Like maggots from heaven

PATTAYA: Caught out with a full bladder on his way home after a fishing trip, squid fisherman Singha Sangnuam, 26, met an unexpected sight when he stopped to relieve himself against a tree in Banglamung on September 24.

Part way through his business, something dropped from the branches and landed with a thud right in front of him. A cloud of maggots bounced up off the object on impact. When K. Singha looked closely, he saw that before him was none other than a pair of human legs.

Looking up to see where the legs could have come from, K. Singha saw a rather decayed human torso hanging from a branch above him.

Thinking that the apparition was supernatural in nature, K. Singha ran at full tilt to find a monk at nearby Wat Banglamung to come and exorcise the ghost.

News travels fast in Thailand, and before long a crowd of villagers converged to stare at the gory find. It was soon established that the body was indeed just a body and not a visitor from another world up to no good. Rescue workers gingerly carried the top half of the body down from where it was hanging, suspended by a two-meter-long nylon rope about eight meters above the ground.

Back on solid ground, one of the crowd, Issara Seuameng, 28, recognized the corpse as that of his friend Dao Rungreng, 26, who had disappeared 10 days before.

K. Issara said that K. Dao had come to his house on the day he disappeared with a rope and a bottle of lao khao (rice wine). K. Dao persuaded K. Issara to drink with him while he told him of the problems he was having with his wife and his mounting debts. He said he wanted to die.

K. Issara said he had tried hard to console his friend and by the time the bottle was finished he thought K. Dao was in a better state of mind. Later that day, however, K. Dao’s wife came round to say her husband had never returned home. The pair searched all over for him, but there was no clue as to where he might have gone – until the legs came crashing down from the tree 10 days later.

Police presume K. Dao hanged himself due to stress related to his debts and frequent arguments with his wife.

K. Singha, who made the gruesome discovery, told reporters he had been out fishing and was on his way home when he felt the need to go to the toilet, so stopped under the tree.

He noticed a funny smell around the tree, he said, but assumed that it was just the smell of dead squid he brought with him from the boat.