The Pig Incident

Everyone who spends time travelling builds up a bank of war stories with which to bore their friends back home but during a holiday in Thailand I found myself part of a simply incredible series of events.

In June of last year, when I was working in Ireland, a friend of mine was plying his trade in Australia. We decided to meet half way for a holiday and Thailand chosen as the venue. I had found myself in a drunken conversation at a house warming party some months previously during which the person I was chatting with made me promise that if I ever set foot in Thailand again, I would fly to the northern city of Chiang Mai and go trekking around the villages of the hill tribes that eek out a Spartan existence in the jungle-clad mountains near Thailand's border with Myanmar. It was an unusual conversation but I set aside my concerns about taking advice from an inebriated stranger and started to lay my plans.

The area in question is the site of considerable unrest given that the tribes of the region, the Karen being chief among them, have been driven quite recently across the Thai border by the ever charming Myanmar army. Despite the presence of Thai troops, they frequently launch incursions across the Thai border in pursuit the Karen and other tribes.

Being a super-star journalist in the making, none of this was of any real concern to me and in fact, it probably made me want to go there that bit more. Sadly, my friend was somewhat unconvinced – hill tribes, Thai army outposts and military incursions weren't what he had in mind. But although he wanted to split his time between the beach and the bars my rabid enthusiasm won him over and after meeting in Bangkok we flew to Chiang Mai and readied ourselves for the journey. As it turned out, we found a travel agency which sorted us out with a guide who could bring us from our base camp (cushy hotel) into the mountains by bus until we ran out of road. From there it would all be on foot.

So, weighed down with twice the luggage we would need, crippled by Thai whiskey hangovers and suffering from some bizarre side-effects brought on by medicated malaria pills, we boarded our bus at the crack of dawn for the two hour first leg of the journey. Our travelling party consisted of myself, my companion Robbie, a teenage Thai guide who had adopted the name of Tony, and two stoney-faced girls from New Zealand.

By the time we got to the edge of the jungle proper, it was absolutely chucking down with rain and after 20 minutes trying to clamber up the muddy banks of the first of what would be literally hundreds of hills, I was having second thoughts. However, the cheerful, gung ho attitude of the New Zealanders sparked a competitive element that forced us on.
Around the three hour mark, we came across a stunning waterfall and although it was still pouring out of the heavens, myself and my compatriot peeled off and jumped in. Tony the guide followed gingerly after us but the New Zealanders remained on the banks, ostentatiously checking their watches a lá Alex Ferguson in extra time.

After staying in the water far longer than we wanted to, we sauntered out and took off on the second leg of our journey towards the first village. We had been walking for a good eight hours before we began to hear the clang of pots, the barking of dogs and the giggling of children being carried through the trees. The village came into view and too our astonishment it consisted of little more than a dozen stilted wooden shacks made out of bamboo. However, we could barely keep the grins off our faces at the prospect of being able to lay down for a while and the reception of our hosts, who greeted us with warm smiles and by taking our bags for the last few feet of our journey, made the rudimentary nature of the facilities a non-issue. Among the welcoming party was a village senior and myself and Robbie had to suppress our laughter when he introduced himself as 'Mick'. Little did I know that this cheerful but authoritative individual would, within days, turn me into a cold-blooded killer.

After dumping our bags in the wooden shack that would serve as home, we headed off for a shower under a freezing waterfall. It left us wide awake, but at the mercy of a ferocious hunger. Our guide, Tony, and the village head, Mick, invited us back to the latter's hut for a bite to eat. With our stomach's groaning Tony, a wiry, animated guy of little more than 18, hunched down and began cooking up a storm on an open fire in the middle of the room. It was around this time that we started to wonder if there were any other form of refreshments on offer and from amid the bamboo, thatch and mud Mick produced a huge cooler full of beer; which we were welcome to get stuck into for the equivalent of a Euro a pop.
We needed little encouragement and before we knew it the little room was crammed with almost a dozen blokes of various ages giving us hungry eyes in the hope of a free beer. One of them arrived in full military uniform – it turned out he was a Thai soldier tasked with watching for the Myanmar threat in the area. But the villagers didn't come empty handed – a mysterious bottle of rice whiskey was produced.

Sadly, Tony was no Ansley Harriot. He let the side down badly, and the thin brown soup he handed around was humming with clumps of chilies and reconstituted mystery meat:

“What is this bit Tony?”

“Is meat.”

“What type of meat?”

“Is from the animal.”

