles Le Royal’s speed networking night on Thursdays at 6pm. Girls only: head to Le Bar at Sofitel at 6:30pm on Fridays.

Get fit:

Because just talking about joining a gym isn’t going to do a damn thing about that belly. We love The Place, on Street 51 & 282, voted Best Gym in 2013 and 2012 in The Advisor awards.

Download the best local bands to your iPod:

From Dengue Fever to the Cambodian Space Project; from Khmerican chanteuse Laura Mam to home-grown deathcore outfit Sliten6ix: Cambodia’s musical diaspora are churning out more releases than ever before – and most of their tunes are now available for download. Support the ones you love by buying their music online. That way, you can sing along at their next gig. Awww.

Stick your head in the clouds:

Set your compass for Kampot, scale the (relatively) dizzying heights of Bokor mountain and marvel close-up at the awesome power of the heavens. Buses and cars are for the faint of heart; the truly brave make the ascent to the Bokor Hill Station ‘ghost town’ on two wheels.

Tour a (micro) brewery:

Beer! ‘Nuff said. Hop on a Kingdom Beer Bus or hail a Kingdom tuk tuk (they’re free and all over town, apparently) and head to Kingdom Breweries, #1748 National Road 5 (023 430180), and join their hopheads for a drink. As you stagger on your way, stop in at the Himawari Microbrewery, #313 Sisowath Quay, and then ricochet over to the Spark & Tawandang Microbrewery on the corner of Mao Tse Tung Boulevard & Street 167.

Take the slow boat to Siem Reap: 

Sipping cocktails and watching the sun set from the top deck of the Toum Tiou II, a 14-cabin luxury river boat, it’s hard to imagine that travelling in Cambodia is anything but blissful. Pretending to be Huck Finn isn’t bad either (contact CF Mekong River Cruises on 023 216070).

Buddha’s buddy:
Siamese crocodile

“Crocodile wrestling is actually not as hard as it looks if it’s well coordinated – you just have to beware of the sharp pointy end,” says Adam Starr, of Fauna & Flora International’s award-winning Cambodian Crocodile Conservation Project. He speaks from experience: Siamese crocodiles, Crocodylus siamensis, were believed almost extinct in the wild until 2009 when DNA testing revealed that 35 pure-breds had been hiding in plain sight at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. The discovery made possible the centre’s first captive breeding programme and sole survivor Rathana was moved to the facility’s brand new rearing ponds in January, but not before a monk from the local pagoda gave him and his new home a blessing.

“One of the most fascinating things about working with Siamese crocodiles is the links this species has to Buddhism,” says Starr. “An old Buddhist myth tells of the loyalty crocodiles have to the Buddha: they were summoned by the Earth goddess to protect him from evil at the moment he achieved enlightenment. You see evidence of this connection everywhere: funeral flags, statues at pagodas, and ceremony banners. But sadly, the symbolism doesn’t hold as strong among most modern day communities. There is still much more work that needs to be done to ensure this flagship species isn’t once again declared as ‘effectively extinct in the wild’, which it was by the IUCN in 1992.

“If you’ve ever held a croc hatchling, or looked closely into their cat-like eyes, you’d understand why they’re so cool and why it’s important to protect them.” Adam’s mother took a slightly different stance when she first heard of his plans to work with them (“You’re doing what?!”). To date, however, there have been no reports of Siamese crocodiles attacking humans. “Even when reviewing old literature, biologist Dr Malcom Smith wrote in 1919 that ‘The Siamese crocodile does not appear to be a particularly aggressive creature. Country people certainly seem to have little fear of them, and do not hesitate to swim in the waters known to be inhabited by these creatures.’”

Winged hummer:
Bengal florican

Also known as the Bengal bustard, this large grassland dweller – Houbaropsis bengalensis – has the dubious distinction of being one of the rarest birds on the planet. Fewer than 500 are believed to exist in the wild, most of them centred on the Tonle Sap Great Lake in Cambodia. Every year, the Wildlife Conservation Society embarks on a headcount by tallying the number of mate-chasing males, notable for the strange deep humming sound they emit while trying to catch a female’s eye (non-mating males and females are famously elusive, making them almost impossible to count).

