70 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 09/10.19
back.” Prince saw John’s concern as symp-
tomatic of his fastidiousness. “He did not
want anything to interfere with his plans,”
he said.
Nor, John’s friends say, was he a colo-
nizer, as later caricatured. His decision to
go alone to North Sentinel derived not from
machismo, Ramsey says, but a desire “to be
as unthreatening as possible.” Prince says
the same approach was behind his deci-
sion to make his trip to North Sentinel one-
way. John reckoned that “success looked
like being there for five, ten, fifteen, twenty
years—however long it took to learn the lan-
guage, to learn the culture, to build trust.”
“He was not invincible,” Prince says.
“John was not a forceful person or an invader
or a fearless person. He was, like, a five-foot-
six Chinese American guy. How’s he going to
force you to do anything?”
Journal entry
November 15, 2018
The plan now is to rest and sleep on the boat
and in the morning to drop me off by the
cache and then I walk along the beach toward
the same hut I’ve been giving gifts to. It’s
weird—actually no, it’s natural: I’m scared.
There, I said it. Also frustrated and un-
certain—is it worth me going on foot to meet
them? Lord, let Your Will be done. If you
want me to get actually shot or even killed
with an arrow, then so be it. To You, God,
I give all the glory of whatever happens. I
DON’T WANT TO DIE! Would it be wiser to
leave and let someone else continue? No, I
don’t think so—I’m stuck here anyway with-
out a passport. It almost seems like certain
death to stay here, yet there is evidential
change in two encounters in a single day.
Watching the sunset and it’s beautiful—
crying a bit ... wondering if it’ll be the last
sunset I see before being in the place where
the sun never sets. Tearing up a little.
God, I don’t want to die. WHO WILL
TAKE MY PLACE IF I DO? OH GOD I miss
my parents, my mom and my dad and Brian
and Marilyn and Bobby (even though he was
just here!) and Christian and someone I can
talk to and be understood. None of the guys
on the boat know much English to ask their
opinions and tell stuff like this to. I’ve never
felt this much grief or sorrow before. WHY!
Why did a little kid have to shoot me? His
high-pitched voice still lingers in my head.
Now that I think about it, after I got shot by
that arrow, I gave it BACK! Man, I should
have snapped it. Father, forgive him and
any of the people on this island who try to
kill me, and especially forgive them if they
succeed! What made them become this de-
fensive and hostile? Why does this beautiful
place have so much death?
Last night I had what I’d call a vision as
I’ve never had one before. My eyes were shut
but I wasn’t asleep. I saw a purple hue over
an island-like city as a meteorite or star
fell to it, and it was a frightening city with
jagged spires and I felt disturbed. Then a
different, whiteish light filled it and all the
frightening bits melted away.
LORD strengthen me. Whoever comes
after me to take my place, whether it’s after
tomorrow or another time, please give them
a double anointing and bless them mightily.Back from the Port Blair seafront, up
a side alley paved with small rainbows of
litter, is the Hotel Lalaji Bayview, a turquoise
building where rooms with a bed, a fan, a
shower, and clean sheets start at 800 rupees
($11.50). On the roof is a restaurant with clear
views of the bay, offering curries, pizza, and
all-day American, English, Israeli, and
Spanish breakfasts. Hanging on a wall is
a Warhol-style print of Jimi Hendrix, Jim
Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain over
the words FOREVER 27. Behind a bamboo
bar is a calendar whose cover features a
silhouette of a lone hiker at dawn: John Chau.
The Lalaji was John’s favorite place to stay
in the islands. Manager Nirwan Lall says
John’s gift, a calendar featuring 12 of his
pictures, was typical of the thoughtfulness
of a client who stayed with him four times
between 2016 and 2018. But as I flip through
the months, I realize that the photographs
are also a record of John’s preparations. Two
are of small fishing villages close to North
Sentinel, one of which John ended up using
as a launch spot. Another, of a village called
Mayabunder, suggests that John was follow-
ing the advice of one of the only men known
to have landed on the island and survived:
Maurice Vidal Portman.
In A History of Our Relations with the An-
damanese, Portman concludes his passage
on his abduction of the Sentinelese with the
words: “It would have been better to have
left the Islanders alone, until the Onges of
the Little Andaman were tamed, and then to
have approached them with the assistance
of the latter.”
Mayabunder adjoins the Jarawa reserve.
One of Pathak’s detectives, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity, said that John
traveled there on a previous trip to try to
persuade a Jarawa to accompany him. His
failure, the detective said, explains why four
days after arriving in Port Blair on October
16, John caught a ten-hour ferry to the island
of Little Andaman, where he stayed for two
weeks, attempting several times to visit the
Onge reserve at Dugong Creek. “He wanted
to befriend the Onges and persuade them
to join him on his expedition,” the detectivesaid. For whatever reason, the officer added,
“he was not successful there, either.”
On November 3, John returned to Port
Blair. Now into his third week on the islands,
and with his plans no further advanced, evi-
dently John decided to proceed alone. For the
next 11 days, according to the police, he stayed
not at the Lalaji but secretly—and illegally—
at a first-floor apartment (the safehouse
mentioned in his journal) belonging to a
friend, K. S. “Alex” Alexander, in a slum called
Dairy Farm. Alex’s flat enjoyed a wide view of
Port Blair and the ocean. But to try to avoid
leaving a trail for anyone who might come
looking for a missing American backpacker,
John spent his time indoors, reading, praying,
and practicing a punishing set of exercises.
In his journal, John described how his
spirits were boosted by the arrival of two U.S.
evangelical friends, a hiking buddy named
Christian Vaughan and Bobby Parks, his old
boss at More than a Game. The pair helped
John assemble the supplies he imagined he
would need, including trauma dressings and
gifts for the Sentinelese, and provided last-
minute encouragement. John’s morale lifted
again one day when Alex announced that,
through a Karen watersports operator he
knew in Port Blair, he had located a crew of
fishermen willing to take him to North Sen-
tinel for 25,000 rupees ($360). “He hired the
best,” the detective said. “That captain is a
very expert sailor. He can sail a little wooden
dinghy right across the ocean.”
What truly impressed the police was the
thoroughness of John’s research. Vaughan,
Parks, Alex, and the fishermen all declined
repeated requests to be interviewed for this
article. But according to a second detective
who investigated John’s death, the group told
officers that John was “fascinated” by the
story of John Richardson. Richardson was
born Ha Chev Ka, the son of a Nicobarese
chief, in 1896. Baptized, rechristened, and
educated at a Christian school in Myan-
mar, Richardson returned to the Nicobars to
teach, translate the New Testament, lead the
community during the Japanese occupation
in World War II, and, in the 1950s, become a
bishop and an Indian parliamentarian.
Missionaries habitually claim that Chris-
tianity offers indigenous tribes a gateway to
the modern world. In the Nicobars, it turned
out to be true. Richardson’s legacy today is a
thriving community of Nicobarese lawyers,
doctors, businessmen, and politicians who
steer their people through the modern world
while also preserving their culture.
To John, the parallels to how Christian-
ity had assisted his own father’s progress
in America would have been clear. In the is-
lands, missionary success in the Nicobars
also contrasted with secular failure in the