In the Danger Zone (30 page)

The soldiers pick some wild banana flowers, thinly chop them and their stalks and boil them in stream water. They also find bo na – a kind of tropical root that tastes of ginger and aniseed – and the major shows me how to strip and cook it into a stew. He tells me that he's been a soldier for 30 years, and he's never even thought about doing anything else. He spends most of his life living in the jungle: 'I miss my family, but I have a responsibility. What can I do?'

I ask some of the younger soldiers what they would do if the war ended, but they haven't got a clue. They have no understanding of life without the war, and in truth they don't believe it'll end in their lifetime.

The food is good and we eat it gratefully. Marc says he isn't hungry, but soon after, I spot him wolfing down a batch of Boots flapjacks.

The major decides we should stay here by the stream tonight and arranges guards to surround the camp. I wander off with the satellite phone, trying to locate a satellite through the jungle cover. I haven't spoken to my girls for four days, so I'm elated when I get through. Poppy goes nuts, screaming, 'Yello Daddy.'

Marc and I make a much better camp this time, building a fire in between our hammocks and making a little bench to keep our kit off the ground. I even set up a strip of plastic as a rain cover in case it rains again tonight. We make some coffee and strip off to wash in the chilly stream, after which I feel almost normal again.

We go to bed early, and I lie awake wondering what it must feel like for these people to welcome journalists from rich countries into their lives. The Karen are stuck here, possibly forever, whereas we have the luxury of coming and going with our high-tech kit to keep our expensively insured bodies as comfortable as possible. And we are being paid tor it. Black Tom says that he's just glad we're here, making a film about them – it shows that the world cares, and that if nothing else, at least their suffering isn't going unnoticed. But I can't help thinking that if I were in his position, I'd resent these two wimpy blokes from the BBC with all their expensive stuff.

Bushmeat

In the morning I notice that next to the major's hammock is a vast cow pat. Quite what (or how) a cow was doing here in the middle of the jungle is anyone's guess. I point at the huge turd and ask the major if last night's supper hadn't agreed with him. He doesn't get the joke, and I hope I haven't offended him.

During the night the guards had shot a type of cat and a monkey-like creature called a ki chi, which I've never seen before. Black Tom doesn't know what their English names are. The cat looks oddly like my own faithful cat Tom, so I pay close attention to the cooking process and store the recipe in my memory for when he gets old and grouchy.

I find out much later when we're back in London that the cat is a civet cat, renowned for spreading SARS, and the monkey-like creature is a loris, an endangered primate, though possibly not as endangered as the Karen.

The soldiers impale the animals on sticks then burn off their fur over the fire. It smells foul, but it's better than skinning them as we need to eat the skin too – it would be a waste of precious protein to throw it away. We gut and butcher the cat and loris in the stream, and only the lower intestine and gall bladder are thrown away – everything else goes into a pot to be stewed. The civet cat is briefly simmered in water, but the loris needs to be cooked for two to three hours. We make the bamboo rice again to accompany the meat.

When it's finally ready, the major invites me to eat – he gets the first bash at any food, so it pays to stay matey with him. The civet cat is delicious – sweet and strongly gamy, with lots of small, fiddly bones to suck on. I eat a hunk of cat's liver, which is a first for me. The whole thing tastes quite heady and intestinal – they haven't thrown much away, and the innards of the cat have all been cooked up with the flesh. The loris isn't as nice as the cat – a murky, strong and musty flavour, although this could be because of the intestinal overload. Either way, I'm grateful for the meal, and relieved that I don't have to join Marc eating the emergency rations. He complains of gag reflexes, but I manage to bully him into tasting a morsel of the cat. He turns green almost immediately and I feel a little guilty. I look at his rehydrated lunch: pasta with some filthy excuse for a meat sauce. It smells like cat food.

Then there's more walking: hours and hours, miles and miles. The KNLA keep this up for years on end, but I am exhausted after a few days of it. The villages are spread out – the Karen enjoy living in isolation, and the terrain is so difficult to cultivate that it takes large amounts of land to support a relatively small concentration of people.