“Males leap into the air, high above the grass, puffing out their black neck feathers and flapping their contrasting white wings,” says Simon Mahood, of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Males display together in leks, which females visit to choose their mates so that they can evaluate what’s on offer that year. The females skulk around in the grass, so they’re hard to see. Once they’ve done their displaying (and been counted), they mate with the females and play no further part in the rearing of the young. Females are very vulnerable to nest predation, both by humans and other animals, so if local people find a nest we pay them to protect it.”

Between 2009 and 2010, WCS recorded 88 displaying males on the Tonle Sap floodplain, home to the world’s largest breeding population. The 54% increase on the previous year’s head-count was positive news for the protected element of this notoriously fussy bird. “The floricans are very picky about the sort of grassland they like to nest in,” says Mahood. “They like land that is lying fallow after cultivation for wet-season rice. Irrigated dry-season rice and rain-fed rice won’t cut it for them. Consequently, we support local people to continue traditional wet-season rice cultivation, while supporting them to defeat companies and wealthy individuals who steal their land for cultivation of dry season rice.”

Hero in a half-shell:
hawksbill turtle

“Marine turtles are a prosperous and respected animal in Cambodian culture,” says Ko Socheata, of Fauna & Flora’s marine conservation team. “People feel very close to them. If turtles are accidentally caught, fishermen traditionally get them blessed by a monk, apologise to them, write their name on the shell and wish for good luck and happiness before releasing them back into the sea. ‘You cannot stand it when the turtle’s tears come out if you bring it onto the land’, one fisherman told us. If anyone catches the same turtle later, they have to release it otherwise they will be cursed with bad luck.”

As well they should be: not so long ago, FFI caught wind of three green turtles that had been held for more than six months by one fisherman in order that they could be released on his birthday ‘for luck’. By the time conservationists intervened, two of them were already dead. “This is a significant threat to remaining turtle populations in Cambodia, so we are working closely with the local communities and Fisheries Administration to raise awareness of turtle conservation issues and reduce local consumption of turtles and their eggs, provide protection for turtles on nesting beaches and ensure any turtles caught are released straight away back into the sea.”

The hawksbill turtle, Eretmochelys imbricate, faces perhaps the greatest threat of all. “Hawksbill turtles particularly are poached for their beautiful shells, prized in many countries as decorations, jewellery, and other curios, particularly in Japan where the local name for the shell is bekko. Throughout Southeast Asia it has become increasingly rare to see these turtles on diving and snorkelling expeditions. In addition to poaching, fisheries by-catch (particularly trawlers and gillnets), coastal development, egg collection and disturbance of nesting beaches have also led to a significant decline in marine turtle populations in Southeast Asia, some to the brink of extinction.”

 

Adolf Hitler ingested it daily in a cocktail of more than 80 drugs, turning him from an egomaniac into a sadistic mass murderer. Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and the Beatles warned against it during the late ’60s as flower power gave way to cutthroat consumerism. And in 2003 the US Air Force was forced to defend it after two pilots under its influence dropped a bomb near Kandahar in Afghanistan, killing four Canadian soldiers.

Methamphetamine – known variously on the streets as speed, meth, crystal meth, ice, shards, shabu, glass, jib, crank, batu, tweak, rock and tina – is today considered by many to rank among the world’s most dangerous drugs. But it wasn’t always so. First synthesised from ephedrine by Japanese chemist Nagai Nagayoshi in 1893, this powerful psychostimulant was used extensively by both German and Allied forces during World War II as a performance enhancer. By the 1950s, under the name Obetrol, it was being handed out by American pharmacists as treatment for obesity and soon became a popular diet pill. It wasn’t until the 1970s, as its addictive properties began to be documented, that meth – the subject of two very different documentaries screening at Meta House this month: Hitler’s Drug and Asia’s Speed Trap – was finally declared a controlled substance.

In the late 1930s, as the Axis powers were squaring off against the West and the Soviet Union, the thought couldn’t have been further from anyone’s mind. Letters by German post-war writer and Nobel prize-winner Heinrich Böll, published by Der Spiegel for the first time last year, include increasingly desperate pleas to his family to send more Pervitin – the name under which meth was packaged as an ‘alertness aid’ and sold to the frontline.