It wasn't the best. What was worse, was that it was so spicy that it stripped several layers from the inside of my mouth. That said, we cheerfully gobbled up our portions nonetheless, and then sought consolation at the beer cooler. The two New Zealand girls we were traveling with made a brief appearance. They came into the hut, sniffed skeptically at what was our dinner-in-progress, and then set up a little travel stove and began cooking packets of noodles for themselves. The villagers were more than a little put out by this, so they tried to bring them into the fold by offering them a drink. Sadly, only one of the grumpy bints accepted and although it was a bit rough going down, her overly dramatic reaction left our hosts looking visibly upset – the little they had to offer obviously wasn't good enough.

The New Zealanders drifted off to bed at about 9 pm while the rest of us made a bid for the bottom of the bottle and the cooler. By 2 am we were all plastered and rather unwisely, being given lessons in the art of spearfishing by Mick, who was ruthlessly dispatching beer cans with a homemade spring-loaded harpoon gun from across the room.
He promised that the following day, he would demonstrate his prowess by catching us our dinner. However, I and my companion Robbie had bigger game in mind. All the main huts were up on stilts and tied up underneath each of them with red rope (which denoted the fact that the group we were with were the 'red' branch of the Karen tribe), was a pig. Although the exact conversation is difficult to recall, I remember it going something like this:
Robbie: “So when do you kill the pigs?”

Mick: “Something-in-unknown-Burmese/Thai/Karen-tribe-dialect.”

Tony: “Mick say on special occasion because pig expensive.”

Me: “How much?”

As it turned out, for 2,000 Baht which equated to around forty Euro or 20 Euro each, myself and my fellow city-dwelling compatriot could purchase our first piece of livestock.

“OK! We will buy a pig and kill it, you can cook it and everyone can have a big, like, feast!” said a glassy-eyed Robbie, clearly getting a feel for life in the jungle.

“You want pig?” asked our guide Tony, with a theatrically raised eyebrow.

“Yeah we do! Can you get us one?” I half yelled, entirely incapable of concealing my enthusiasm for the coming endeavor.

“No probrem. Tomorrow Mick take you, can find pig for sale,” replied Tony with a grin.

At with that, we settled down underneath the mosquito nets for a turbulent attempt at sleep owing to a combination of alcohol and an odd brand of Malaria medication which had skin rashes, dizziness, insomnia and hallucinations listed as potential side-effects. The horrible thing about the un-Godly pills was that they would allow us to get right to the brink of unconsciousness – to the point where thoughts are turning to dreams. Then, just as we were slipping away, our hearts would suddenly race and we'd sit bolt upright, gasping for breath as if we'd just been water boarded in Guantanamo. So, I'd jolt awake with a roar and in doing so frighten the shite out of Robbie, who a few minutes later, when I was nodding off, would return the favour.

Our suffering ended when village leader Mick and tour guide Tony arrived to wake us at 6 am. It was decided, by mutual agreement, that the New Zealanders  would be walked back down the mountain and bused back to Chaing Mai city by Tony, while Mick, who was without a word of English, would take us off in search of a suitable pig to kill. Before bidding farewell, Tony informed me that while we were not the only foreigners to suggest killing a pig for a barbecue, we were most certainly the first to volunteer to do the dirty deed ourselves. It was a commitment I had no memory of making.

For the next two days, we walked. We watched, through the rain-splatter foliage, as far off mountains came close, were traversed, and finally disappeared behind us. We didn't talk much, mainly because we were too spaced by the malaria meds to hold anything resembling a normal conversation. We clamboured after our single-minded guide, who trudged up and down the border hills without a backward glance, vaguely aware of the risks involved in letting him out of our sight. We had murder on our mind, and images of the doomed pig – maybe sporting a look of concern as it caught the scent of its impending doom through the damp monsoon air – floated through our consciousness.

We wandered in and out of half a dozen villages in our fruitless search for a pig ripe for slaughter before coming to a hillside clearing decked out with a dozen bamboo. Mick got chatting with a fellow Karen whose affirmative nodding told us he was our man. We were directed to a small creak where we could wash and a hut in which we could get our heads down. However, when a young Karen guy of about 10-years-old came running towards me with a football, I decided to postpone my nap in favour of a game.

“So where do we play?” I asked, hoping he might have somehow picked up a word of English on this most isolated of mountainsides.

“We have stadium,” he answered with a grin.

I looked at Robbie, whose furrowed brow assured me that, counter-top malaria pill-induced hallucinations aside, I had, in fact, heard what I thought I'd heard.

“A stadium?”

“Yes. For football. Is football stadium.”

