CHRIS CLARK WRITES...

Last year I went with Adam, Richard and Dave to one of the wettest places in the world, Sumatra, and spent a couple of weeks climbing over mountains, trekking through jungle and living on spicy food in order to find orang pendek, an unknown bipedal ape. This year, I feel, is like a re-run of last year, only more so in every way. The mountains are even more striking: the West Garo Hills seem from the map to be outliers of the Himalayas, and the views across the valley of the Brahmaputra to the peaks themselves should be extraordinary. The rainfall will be even higher: Assam, which is nearby, is the wettest place in the world. As for the food, I intend to take plenty of porridge and beef jerky in the confident expectation of WMD levels of chilli in the local menu. This year there are going to be five of us instead of four, with Jon McGowan joining the team. We are also looking for a more impressive beast; orang pendek was a diminutive three or four feet tall, while the Mande Burung is an unmissable eight or nine feet. At least it won’t run away in fear if we happen to spot it. This time we can describe ourselves as monster-hunters without any trace of hyperbole.