Another letter, penned in 1942 by a Nazi medical officer, says he used the Class A drug after troops were surrounded by Russians and trying to escape in sub-zero temperatures: “I decided to give them Pervitin as they began to lie down in the snow wanting to die,” the officer writes. “After half an hour the men began spontaneously reporting that they felt better. They began marching in orderly fashion again, their spirits improved and they became more alert.”

But this ‘miracle pill’ also came with horrendous side-effects, among them dizziness, depression and hallucinations. Some soldiers died of heart failure; others shot themselves in a psychotic haze. Former Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti warned of the dangers in a speech to the medical association in Berlin City Hall: “Whoever wants to eliminate fatigue with Pervitin can be sure that the collapse of its performance must one day come… It should not be applied to any state of fatigue, which can be compensated for in reality only through sleep. This must be readily apparent to us as physicians.”

To some physicians, perhaps, but apparently not to Hitler’s. Dr Theodore Morell, dubbed the ‘Reichmaster of injections’ by the Nazis and himself obese, daily prescribed to the 5’8” Fuhrer – a hypochondriac who suffered from manic depression, Parkinson’s, deformed genitals and almost no sex drive – a lethal medley of everything from meth, morphine and barbiturates to bull’s semen, rat poison and the oil used to clean guns (unsurprisingly, he also suffered from uncontrollable flatulence). These revelations finally came to light in 2012, when a select few of Hitler’s medical records went under the hammer for more than $2,000 a piece.

One psychiatrist, Professor Nassir Ghaemi, has since suggested that Hitler’s unfortunate habit exacerbated the Nazi leader’s manic depression, triggering a behavioural shift that ultimately resulted in the deaths of millions. “It’s not whether Hitler was an amphetamine addict or not; it’s that Hitler had bipolar disorder and amphetamines made it worse,” he says in National Geographic documentary Nazi Underworld: Hitler’s Drug Use Revealed (High Hitler, by the History Channel, is also worth a watch). “That is the issue. That has never been described before and that would explain a lot why Hitler changed in the late 1930s and the 1940s.”

Within a decade, however, Japanese workers were being given methamphetamine by their bosses to boost productivity. At the same time the Beat generation in the US was casting off marijuana and embracing meth, most notably in the form of Benzedrine or ‘bennies’ – the source of Jack Kerouac’s legendary stamina (he allegedly wrote On The Road in one sitting). The godfather of Gonzo journalism, US author Hunter S Thompson, makes frequent references to it, as in his author’s note in Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail ’72:

“One afternoon about three days ago [the publishers] showed up at my door with no warning, and loaded about forty pounds of supplies into the room: two cases of Mexican beer, four quarts of gin, a dozen grapefruits, and enough speed to alter the outcome of six Super Bowls… Meanwhile, with the final chapter still unwritten and the presses scheduled to start rolling in twenty-four hours… unless somebody shows up pretty soon with extremely powerful speed, there might not be a final chapter. About four fingers of king-hell Crank would do the trick, but I am not optimistic.”

Even Paul Erdos, one of the greatest mathematicians in human history, was a tweaker. Having experimented with amphetamine early in his career, a depressed Erdos began taking that and methylphenidate every day at the age of 58 following the death of his mother. Concerned, a friend bet him $500 that he couldn’t go a month without the drug. Erdos won the bet, but complained bitterly: “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict, but I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.” He promptly went back to taking amphetamine, every day, until he finally died at the age of 83.

Where heroin was once the most profitable drug produced in the remote labs of the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Thailand and Laos collide, a complex sequence of political events has spurred the rise of what is now a multibillion-dollar meth industry here in Southeast Asia (worth $8.5bn last year, according to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime). First, the Communist Party of Burma imploded in a 1989 coup. Chinese funding then dried up and the United Wa State Army was born. After years of insurgency, these rebels signed a peace deal with the ruling military junta in which, according to Jane’s Intelligence Review, the business opportunities involved in a shift from heroin production to methamphetamine were made ‘implicit’.

