Descriptions of the Rafflesia Flower  red like a banner outside a circus freak show. Words like “largest flower in the world” leap out as if they were written in blinking neon.

            I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, so I went trekking into the jungles of West Sumatra looking for the largest and rarest flower in the world. Since the Rafflesia has solid scientific literature backing its claims, I felt the trip was justified. The trek was a trauma but the flower does belong in a freak show.

The Rafflesia was first found by Sir Stamford Rafflesia in 1826 when he was Governor of Java. Heassigned himself the task of cataloguing “every branch of natural history in Sumatera [sic]”.To be fair, it was Raffles’ colleague, Dr Arnold, who spied the flower first but, since it was Raffles’ party, he got top billing on the flower known technically as Rafflesia arnoldi.

            I set smaller goals than Raffles’ expedition. I only wanted to:

 a) get to West Sumatra without dying on a bus;

 b) get to the nature reserve in the mountains near Batangpalupuh without dying on a  

      bus; and

c) find the right jungle without dying on a bus. Since the big Rafflesia (There are dinky versions in four other places outside Sumatra) is found only in the highlands of Malaysia, Benkulu in southern Sumatra and in Batangpalupuh, I chose West Sumatra because it’s famous for incendiary Padang food. The food was a backup in case the flower adventure didn’t pan out.

            Being cynical, I was certain the jungle drums had beaten out the news that an American woman was looking for a Rafflesia and expected many offers of  “Wanna see a flower, lady?’ And I was right. So, following a jungle minder named Khairuddin, dressed in sarong and shower shoes, into the jungle was an act of faith. Especially since he was armed with a parang, a localmachete honed to surgical precision. He also carried a broom, which seemed an inadequate weapon for taming the jungle ahead of us.

            I had no weapons but was sporting a bizarre pair of neon-coloured tropical-weight hiking boots. (They were on sale, no doubt because neon doesn’t fit the natural setting hiking bots are designed for.) Khairuddin coveted them.

           Now, I like to hike, but I want to know exactly how far it is to the final destination. I like to make informed decisions. In my opinion, the best trails are the ones with signs incised with graphics detailing what lies ahead. Those carvings of cutlery with the notation “0.6km” are like the proverbial carrot. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t a clue how far 0.6 kilometres is when hiking uphill in the mud.

            The last sign Khairuddin and I saw was the one hanging on one hinge at the beginning of the instantly dark trail announcing the Batangpalupuh Nature Reserve. Washed away during the night, the trail ended at the trailhead. Yesterday’s stream was today’s raging torrent, fed by a monsoon storm the previous night. There ludicrous strips of bamboo, more suitable for fencing than stream fording, served as the bridge. Khairuddin marched ahead, confidently swinging his parang and whistling at wildlife.

            I followed, doing the thing that used to drive my mother nuts: “Are we almost there? How much further? ”

            All I got in response was a smile, and Khairuddin steamed on. Occasionally I shouted, “Bapak, minta ma’af” which means roughly, “pardon me, sir.” As the morning wore on, an afternoon monsoon dumped its load and I started looking for that cutlery sign. Khairuddin trundled on in his shower shoes unchecked, and my language skills disintegrated into, “Yo, Khai? Slow down, buddy.”

            He smiled and trekked on.

            I’m not a wimp. I had already hiked to the bus, and then trudged from the road across rice fields and two villages and down a ridge to get up the other side to the reserve before even setting foot in the jungle. During the warm-up, several old women told me I wouldn’t find a flower in this season. But Khairuddin, the man in charge of this jungle, said, “ Maybe we’ll see one.” Maybe, he said. Just maybe. I was beginning to wonder if this hike to nowhere had something to do with my coveted boots and his parang.

            My research said the Rafflesia is found in deeply shaded lowland forest. By now we had climbed to what felt like cloud level, and were in dense jungle. Gibbons hooted and screeched and I’m sure some of the noise was a human trying to sound like a gibbon. Something slithered, Khai chucked his parang at it and swept the ground.

            The broom also came in handy as a pulley when I started sliding downhill in the mud. After yanking me uphill, he lovingly whisked off the wet leaves sticking to my boots. While he tidied me up, I had a look around. Electric-blue butterflies dashed here and there, followed by little yellow versions shadowing them. Cicadas did that vibrato thing under the leaves, making the jungle floor seem like a living blanket. Behind the curtain of aerial roots dangling like fringe from the trees, orchids and spiky bromeliads poked out of pockets in tree trunks. One degree more humid and it would have been raining.

            Khairuddin, not surprisingly, was in the lead once more when he started waving his parang and broom like semaphores, shouting, “Bunga! Bunga!”

            When he shouted “ Flower! Flower!” I was at the bottom of yet another hill, unmoved by his excitement. I sniffed the air, testing for the supposed telltale smell. Rafflesia, so the literature says, didn’t smell anything, I slipped into low gear and sauntered up the hill.

            At the top, much to my surprise, was a Rafflesia, opened like an ugly, but very big, corsage pinned to the jungle floor Khairuddin and I stood on opposite sides and made a circle with our hands, touching fingertips, to measure it. Well, okay, there was clearance, but this bloom was big. When Arnold first saw his find, he proclaimed it “the greatest prodigy of the vegetable world”. No understated exclamations for my expedition. We did a high-five, Khairuddin mumbled and started sweeping the ground and I pronounced it “a whopper!”

            Five velvety, paprika-coloured petals pimpled with weird polka dots encircled the nectary (the deep bowl in the middle) where flies and assorted other greedy creepy-crawlies drawn to the sweet nectar fell to a sticky death on evil-looking fleshy spikes. This flower  looked like the lead role in a Bgrade horror movie.

            Nearby, a new bud, like a huge Tibetan cabbage with frostbite, was coming up. Khairuddin told me my Rafflesia (I was feeling proprietary after a day searching for the bloom) was one of the biggest he had seen in the 10 years he’d been minding the jungle. Althoughsuspecting puffery aimed at getting a bigger tip, I nevertheless sat by the flower and watched it for a while, marveling at its size and strange appearance. I became fonder of khairuddin and hoped he hadn’t fully understood my unrelenting whining and questioning.

            Cynically, I expected that after making the find, we’d nick off on a side trail and be back at the starting point 10 minutes later. But I was wrong. We retraced our steps, although I spent a good part of the downhill slog on my bottom. In the end it was a great day; I saw my flower and Khairuddin got my hiking boots.