THE LAST BATCH OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE INDIAN EXPEDITION... FOR NOW

Shireng R Marak, a two-thumbed village elder,

who heard the mande-barung's cry and was chased into a cave by it.

A swarm of yellow butterflies near the jungle stream at Imangri

A simulacrum of a huge footprint in limestone near a stream some miles from Imangri,

not to be confused with the real thing.

A dead whit- lipped tree viper we found in the jungle.

Jon fishing for a tarantula in a hole in the wall outside our lodge.

MORE PICTURES FROM INDIA (Captions by Richard Freeman)

Pintu, one of our guides, who found a mysterious bone in Siju caves

Me in Siju cave, looking for bones

Chris, Adam and I outside of Siju Cave, where a village headman reported an encounter with a mande-barung

Chris and Dave on an old fashioned jungle suspension bridge, minus Johnny Weissmuller

The beautiful Simsang River, where the sankuni, a huge mystery snake, has been reported.

MORE PICTURES FROM INDIA (Captions by Richard Freeman)

A fallen tree blocked the trail up into Nokrek National Park.

We had to cut it up with a saw!

A shot of the jungle at Nokrek. It is some of the most undisturbed
rainforest in India and the home of the wild ancestor of the orange.


The nest of a wild boar found on our first day at Nokrek.
The mande-burung is said to build huge nests by
twisting branches together to form a kind of roof.

A view of the beautiful Simsang (rice pot) river at Baghimara.
Of an evening I read Kipling's Jungle Books
(so cheapened and bastardised by Disney)
overlooking the Simsang as the sun went down.

This is a whip scorpion captured by Dave Archer.
Despite appearances, it is harmless due to lacking a sting like true scorpions.

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

The Indian Expedition is back in the UK. Richard rang me a few moments ago.

Of course, the most important thing that I wanted to find out was how Chris Clark is. The answer is thankfully pretty good. He was treated in India and managed to do most of the stuff that the other expedition members did.

The expedition appears to have been remarkably succesful. They have interviewed a number of mande burung eyewitnesses, photographed what appear to be footprints, and have obtained samples. One of these is a fragment of bone from the femur of what appears to be a bipedal creature, but until we have test results I would caution against getting one's hopes up.

They also have evidence for two other cryptozoological creatures. Richard gave me brief details, but he will be coming up here next week, and I will post further details then.

In the meantime it is just good to know that once again they have returned safe and sound.