At the same time in Thailand, another strain of meth was surfacing: yama (‘horse medicine’), popular among long-distance truck drivers and students alike. When the police saw its effects, they coined a new name for the little vanilla-scented pink pills: yaba (‘madness medicine’). Easier to make than heroin and less subject to the vagaries of the weather, this potent stimulant was, as Jane’s notes, “far better suited to markets in a region embarking on rapid economic growth”.

Today, in Southeast Asia alone, there are estimated to be more than three million meth addicts and their numbers are rising. Each addict risks psychosis, rhabdomyolysis, cerebral haemorrhage and even brain damage. Why so enduring, when the evils of such poisons are painfully apparent? Why the inexorable rise to ubiquity of methamphetamine, which, unlike amphetamine, is neurotoxic to us humans? As National Geographic notes in another documentary, The Most Dangerous Drug In The World: “Pressure to compete has created a generation of Thai meth addicts.”

“It gives me energy and makes me feel like I have to be doing something all the time; I can’t stay still,” one Thai housepainter tells the camera. “I can work for two days and two nights straight without stopping. If I don’t have the drug, my muscles feel weak and I can’t do anything. I don’t have any energy so I have to use more yaba and then I can keep working.” Sex workers echo his sentiment: more energy equals more boyfriends equals more money. And on it goes.

But when in 2003, under the orders of then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra, Thai soldiers began shooting suspected drug addicts on sight, the UWSA realised it was time to expand their market (in Thailand, as documented by BBC One’s MacIntyre Investigates a year earlier, dealers caught with small amounts are sentenced to death; erratic drug behaviour in the streets can earn offenders summary execution).

In May of this year, when the UN released its annual Global Synthetic Drugs Assessment, it noted that Asia has become the world’s biggest supplier of amphetamine-type stimulants, with seizures increasingly being traced back to labs in Cambodia. “In 2006, the heroin supply temporarily dried up in Cambodia because of Thaksin’s war on drugs in northern Thailand,” David Harding, a technical adviser with Friends International, told a local newspaper at the time. “That was the beginning of an accelerated rise in the supply and consumption of crystal methamphetamine… a glut of crystal meth that had not been affected by the breakdown of traditional supply routes suggested that it was home-grown.”

Today, more than 90% of Cambodia’s drug users are battling meth addiction at a time when authorities across Asia are failing to address the threat it represents – a paradigm which, when viewed in light of the drug’s historical context, threatens to unravel society itself; a paradigm captured fairly well in the second of Meta House’s documentaries, Asia’s Speed Trap by Al Jazeera, but woefully fumbled in Hitler’s Drug, filmed among a small group of meth users in a Poipet shed by Alessandro Molatore.

Molatore, perhaps in a quest for rawness, spends the 11 minutes of his film with the lens focused almost unwaveringly on one individual, yet despite this we learn almost nothing of why he does what he does; whether he is aware of the possible consequences, not least for his wife and young son; what first prompted him to inhale the aromatic smoke from a line of crushed pills on a small piece of folded tin foil balanced above a lighter. No one challenges him when he tells the camera in halting English: “We don’t steal, we don’t rob, we don’t kidnap; the money we use for buying drugs comes from good jobs… We are not black people. We are not mafia…”

But where Hitler’s Drug manages to disappoint despite the overwhelming allure of its title, Asia’s Speed Trap whets the appetite for information and analysis – hence the mention of several other documentaries worth watching online. Here, the directors move from undercover cops to police laboratories to an Army-run ‘rehabilitation centre’, one of 86 dotted across Thailand, where treatment amounts to ‘exercise – and lots of it’, along with advice such as ‘Please keep eating fish sauce, because when you take drugs you lose calcium. Fish sauce replaces calcium and makes you sweat. The drugs will come out with your sweat.’ (Don’t try this at home – The Ed.) Relapse rates across Asia are ‘shockingly high’, says the World Health Organisation: between 60 and 95% of people who go through compulsory treatment fall off the wagon. Only Malaysia, as detailed in Asia’s Speed Trap, is now pioneering a new type of treatment: voluntary ‘cure & care clinics’.

