Entry #18: Ipul the Snake Man
The Bukit Lawang Diaries
19 February ~ Bukit Lawang ~ 20:00
Ipul wears a necklace of bones, and his long hair tied messily into a single knot; his right arm is covered more by scar tissue than by skin. He speaks quickly in English that seems to blend together into a single word. When Ipul is not working on snake tours, he is diving into Bukit Lawang’s river rapids to save drowning tourists from tubing accidents; in every definable sense, Ipul is an extremity of the human spirit.
When Ipul led us into the jungle to seek out snakes, nighttime had just fallen, and a storm was rolling in. A quiet breeze rustled the leaves and palm fronds, lightning flashed the sky purple, and we could hear thunder reverberating over the mountains; a light rain pattered down on our heads. I stubbed my toe against a rotting tree root, and, through my open-toed sandals, a massive splinter lodged itself underneath my toenail. Each step brought a sharp pain, but I didn’t mind so much; it suited the aesthetic of the evening.
Then we saw it: our first snake hidden in a tree. Ipul stopped and pointed; I could see nothing at first, and then it was obvious: the bright green hue of a viper against the dull foliage, suspended by twigs no thicker than a straw. It was breathtaking, and so was Ipul’s prowess in spotting it. He moved on all too quickly, quietly irked by the very vocal trepidation exhibited by a few members of our group.
Last night, we only saw four snakes! Ipul repeated time and again as our snake count grew into its early teens. Vipers are often thought to be vicious creatures; their name even seems to carry a certain venomous spit. Sleeping in the trees, however, against the backdrop of light, pattering rain and illuminated by our headlamps, they seemed almost peaceful. It was difficult to imagine them as anything other than they were in that moment.
We trekked on, Ipul drew attention to the scar along his right arm, a gnarly gash doing little to conceal the mangled muscles and tendon. I was filming a documentary about cobras when one bit my arm. It bit me, and the world went black. They said they would have to amputate my entire arm! He grinned underneath every word; for the traumatic event this must have been, his sleeveless shirts and pride at his scars show no signs of shyness.
Ipul eyed up a bush with an eccentric glare and reached into the foliage; his hand emerged grasping a little brown snake. In its rage, it spun again and again and again, doing, it seemed, its best impression of a helicopter’s propeller. The snake found its center, stretched violently outwards, and sunk its teeth into the back of Ipul’s hand. He didn’t flinch. The snake pulsed, with each contraction digging itself deeper into Ipul’s skin and flesh. He pulled the snake off of him, it helicoptered for a few moments more, and Ipul returned him to the bush.
I don’t think he liked that very much — an astute observation from Ipul the Snake Man.
Was it venomous? I asked.
A little, Ipul responded
Does it hurt?
Yea. Itches.
We meandered on, past spiders and frogs and geckos and other jungle beasties; we dipped through gardens and eventually found ourselves strolling through an oil palm plantation. They took on an eerie presence in the night. When we were walking through the forest, we had to watch every step for rogue branches or rocks or roots; here, the paths were wide, and there was a clinical berth between each tree. Our pace increased, and Ipul caught sight of something — none of us knew what — then dashed half a kilometer forward. All we could hear was him shouting wow wow wow as he sprinted away from us.
By the time we caught up, his headlamp was shining at the crown of an oil palm. I could see a long black rope hanging from the lowest frond and thought it to be a snake at first. Glancing up and to the right, the rope seemed to connect to a larger body, revealing a feline head with the ugliest set of eyes I’ve ever seen.
Most know about civet cats through the infamous kopi luwak: cat shit coffee, in layman’s terms. The civets eat the beans then poop them out; the excrement is collected, brewed and served piping hot. I couldn’t tell if its eyes were open or shut, whether it was fast asleep or ready to pounce. We watched it, and its gaze, real or imagined, pierced our hearts. We stood in silence, petrified by the magnificently hideous creature.
Are they aggressive? someone asked Ipul.
Very.
It took all we could to pry ourselves away from the civet. I believe it’s our own ego that draws us to wild mammals, the kinship that, unlike the lizards and snakes and spiders, we share. Perhaps it’s the legend of kopi luwak or the face resembling crumpled aluminum foil. The oil palms fell behind us, giving way to tall, wiry durian trees wrapped in sheet metal. I asked Ipul why someone would want to do that to a tree. The notion was, to me, absurd.
They’re for the orangutans, he began. Those are durian trees, and orangutans love to eat durians, so farmers wrap their trees to protect the fruit. In my garden, I plant durians, but the orangutans won’t come to eat them. I don’t wrap my trees in metal; I do not care if they eat the durians. But still, they don’t come. I do not care if they eat the durians.
I’d be offended if I were you, Ipul! Why won’t they take your durians?
I do not know; I do not mind if they eat the durians!
He repeated this story two more times — my throbbing big toe and the leeches scaling up my sandal were both sizable distractions — and was in the middle of doing so a third when he once again dashed forward, leaving behind a trailing wooooow, oh my god!
This time, a Dragon Snake, a rarity that some take months to find, slithered across our path! It shone an iridescent purple, reflecting whatever little moonlight made it through the cloud cover; its scales were that of its namesake, a calcified, ridged piecemeal that would not have been out of the place in a fantasy story. It meandered across our trail, stopped for a few brief seconds, and carried lackadaisically on its way. Ipul would not stop smiling.
Some people try to find these for two, three months! He repeated, and we congratulated him on the find. He was excited in a way that adults rarely are: pure, giddy joy that comes only with unbridled passion. We heard about it for the rest of the evening, over the beer and cigarettes and lively conversation that followed at the guest house. He showed us videos of saving people from the river and talked at length about the various teeth on his necklace. There’s more to know about Ipul, and I crave the next opportunity to learn his story.
I ran into him last Saturday night while on my last night out before the bars shut for Ramadan and invited him for a drink. No, he said, I need to work tomorrow on the river. Even the snake man, covered in scars, with his bone necklace and hunting knife, knows when to call it a night.
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