A bemused Robbie decided to hang back while I headed off down a dirt track towards the valley at the bottom of the hill on which the village we had just found was perched. After walking for 10 minutes the shouts of the players and thud of the ball became clearly audible, although there was no structure that could be described as a stadium in sight. However, we then came to the outer ring of immense, straight trunked trees and once we slipped inside we found ourselves standing on a perfectly flat, roughly regulation size clay turf football pitch. It was no stadium, but the tight circle of ancient trees that surrounded it certainly gave it the feel of one.

The gathered youngsters were happy to show off their skills in front of the wayward stranger but after less than an hour of staggering around in the dust I was worn out and headed back up the mountain. Ominously, when I got there, my travelling companion was looking grim. When I asked him what was the matter, he silently nodded over his shoulder at a wriggling sack.

“I can't do it,” he said solemnly. “I've been sitting here for the past hour listening to it wriggling around and a squealing and stuff. The poor thing like! You're going to have to kill it.”

I hadn't given much thought to the actual process. I imagined it would be a case of cutting the unfortunate creature's throat, or something along those lines. However, the brutality of the method I would have to deploy announced itself when Mick handed me a small club around the size of a rolling pin.

I sniffed, scratched the back of my head and looked at horizon that stretched out around me for something – anything – that might give an indication as to how in the name of the sweet, suffering mother of Jaysus I had talked myself into such a predicament. My travelling partner had decided that he could just about bring himself to bare witness to the gruesome spectacle through the medium of a digital camera screen, so he trained his lens on me while I shuffled and hesitated.

“It's name is porky, by the way,” said Robbie, with a grin. “And it's a girl pig.”

Mick, the head of the first Karen village we had wandered into, was hunkered down and gripping the prostrate animal, which was still inside a sack, around the kneck.

“Bang, bang, bang!” he ordered, with a furrowed brow.

“Three times, yeah?” I queried, holding up digits to confirm his meaning.

“Yes, yes!” said a wild-eyed villager, who was practically salivating at the prospect of the coming spread.

I fortified myself with the knowledge that as the unfortunate animal was bought and paid for, it would be meeting its maker in the immediate future regardless of whether it was at my hand or not. The only appreciable difference my abandonment of responsibility was likely to have on the animal at that stage, would be that I might earn it a momentary stay of execution, the duration of which the grunting unfortunate would spend pinned down in that sack before Mick or one of the other villagers bumped it off. I had no interest in making the poor animal suffer. I decided to get it over with as quickly as possible. I was gonna beat that pig like a red-headed step-child.

I raised the club and slammed it onto the top of the pig's head with as much guilt-ridden force as I could muster. There was a sickening thud and a very un-pig-like yelp that I momentarily feared might have been the result of unpracticed aim leaving Mick with a bashed finger. However, after a split second glance assured me that our mentor was largely unperturbed, I let fly with another two full-blooded swings of the club. Horrifyingly, each one brought forth another yelp and the bag kept wriggling. Panic-stricken at the thought that I was prolonging the creature's death, I decided to keep swinging, praying as I did so that the writhing bag would still.

“Ahh! Aaaahhh! Mai dee!” exclaimed the hungry villager, clearly unhappy with how events were progressing, as I hit for a fourth fifth and sixth time.

“Jaysus Christ will ya stop hitting the thing!” said Robbie, catching me by the shoulder. “It's dead man, stop hitting it!”

“It's still moving, I can't leave it like that!” I roared, pulling away and throwing in another blow for good measure.

“It's just twitching, that what happens! It's as dead as it's goin' to get you mad thing!”

So that was that. My attempt at delivering as swift an ending as possible to our friend Porky ended with me coming across as a psychopath with a penchant for mutilating dead (girl) pigs. However, after three days march through the rain sustained only by beer and mystery meat soup, the victim quickly lost its status as something to mourn over and became little more than a collection of pork chops and ribs.

The butchery was left to the villagers, who first burnt off the hair by tossing the animal, as was, straight onto a fire. Its skin was then scraped with a knife before it was bled, beheaded, gutted and skewered on two wooden sticks. Literally nothing was wasted. The blood was collected and used make a soup, in which various organs floated amongst a mass of chilies. Even the head was boiled. As is the way with such things, the women tended to the pots while the men stood at the fire nodding sagely as the main dish barbecued.

Porky's head spent the next 30 minutes butting against the confines of the pot it boiled in. The women then cracked it open, gouged out the brains and ate them. I have a vivid memory of a woman plopping two fingers' worth of grey matter into the waiting mouth of a girl no more than two. Happily, we weren't encouraged to resort to such measures.

It took us another two days to get back to Chiang Mai city, by foot and by bus. Although I've since been pigeon holed alongside child killers and suicide bombers by friends and family for 'murdering' one of God's creatures, it was worth it. It was one seriously tasty pig. 

© Rob Carry. All rights reserved by the author.