Bundit Sripen, a second-time offender with a wiry frame; tattooed face; billowing football shorts, flip flops and a big yellow Boy Scout-style scarf, grins: “I first smoked yaba in my early 20s. I saw my friend using it and wondered how it would feel, so I asked my friend to get me some. I love its smell. It smells great! After smoking, I have the energy to do many things. The bad part is I can’t sleep. I stay up for days and start getting paranoid. I hear voices. I can’t eat like I used to…”

WHO: Meth heads and tweakers
WHAT: Hitler’s Drug and Asia’s Speed Trap screenings
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 7pm July 22
WHY: The real Breaking Bad

 

Fast-talkin’ dancehall doyen Tippa Irie on The Black Eyed Peas, how not to get tongue-tied and the awesome power of positivity

His star-studded mobile reggae disco brought the sounds of Jamaican dancehalls to London’s first Caribbean families; fast-talkin’ MC chatter paving the way for the premium rappers of today (think Busta Rhymes). Reggae toaster Paton Banton is a long-term friend and sparring partner; The Black Eyed Peas credit him for number one hit Hey Mama! Without further ado, The Advisor meets the much-coveted Tippa Irie, assuming front-and-centre stage at Ragamuffin Night 3 here on June 27.

Tippa, this is an honour. Can I say why?

[Laughs] Go on.
When I started reading up on you, the first song I came across was Hello, Darling – which, for me, is one of those sublimely joyous tunes that’s right up there with Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy. It can and must live forever!

I know, I know – and it is! Thirty years later, I’m still living off that tune, man. I didn’t realise it at the time. I was outside a club in South London and I saw a girl walk by. I said: ‘Hello, darlin’!’ And she said: ‘Hello, good lookin’!’ That’s how the idea came about. I was doing a song, It’s Good To Have The Feeling You’re The Best, and while I was recording that I started to mess about, singing ‘Hello, darlin’’ in the break. My producer heard it and said: ‘What’s that? That sounds like something, Tip! Go away and write the lyrics.’ So I did and when it came out, it just blew up! It was a popular thing people used to say and I try to write songs out of that, things that are often said. We used to work at a studio called Mark Angelo’s. Do you remember [British model] Linda Lusardi? Her brother ran that studio. I wrote some of it there and some of it at home. The rest is history, kind of.

Speaking of history, I was born in the East End of London in the 1970s, but got shipped out almost immediately. Tell me about these sound systems in Brixton that I missed. There’s a documentary on YouTube about you where this terribly posh-sounding presenter describes them as ‘giant mobile discos seen during carnival times’, with MCs as ‘non-stop speaking DJs’ who talked in a mixture of Jamaican patois and Cockney rhyming slang.

Oh, yeah! [Laughs] At that time, being of Jamaican parentage… My dad had a sound system. We used to have a corner shop with a basement, and every Friday and Saturday he used to string up his little sound and people used to come down there, dance, play dominos. Have you heard of a shubean? It’s a blues dance; a Jamaican term for ‘house party’. The sound is set up inside the house or a warehouse. You play your music, thieve the electricity from next door or sometimes we used to just take over abandoned houses. We would charge people to come in; have a little bar. There might have been the odd one or two white people that would come, but mainly it was people who were from the Caribbean but now living in England. They’d had kids, so we were the first generation. We were learning from our parents how they were raised in Jamaica. The sounds were like our radio station: the new tunes used to come from Jamaica, or, if you were making new music, the first place you would promote it would be on the sound system.

We would be listening to people like Big Youth, Dillinger, Trinity, obviously Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaac, Bob Marley, Culture, The Abyssinians. All these groups from the Caribbean, then you had the British generation, like Aswad, Steel Pulse, a very good group called Reggae Regular, which was the first band on Greensleeves Records. Growing up I listened to all these people, but U-Roy was the first person I really imitated at the age of about 15, 16. I used to listen to a tune called Wake The Town And Tell The People. After hearing him, I just wanted to be an MC. I used to practice in the basement of my dad’s house.

I was just going ask were there secret practice sessions and, famed for your fast-chat style, do you ever get tongue-tied?       

