One Way to Become a Professional Writer

Bat Hawk flies into a bat swarm in the Malaysian jungle

I remember the office vaguely. Lots of books on shelves, a cluttered desk, a packed noticeboard, I cannot recall a computer - it was 1989, so probably not, or maybe something primitive like an Amstrad or a manual typewriter. When people comment on my typing style - massive violent keystrokes that shake the table - I refer them to pre-computer days. If you learned on a manual, you learned to hit hard.

This was the office of Philip Matthews, features editor of the New Straits Times newspaper in Kuala Lumpur. I'd arrived at the reception unannounced, armed with an impressive portfolio case that was almost empty. I wanted to be a writer, but having had a taste of how hard this might be to achieve, I was hedging my bets with photos. Philip - harassed and overworked - mixed me up with someone else. "Are you the photojournalist?"

I took the plunge. "Yes."

"Can you go to Taman Negara national park and give me photos and 2,000 words by next Thursday?"

"Sure." A killer shot of adrenaline hit me between the kidneys. My toes started playing The Minute Waltz inside my shoes.

He took out a map and explained a bit. There was a big development of park facilities nearing completion and he wanted a feature story about the park. At the moment things were still fairly basic, but the future would be filled with high-rolling American tourists in shorts and Hawaian floral print shirts, and Germans of course. He looked at me. "Like yourself."

"I'm not German."

He frowned. "I thought you said... " He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

I hadn't meant to con my way into a commission. It was only later that I realised there was a mix up. An experienced professional German photojournalist, the owner, no doubt, of an impressive and bulging portfolio case, had made an appointment with an established and reputable editor. Delayed slightly perhaps, in the KL traffic, his place had been inadvertently filled by an unqualified, inexperienced no-hoper who had walked in off the street.

After my meeting, or rather someone else's meeting, I left the building and found a Chinese cafe, one of the old-style ones with bentwood chairs and round marble-topped tables. I sat down and drank a couple of cups of thick kopi, the Malaysian beverage that resembles sweetened mud strained through an old sock. I was imagining the scene as the German photojournalist arrived.

monkey family hanging out in the Malaysian caves

The best plan seemed to be to get out to Taman Negara immediately. In those days access was only by boat from the sleepy town of Kuala Tembeling on the Pahang River where there was an office and a jetty. There were no tourists on the motorised canoe upriver. We swept past rubber plantations and boys fishing. The ranger told me about the Orang Asli, the 'original humans', who moved through the area. "The gibbons can tell them apart from other humans like us. When they hear them coming, they go silent and very afraid."

"Are they allowed to hunt inside the park?"

"Yes, but only with blowpipes and darts. They tip them with the poisonous sap of the ipoh tree. I saw then shoot a gibbon mother once and her baby cried so terrible. I dropped my own tears too."

Soon the signs of human settlement gave way to primary rainforest, but we still were not inside the park. On one sandbank a monitor lizard the size of a crocodile was being buzzed by yellow butterflies who wanted to drink its tears, presumably not wept for orphaned gibbons. Its forked tongue flickered and jaws snapped, but the butterflies always avoided being caught.

I had briefly visited the Malaysian jungles before, but almost everything was new to me. With all the colours of the kingfishers and bee-eaters flashing past, I was in heaven. I was also painfully aware of my lack of equipment. The cost of a big telephoto lens had been beyond me so I had compromised, buying something less powerful. Now I realised that all these miraculous creatures were distant dots in the viewfinder. Added to that was the strictures of film. I had bought ten rolls of Ektachrome 400. That gave me 360 shots whose success, or not, would only be apparent when I returned to Kuala Lumpur. I consoled myself with the thought that I had a big heavy tripod. Even if I failed to capture any decent wildlife images, I looked like a pro. Setting up this hefty giant, however, required the same amount of time that even the most slothful jungle creature required to disappear.

Park headquarters was in the process of being built. The accommodation was in a shared wooden cabin on stilts. There was one other guest, a German photographer.

Was it possible? Should I ask if he was the photojournalist whose job I was doing. I wanted to know, but didn't dare broach the subject.

He was called Boltz and had masses of camera gear in hard cases. He glanced dismissively at my tripod. "Why are you using such a heavy equipments with such a tiny lens?"