It's dangerous patrolling the jungle regions because there are no front lines in this war – the area is so vast that occupying it permanently would be impossible for the army, so it has a series of barracks and it tends not to venture far unless absolutely necessary. We drop in on one village close to one of the barracks, which is regularly raided by the army. I ask them if the army treats them badly, but they can't answer – they have no frame of reference.

'Every time the army comes, we all run away and the soldiers loot our food,' they say. But there's no sense of surprise or outrage: they just accept that this is the natural order of things, and there's nothing they can do about it.

That night we stop on a high mountain ridge to camp. It's an unsettling place: we're on the site of a Karen graveyard strewn with pots and pans and clothing for the departed soul to take into the next life. We're also near a Burmese army camp so everyone's on high alert, and night-time guards arc doubled. There are five bases and 400 Burmese soldiers in this area, and they are far too strong for our KNLA platoon of 20 men to engage them in a battle.

Determined to keep my mind occupied I borrow a machete from one of the soldiers and hack down bamboo to make a bench. I'm hopeless at it to begin with, and the soldiers try to help me. It's all about getting the angle right, apparently.

Marc and I build a huge fire – we're determined not to get too cold on this mountain. We sit on our bench winding each other up talking about gin and tonics and ice-cold glasses of wine, then put a vast log on the fire and turn in. Soon the fire has grown out of control and I have to get up to try to calm it down. I finally go to bed and sleep fitfully, too hot.

I wake in a pool of cold sweat. I'm really not built for this jungle thing.

We visit another village and are ushered in as honoured guests along with the major. The village head offers us a wonderful treat of big white wriggling butterfly larvae – they are especially rare at this time of year. Tu La Wa dry-fries them in a pan over a fire. They are extraordinarily delicious and taste exactly the same as Jerusalem artichokes: sweet and crunchy, with a soft centre. I even get Marc to eat one.

This village is almost comically isolated – there are no services of any description, and the people are often on the verge of starvation. They grow a little rice and a fair crop of tobacco, and if they can make it as far as the next village without disaster, they can exchange the tobacco for other foods. There's no healthcare, no education and no protection from the Burmese army, except occasional patrols like this.

I spot a little boy with a testicle the size of a small melon – a tumour or cyst, perhaps. His mother says that every three or four days he feels acute pain and can't breastfeed; she's distraught. I leave some money with Tu La Wa, asking him to make sure the child gets to Ei Tu Ta camp to visit the clinic. Journalists aren't supposed to give money to people because it has a tendency to warp the truth: people will make up tragic stories in the hope that journalists will pay them to talk. But I reason that this boy's condition is serious and specific, and my cash could help. On the way out, Black Tom worries that we've ensured the boy never gets to see a doctor – his parents now have more money than they've ever had before, and it's in their interests to keep him like this in case another Westerner with a charitable bent comes their way.

On the way back to the refugee camp we meet a couple of nervous women who have been scouring a stream for food. It's taken them four hours to catch three minute frogs and a tiny fish about the size of my little finger.

After four hours' trekking (it doesn't feel so bad this time – perhaps we're getting fit) we finally arrive at the clearing on the outer reaches of Ei Tu Ta camp and say goodbye to the soldiers. They've looked after us well, and I'm grateful to have got back unscathed. The major gives us both a gift of a bamboo saucepan and I wish him all the luck in the world.

It feels like we're returning to a luxury hotel: we have a floor! A roof! Food! As we arrive at our shack, a huge crowd has gathered and I smile and thank them for coming to welcome us back. I shake a few hands, but the people look confused. I realize that they haven't come to welcome us back at all. In the middle of the throng stands a rotund, balding, goateed man who looks like a drummer from a death metal band.

Pastor Joe is something of a legend around these parts. A brash Noo Yoiker with a big gob, a desire to do good, and the personal approval of the Lord. He is in town to distribute boxes of toys and clothes donated by the people of Australia, along with the word of God. He's bursting with energy and faith. He tells me that Sylvester Stallone is going to make a film of his life – he spends his life smuggling aid across the Thai border and spreading the good word. It's a tough way to live, but Pastor Joe relishes the challenge.

I want to talk to him some more, but right now just looking at him makes me even more exhausted so I go and collapse in the hut.