You do sometimes! But now it’s like autopilot, I guess. I don’t have to think about it now. I just read the situation, whether it’s a festival or, like, last night was kind of a pub vibe with about 400 people. You suss out your audience. There was a lot of people there and I just know how to make them laugh; know how to involve them in what I’m doing. Anyway, back to the sound system: it’s a mobile disco, but on a larger scale. You have your bass box, mid-range and then your tops. Your amps. Your box boys, who are like roadies and come in to set things up. As an artist, you have to go through that process first. I know that feeling! Even if you become successful, you must stay grounded. It’s the key.

Perfect segue. Reggae is really taking hold here in Cambodia. To me, it’s always been one of the more deep-and-meaningful genres. Do you think reggae music can still convey a higher message to struggling populations?  

Yeah! For me, if you listen to my last album, Stick To My Roots, the whole album is saying something positive. It’s about keeping true to where you come from. You’ve got tunes like Truth And Rights, which is talking about negative issues to do with the system. You’ve got tunes like I’m Having One Of Those Days, which is about promoters that want you to perform, but don’t want to pay you. Then there’s Just My Lady, which is talking about a relationship, you know what I mean? For me, in my 30-year career, there are maybe two songs where I’ve been negative.

Only two?! Which and why?
[Chuckles] I don’t really want to talk about them because they were negative! But in the majority of my albums I think I’ve been pretty positive: educational, uplifting, motivating. Sometimes you make music to pay the bills. If I had the budget to do a lot of the songs the way I really want to do them, then… You know, you make a lot of songs and some of them are great; some of them are OK. And then you might have made a couple that are whack, or ‘not very good’. But most of the time, a lot of people like to work with me and when they’re happy with what I’ve done, I leave them to get on with the mixing. I’m not very… um…

You don’t micromanage?
No!
You’ve worked with some epic names: The Black Eyed Peas, on Hey Mama! And the lovely Pato Banton. Oooh, SIR!

[Laughs] Let’s start with Pato. He was an admirer of my music from back in the day on Saxon Sounds. He was on a sound system too. Me and Pato, we ended up having the same manager so we linked up a lot and done a lot of touring together in America. It was mutual admiration: I respected him as an MC from the Midlands. We started to write some songs together and Greensleeves Records liked them so they put them out there. He’s a nice guy; very humble dude.

The Black Eyed Peas: Fergie’s nice, man! I got on with her. She’s a nice girl, man. I was in LA, doing a little West Coast tour and I was playing at this venue called the Belly Up in San Diego. It’s like a famous concert venue there; everybody plays at the Belly Up if they’re in San Diego. I was playing there and got this phone call from a girl called Shelley Roots. She runs a company called Roots Media. She said: ‘Tip, the Peas have heard you’re in town and they’ve got a track they might want you to go on.’ I said: ‘OK.’ At the time, they weren’t that famous – famous, like, underground hip hop but it wasn’t really main, mainstream. ‘OK, let’s go have a listen.’

I was staying at this place called La Verne, east of LA on Route 66. I drove down to their studio with a friend, Dave Monaco from the band Better Chemistry. I listened to the track and they wanted me to do it then and there but I said: ‘Let me live with it for a day.’ I took it, fell asleep with the track, just practised and then I came up with the ‘Cutie, cutie; make sure you move your booty.’ [Laughs] I went back the next day, did that and they loved it.

I just do stuff and then I forget about it, but I got a call to say they wanted me to go to Hollywood. I was just hoping it was going to be a single, but Where Is The Love came out and blew up; it was number one. When that came out, I went: ‘OK! Looks like something’s gonna happen for this group.’ Know what I mean? Then the [Hey Mama!] single came out; top ten all over the place, so my bank manager was my friend again. So yeah, that’s how that happened. I was working with this guy called Motivate, he used to be a DJ with Will I Am and had a studio in the same building the Peas had their studio.

I have a little crush on Will I Am.
[Laughs uproariously] I shall leave you to deal with that! I was in the studio one day with Motivate and Will I Am walked by. He said to Motivate: ‘Who the fuck is THAT dude?’