I was humiliated. His lens was bigger than mine, by several inches.

That night Boltz fell asleep quickly, but I couldn't: the sounds of the jungle were too much. Above the gentle background hissle and hum came odd quacks and cries. Something brushed my face. I jumped up and switched on both the ceiling fan and the neon tube that fried flying insects. No sooner had I settled back inside my cocoon of a sheet sleeping bag than I heard Boltz get up and switch them off. I waited for him to drop off, then put them on again.

His voice piped up. "This is jungle. Why are you expecting a fan? And that light is killing precious insects."

I muttered something about malaria-bearing mosquitoes not being precious. The truth was that I was still stinging from the jibe about my equipment.

At breakfast he came over. I had assumed, in my English way, that we were now enemies. Stereotypes could be safely hoisted. I would be Tommy and he would be Fritz. I would poke fun at his technical efficiency and laugh at his English.  Boltz didn't seem to agree. He was a bit of a hippy with long wavy hair and surfer-dude clothes. He sat down and was friendly. I decided against the use of stereotypes.

"I hope I did not disturb you in the night?” he asked, cheerfully.

“How?”

“With my snorkelling."

We went to the park office together and Boltz organised a boat to go upriver with a ranger who knew where to see Helmeted Hornbills. I was allowed to tag along. Boltz, I realised, knew what I did not. He knew what he was doing. On the boat he pointed out a monitor lizard swimming up the rapids, grabbed a shot of a flying squirrel and identified various bird calls.

We saw lots of hornbills and went to a particular place where the Great Argus pheasant could be seen dancing, shaking its huge satin ballgown of a tail and calling to the females. That night we walked with a ranger and saw snakes in the trees plus a cloud of giant moths that settled on us like confetti. There were birds that sounded like frogs who sounded like insects that roared like chainsaws.

Boltz showed me a better way to set up my camera on the tripod and encouraged me to press the shutter. "Take more pictures!" When I went to bed, he stayed out later and got shots of a snake eating a frog, a millipede eating a frog and a bigger snake eating a bigger frog.

Over breakfast I suggested he put them in a book and call it "Croak."

He liked that, although the pun had to be explained.

I asked him. "Do you ever publish your pictures?"

"Oh yes, many times."

"Newspapers?"

"Yes, but ze money is not so good."

I resolved to ask him about the New Straits Times before we parted company.

On my last morning we went upriver again. Boltz had taught me a lot about wildlife photography - to keep going, to persist, and to use local knowledge - but the last lesson was yet to come.

Our ranger was different this time. He showed us where the whiskered tree swifts lived and the nest of the crimson-winged  woodpecker. Best of all he gave us stories. One time, he told us, he had been in a hide on the riverbank next to a wild durian tree. Late one afternoon a tiger had come to that place. To the ranger's astonishment the animal had begun eating the fallen fruit, apparently favouring the older, more rotten, ones. Soon it became obvious why. The tiger started stumbling. Its head drooping. It was drunk.

The ranger watched until the tiger fell over and went to sleep, then he crept up and touched its tail. "Not many people get to stroke a wild tiger and live!" Next morning the tiger slept off his hangover, but two days later he was back and got sloshed again. This time the ranger was braver and lifted the cat's upper lip to admire the teeth. Then, however, one eye had opened and glared at him. The massive head, swaying a bit, had lifted up. The ranger beat a hasty retreat.

Boltz and I drank a few cold beers that night in the new restaurant. The fridges had been delivered. Taman Negara was ready to enter the world of modern tourism. Boltz had decided to stay longer: the tiger story had inspired him. He wanted a shot of one.

Next morning we walked down to the jetty together. "Buy a powerful telephoto lens," was his final nugget of good advice, "Spend the money. It's investment - in yourself."

We shook hands. I got on the boat. I did not mention the New Straits Times. Sometimes sleeping tigers must be left in peace.

Four days later I delivered 2,500 stilted words and a set of mediocre wildlife photographs. It was accepted, heavily edited and then published in the Sunday supplement magazine that went out with several English-language newspapers across Asia. Subsequently Philip sent me to Borneo to write about Niah Caves, then came Krakatoa, Lake Toba and a dozen other assignments. I never did find out if Boltz had been my unwitting benefactor.

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