Ei Tu Ta vs The Rest of the World

We are invited to try betel nut by some of the camp women. All across Burma, Thailand and India people chew betel nut in much the same way that Westerners smoke cigarettes – it's a habit-forming, mildly euphoric stimulant and it's cancerous. It dyes the teeth red and causes the chewer to salivate profusely and spit bright spurts of red saliva all over the place. Burma is covered in red flob in the same way that London streets are covered in chewing gum.

Betel nut is the seed of the betel palm. It's the size of a nutmeg and it has high levels of psychoactive alkaloids. The giggling women show me how to grate the betel nut using a tool that's a cross between a nutcracker and a pair of pliers. One of the women, Li Do, takes me under her wing and shows me how to lay the gratings on a bitter betel leaf, wipe some lime paste (the ingredient in concrete rather than the fruit) on top, add some tobacco and wrap it up.

The women all proudly show their red teeth – they look like vampires – and tell me that the Burmese find red teeth very sexy. Li Do warns me not to chew, but rather to just hold it at the back of my jaw, otherwise it'll sting and make me feel dizzy.

I put the package into my mouth and try not to chew. Saliva starts to run like a river from my mouth, and I'm overcome by a sensation of intense pain. There's nothing about this experience that's pleasant. I tell Li as much and ask when the good bit starts, but she just laughs at me and teases me that my face has turned red. She says that it should taste sweet and delicious, but I'm overcome by a heavy sweat, a burning mouth and general panic. I'm chewing involuntarily and persevering, but I just don't get it. The girls find my discomfort hilarious.

I start to splutter, and thick red saliva spews forth. I go for as long as I can, but after 15 minutes or so, I can't take it any longer and spit the whole lot out. I'm feeling dizzy and sick and the women are splitting their sides at the sight of whitey making a tit of himself.

Pastor Joe wakes me early – he wants to play a game of football against the camp. Ei Tu Ta vs The Rest of the World. I am a little hesitant – I'm leaving tonight on an exhausting eight-hour hike back over the border into Thailand, and a twisted ankle is the last thing I need. Before I go, I also need to see a woman whose baby is in the camp clinic with severe malnutrition. But Pastor Joe hasn't got where he is today by giving in to secular reluctance. He practically drags me, along with his chirpy acolyte Joshua and our French friend Roman, to the camp football pitch.

We stand there in the early dawn light, but no one else has turned up. This doesn't bother Pastor Joe who says we should have faith and warm up. After half an hour of booting a football around, a trickle of people starts to arrive. The trickle turns to a flood, and eventually about a thousand people gather to watch the crazy foreigners make fools of themselves. We borrow a few of the camp administrators to make our side up to a decent number, and the best Karen footballers gather to take us on. I'm sure they are better players than us, but I sense that this one could be close: we have the crucial advantage of shoes.

Oh, how wrong I am. The football pitch is about as flat as the Somme after heavy shelling, and the ball bounces unpredictably and wildly, as though it were a rugby ball. We totter around the crevassed pitch trying not to break our ankles, whilst the Karen glide around as if it is as smooth as the Stamford Bridge turf. They wallop the ball hard with their bare feet and our only saving grace is, of course, Pastor Joe, who is a fearless and bulky goalkeeper. This is fortunate because he is kept very busy. At one point, Joshua scores a goal for us, and the refugees roar enthusiastically.

The balls continue to fly past Pastor Joe, until suddenly I get a lucky break: the ball actually goes in the direction I kick it, I dribble like a pro, dummy past two defenders leaving them flat on their backs, wrong-foot the goalie and ready myself for the
coup de grace,
then just in front of their empty goalmouth a muddy chasm opens up in front of me and my foot disappears. I pirouette, arms flailing, and fall on my face like a drunkard. A thousand refugees laugh their pants off. We finally call it a day at 6–1, and gather for a team photo with half the spectators. The school bell rings (the teachers have kindly waited until the match is over), and the kids run off.

I return to my shack to tend my wounds, but there's bad news from the clinic: the baby girl that was suffering from malnutrition has just died. I'm devastated. Perhaps I've become biased from spending too much time here, but it feels as though the Burmese junta has just murdered another Karen child.