Those were his exact words?
Yeah, those were his words. Then he said: ‘One day I’m going to have something for you, dude.’ I’m like: ‘OK. No problem, man. Just give me a shout.’ And he did! So I landed on my feet, you know? [Laughs]

Massive understatement. So what’s been the most awesome thing about being Tippa Irie so far?
I think it was playing at Reggae Sunsplash in Jamaica, because, um, my dad had never seen me play before because he left to go back to Jamaica when I was 16. When I was 21, Hello Darling was out and me and Pato got invited to play at Reggae Sunsplash in Jamaica. It was nice for me to go back, because when he left me I was just leaving school, so he didn’t really know I was a successful entertainer. He knew I could MC, of course, because I was messing about, but he’d never seen me on the stage. It was special for him to come and see his son perform at Reggae Sunsplash; it was a big thing in Jamaica. My first time there, so that was a blessing.

I’m one of the first reggae artists ever to go to China. It’s funny; there’s a saying: ‘Do good and good will follow you.’ I was playing at The Jam in Brixton. I went to see Dennis Alcapone, one of my teachers, and Winston Francis. Have you heard of Prince Fatty? I went to a Prince Fatty gig and basically he dragged me up on stage. ‘Tip! Pleeaaase do one song for us.’ So I did. I did it! I think I did one of those ‘All the time, the lyrics I rhyme’ speed-rapping songs. Anyway, I brought the house down and when I was leaving I saw this little Oriental guy running towards me. [Adopts Chinese accent] ‘Mister Tippa! You amazing! I want bring you to China!’ So I says: ‘OK.’ He emailed me and we did eight shows in Shanghai, Hong Kong, six other cities. They were very receptive. In some of the places, it was like: ‘Woah! Let me see what this is all about,’ you know? So I did a performance for an hour then we would organise an hour of reggae music through history: we’d start with ska, obviously Bob Marley, then bring them up to the present day. The audience, I think they were receptive because they were pretty mixed: everyone was following what the expats were doing.

To reggae? Dancing badly, knowing expats. Our hips simply don’t work the same way yours do. 

[Laughs] No, no.
So what’s the secret to your radiant positivity?
You experience things in life and, as you get older, you learn to not stress about things so much. Just try to do unto others what you would do to yourself. I’ve got four kids as well and they’re like big people. I want to see them have kids and grow up and do special things, too. I try to live good, do good with people and when I say I’m gonna do something I try my best to do it.

If you ever decide to run for office, you’ve got The Advisor’s vote. Can I ask one final thing before we sign off?

Yes, darlin’!

Could I possibly trouble you for a little tiny speed-rap, please?
[Laughs and erupts in perfect flow] AllthetimethelyricsIrhyme…

WHO: Brixton dancehall legend Tippa Irie, with Dub Addiction and Wat A Gwaan
WHAT: Raggamuffin Night 3
WHERE: Slur Bar, #29 Street 172
WHEN: 9pm June 27
WHY: It’s Tippa Bloody Irie!

 

 

Continuing our series on the region’s rarest flora and fauna, a nod to the wonderful conservation work of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy author Douglas Adams, Southeast Asia’s most dedicated conservationists introduce the here-today-gone-tomorrow creatures that excite them most  

Airborne undertakers:
Asian vultures
Beneath the headline Aux jardins de la mort (‘In the gardens of the dead’), on the front page of an ancient black-and-white copy of French journal La vie illustrée, an emaciated man in turban and loin cloth squats in the dust beneath a barren tree. At his feet, only marginally more emaciated, a human corpse lies prone. The entire morbid scene is surrounded by a two-deep ring of monochrome Gyps vultures, hooked beaks straining toward the stench of death.

The skies above Asia were once crowded with these doyens of body disposal, but their numbers dropped by a staggering 95% in the space of just three years in the 1990s. It wasn’t until 2004, however, that scientists finally worked out why: anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac, widely used to treat ailing livestock, is fatal to raptors who feed on their poisoned carcasses. The risk of extinction is now very real. In a bid to counter their decline, certain birds are now being treated to privileged dining.

“Cambodian vultures are fed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its partners at five ‘vulture restaurants’ in open deciduous forest,” says Dr Hugo Rainey, one of the WCS’ technical advisors. “These restaurants supplement the limited food available for vultures in the wild and allow our monitoring teams to count vultures as they come to feed. We also monitor breeding and each year find between 20 and 35 nests along riverine forest and hilly areas.”

A 2010 survey by the WCS counted almost 300 vultures in the skies above the country, a record high. “By protecting nests and supplementing food supplies, we are saving some of the world’s largest and most charismatic birds,” says Dr Rainey. “Three critically endangered species inhabit the Northern and Eastern plains of Cambodia: the white-rumped, red-headed, and slender-billed, remnants of the large flocks once found across Asia. These all but disappeared as large herds of wild herbivores dwindled, agriculture was intensified and persecution of them increased. Today, the principle cause of death is poisoning as an accidental consequence of local hunting and fishing practices. Now, the only stable or increasing population of vultures in the region is in Cambodia, with a small population in Myanmar.”

Feathered football:
white-eared night heron
Looking not unlike a feathered football, this stout hunchback has something of the night about it. The bird’s eeriness is compounded by its method of hunting: Gorsachius magnificus stalks aquatic prey – fish, amphibians, reptiles, crustacean, insects, other birds and even small mammals – by standing motionless for hours on end in shallow water, then striking with a dagger-sharp bill. Such ‘still fishing’ tactics are critical to the survival of these waders, which can adapt to almost any terrain provided water is on hand. With less than 100 left in the wild, they were believed extinct in Vietnam until a lone bird was spotted roosting in Bac Kan province a decade ago, and have the dubious honour of being included in the book The Fifty Rarest Birds In The World.

Seemingly unfazed by less-than-pristine habitat, they are often found close to human dwellings, a decision not without its downsides. During interviews with the People Resources and Conservation Foundation, notes technical advisor Michael Dine, “local people often commented with mouth-watering relish that in the past they used to gather eggs and chicks – and, if they were lucky, adult birds – from nests to eat. Everyone noted how tasty the bird was when cooked in a rice soup and chased down with a bottle of corn wine. Now they lament that all the birds near their homes have been eaten.” Today, local people are instead paid stipends for nest-finding and the protection of fledglings in a bid to temper their lust for heron soup.

“A member of one of the local ethnic minorities once took me by boat to about 30 metres from a tree with a nesting pair and directed me to look halfway up it through my binoculars,” recalls Dine of his first encounter with this “very secretive” creature. “After 30 minutes of fruitless searching and a very sore neck, I spotted a pair of yellow legs, then a second pair close by, standing deathly still and making no noise whatsoever. I was particularly taken by their brown underside with whitish streaks – camouflage that rendered them almost invisible when viewed from below. What a marvellous adaptation to the environment.”

Stealth hunter:
Indochinese leopard 

Unlike their domesticated counterparts, these cats don’t play with their food: prey is dispatched with a rapid pounce-and-bite combo. Although not yet as far out on the extinction ledge as other species featured in this series, Panthera pardus delacouri warrants a special mention. Mark Gately, former director of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Cambodia, where the species thrives in Mondolkiri forest, nominated the leopard for inclusion because of its incredible ability to adapt to fast-changing environments.

“As people reach further and further into the forest and normal habitat for other species starts disappear, leopards actually do quite well because they’re extremely versatile,” he said. “In India, for example, you see that leopards can live quite happily by preying on dogs next to villages. They can eat everything from tiny shrews to silverback gorillas, although obviously that gets them into trouble sometimes, too.”

Contributing to the leopard’s declining number is the popularity of its distinctive spotted hide among the hunting fraternity, along with that of other body parts such as the penis and testes on the traditional medicine market. In China, the domestic ban on trade notwithstanding, stockpiles of leopard bone are still used by the makers of traditional remedies – often as an alternative to tiger parts – with the full consent of Beijing.

Despite spending years studying leopard populations in Africa before relocating to Asia, Gately has only once been fortunate enough to see one close-up in the wild. “We were heading towards a clearing in the Congo, where I was working at the time, and suddenly saw a leopard about 20 metres away. We just stood there, trying very hard not to move or breathe. You would often see them in the distance, from the safety of a vehicle, but to see one in the flesh, when it’s just you and the animal and there’s nowhere to hide, is extremely rare – and a little unnerving.”